Should you have travelled extensively and had to live off the land, any food is better than raw potatoes thrown off the back of a moving lorry, so I cannot be very sympathetic or objective in my summery of British prison food, however, the food within prisons is a lottery. Between each establishment, the degree of priority placed on food is subject to the vagaries of the prison governor. Although each Governor has his own work force to feed, this food is obviously cooked and eaten in a different area of the prison.

Take for example a holding prison of indeterminate age. The food is cooked and served by both outside caterers and inside staff, together with trusted inmates. The whole food process being overseen by prison staff, as the package is one of the essential elements within the prison regime. The actual timing and presentation of the meals is planned with military precision, for this is a major area for confrontation between staff and inmates.

I found the meals within the holding prison to be simple yet sufficient to survive. The central kitchens within each "block" had a serving area, which all the wings within it, had access to. At meal times the different levels were allowed out on a rota-system, one level at a time for security reasons and even then the area was packed with up to ten prison staff. The only problem with this was the three different main meals and two different puddings (sweets) on offer were vultured. If you were unfortunate, enough to be the tail end Charlie your meal would be minuscule or you even might have to have a sandwich brought up from the kitchen.

The more relaxed prisons have a menu system whereby you are given a choice of five main meals per day to choose from, a week in advance, for both the lunchtime meals and the evening one. This beats the view most people have of prison food, but then as I pointed out, my needs are simple, having seen starving children does wonders to the gimme gimme and I want views of the so called modern British life of today.

We were issued per week 50-60 tea bags, two loaves of bread ample margarine, salt, a small quantity of sugar and coffee. However the holding prison had only a tea-urn, and issued bread at two slices with a sachet of margarine, per meal.

Breakfast was always the same rotation. Monday one boiled egg, cereal, milk and toast. Tuesday, one rasher of middle bacon, cereal, milk and toast. Wednesday, one medium size sausage, cereal and milk. Through to Sunday which was bacon, but with porridge and the milk. Although many inmates filled their mugs with the milk for use in their tea and coffee.

Lunch was always slightly smaller portions to the evening meal, but was always enough. Roast chicken legs and a portion of stuffing I would have three times a week and also the liver and bacon went down very well. Puddings were the obvious choice of most of the inmates, being well too many calories, as they always had a large portion of sugar in them!

As previously stated the evening meals were just larger variations on the lunch, but the verity included curries, chips, mash, fish, pies and all manner of so called trial dishes. All the food I had never made me ill or caused hygenie concerns.

Getting on to hygiene, the holding prison I was in had toilets that were built in and enclosed in some pads, but not others, which meant you eat next to the toilet. The various bugs that grow outwards from the base of any toilet could cause all sorts of problems, so maybe I just was lucky. A lot of the hypochondriacs within the prison population would always gripe on about this, but if you cleaned your pad regularly and kept clean yourself, it was ok.

The system of other prisons did mean you had the facility to sit down in a canteen to eat, but the trays you collected your food from would sometimes be dirty.

Personal hygiene is a very serious concern within the confines of the prison system, for obvious reasons the fact that so many prisoners are of a lower educational background than the average population means the reasoning behind hygiene is lost on them. Only dirty people wash! Other inmates usually achieve their re-education, long before the prison staff even understands how.

Showers can be taken on any day during association or when you finish in the gym. The best time to take showers is just before lock up at night, as this is normally less busy. However as all pads have a wash basin you can get a good clean anytime if you feel the need!

Most prisons have at least one hairdresser per wing, although they are paid to do it most lads give them a bar of chocolate or a couple of stamps, it means the male bonding stuff is covered and you are more liable to get a better job done.