John Ramwell

FROM ESTATE HAND TO HOSPITAL PRISON OFFICER TO GOVERNOR - 1960 TO 1997 MY TIME ON THIS SIDE OF THE BARS.

HMP GRENDON

It was a long time ago that I stepped down from the rattling old steam train full of school kids onto the little 'back of beyond' station of Calvert which has now long gone. Dr. Beeching saw to that but my memory of that day persists. Calvert was the closest station to the small community of Grendon Underwood. I was on my way to the near by psychiatric prison which had not long been built to take up my new job as Farms Instructor. The grounds within and around the prison had been left by the builders for the Prison Service to landscape and this is where I came in. With a working party of prisoners sent from HMP Wormwood Scrubs we eventually brought some order to chaos. I was only 20 years of age and the prisoners I was given charge of were many years older but we seemed to hit it off. They used to remind me that they had their Certificates of Sanity and I did not. And this was true. Before they would volunteer to leave the Scrubs (HMP Wormwood Scrubs, London) and work at a psychiatric prison they wanted to ensure they were never seen as patients and so labeled as mentally ill; so they had the Governor issue a note on their record to this effect.

Why did I take up this work in the first place? I knew there were prisons and bad people who went to prison but I never thought I would encounter either. Fate had other plans. I had to leave my previous employment in something of a hurry; don't ask! But I'll tell you anyway in case you think the worse. I had to get out of town and find a new job away from a vengeful father and big brother of my jilted fiancée. I was a wanted man! So I applied for several jobs; I was pretty desperate. One of them was this job at Grendon. I knew I was by far the youngest applicant and didn't think I stood a chance so I was surprised when I was offered the job and told that, if still interested, the job was mine. My new home was on the top floor of Springhill Hall where I was looked after by prisoners from the Open Prison. Cooked for, laundry and room cleaned daily- all part of the service! I shared this residence with a Principal Officer from the Open Prison; an obnoxious bully.

One morning I had cause to nip into the kitchen just in time to see a prisoner cook ‘gobbing’ into some unfortunate breakfast. Guessing as to who’s breakfast it really was I said, ‘hope that’s not mine.’ The look of shock/horror on the cooks face was enough punishment and I relished the few minutes watching the P.O. downing his contaminated breakfast!! All comes to he who waits. Needless to say the cook prisoner must have been on tenterhooks for a while waiting to be rudely extracted from the kitchen. This never happened of course.

Dr. Grey was the Medical Superintendent and most of his team consisted of Discipline Officers and a large percentage of Hospital Officers, all individually selected (or so they told me!) to work at this very first psychiatric prison established by the U.K. in the middle of the Buckinghamshire countryside. Our geographical isolation meant we were a close knit group and I enjoyed my time at Grendon enormously. Our Social Club was the local village hall and the relations with the local community were first rate. From the onset I decided I wanted to be a Hospital Officer. I took medical books from the library and asked my new colleagues just what the big words meant. The bad news was that the age for joining as an officer was 25 but then it was suddenly reduced to 21 and so my waiting time to apply was greatly reduced and soon I was being tested and interviewed at HMP Oxford.