My Jailor And My Liberator

Top judge Alan Goldsack QC who is retiring at the end of May

pictured in his chambers at Sheffield Crown Court 21 May 2013

‘Remove children from criminal families’, says Sheffield judge

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/crime/remove-children-from-criminal-families-says-sheffield-judge-1-5708134

Nigel

Many Never Climb Them

"Everyone’s got a different landscape. And that’s a good way for it to be. Their ain’t no gay nor straight nor pedo nor bi, and certainly no normal or abnormal, no more than you can say about an ocean or a continent, this one here is normal, and that one is abnormal.

Each person is just his or her own landscape – which like any landscape is a mixture of things. We just find ourselves among all these hills and forests with all the living things within them, and sometimes we find joy in their beauty and other times we tremble at the dangers that might pop out at us at any moment.

To always see the beauty while at the same time never forgetting about the possible dangers – that is the way I think we should live. Beautiful and dangerous are useful words. They define real things that happen to us and around us – things we can know and see.

But “normal” and “abnormal” – what use are those terms? When I look around me I don’t see no normal or abnormal. I see beautiful and ugly and loving and hateful and helpful and dangerous – but no normal or abnormal.

Those are life-killing words. Those are words narrow people use to try to put life in a little box because it’s too big and unruly for them to accept on its own terms. Normal and abnormal? Pah! Show me an abnormal mountain."

A Galaxy of No-Stars, pg 109

Nigel

Well, It Is A Start (Again)

Wednesday 6th February 2013, 2:21pm

SFUK Partnership with Home Office and Clinks

"Building social enterprises focused on providing employment and training opportunities for offenders: Invitation to share your organisation’s learning: up to 20 selected organisations will be paid £2,000 to meet the costs of writing and submitting a case study by the end of March 2013."

http://www.socialfirmsuk.co.uk/news/sfuk-partnership-home-office-and-clinks

February 13, 2013

Richard Branson talks about employing women offenders 

 "Watch Richard Branson talking in this video to a Business Breakfast at HMP Holloway about why he is a big supported of the charity Working Chance for women offenders. Working Chance was set up in 2007 to assist women offenders in making the transition into the world of work and employment."

http://eyeshareinfo.com/2013/02/video-richard-branson-working-chance-women-offenders/

Nigel

10 Years Later

Exactly ten years ago, as I type, I was just about be banged-up, for the first time in my life, in HMP & YOI Doncaster.

As my safe padmate, flicked on the CD player, and the rhythm of Night Nurse soothed the small space of the prison cell, lying on the top bunk, I smiled at my padmate's Valentine's Day cards and drifted into a much needed sleep ...

Nigel.