When you finally settle into your "pad" and need to write letters it is worth keeping one or two points in mind.

All your incoming and outgoing mail will be censored, by that, I do mean looked at very carefully by the prison officers designated to do so. They will look for the address and check that it is ok for you to be writing to that person. They will read it to check on your mental frame of mind. If it contains anything defamatory to the staff or uses strong bad stuff words, they ask you to re-write it. The list of stuff is very long, but I hope you understand, nothing gets in or out if they do not wish it to.

Having a rule that the correspondence with your Solicitor is supposed to be confidential is frequently "accidentally" overlooked, so be particular in making sure you stick your letters to your solicitor shut. Write your signature over the seal, with the full notice of the prison officer present before putting the letter in the post to your Solicitor. There is a Rule Number to put on it as well, but they keep changing it, so ask for the correct one. This first letter to your solicitor should ask for pre-addressed envelopes to be sent to you, only.

To make it harder for the censors to look at letters that may well be about your treatment by staff, you should find out how others do it, as each prison has it's own little interpretation of the Home Office "guide" lines.If in doubt ask the lads, they like to upset the prison officers anyway they can.

Letters to your loved ones can be as bad as you feel! Any indication that you are heading for the roof or going to do something silly and your little feet will not touch base for days, believe me the hospital wings are not the place to get a good nights sleep. Keep your letters calm and the family will be none the wiser, do not worry them about your little problems, they may seem large and insurmountable to you, but what good is causing any more pain to your family going to achieve?

I wrote loads of poems and silly stuff while behind bars, because I tried to show my family how I needed them and felt. Your main concern is your inability to provide and protect, as you would on the "out". Yet they in turn, worry about the big gorilla chasing your arse round the showers, which as you will discover is more a myth than fact, provided you are not interested in gorillas that is!

I wrote eight pages of scrap to produce one good page of prose, the anger I still have was so strong when I wrote then, that the letters would not have got past the censor. Not being able to do anything to prove my innocence and being unable to prove it is sure to cause weaker men to crack, which of course is a good thing for the prison because they can say," we were right, he is dangerous"

So while you fight to keep your angst to yourself, remember to think positively about the future, it can only go up from were I am standing! Make every letter a brick in your wall, every word a steel pin and when you get out, you can build on the foundations you put in place!