Free Bronson by Charles Bronson Page A

this period that I really began to be badly affected by the isolation I was enduring.
    Isolation twists the mind. It makes normal things, like daylight, or the sound of people’s voices, appear magnified to almost blinding and deafening levels when the heavy door finally swings open. Normality becomes abnormal.
    I have now had 24 isolated, lonely years out of a total of 28 inside. I don’t expect you ever to fully grasp what it has been like. But imagine.
    Imagine having to look out of the window of oneroom for what seems like an eternity, at what is the only view you will ever see. Imagine never walking bare-foot on grass, never smelling a flower or stroking an animal, never waking up alongside the person you love; imagine never having choice – a choice about what you eat, where you go, who you see. Imagine never deciding what you will do today, tomorrow, next week, or next year. Imagine having all your reading material censored, and staring at a blank wall for 23 hours a day.
    Right now, I don’t even have the view out of the window. At Hull, I saw the docks in the distance; years later I was to be held in a cage, surrounded by steel, by concrete, by cameras and by bullet-proof screens. Although I don’t like being compared to Hannibal Lecter, it is the closest that you will ever get to imagining how I was held. And he, of course, only ever asked for a cell with a view.
    But, as I say, it was at Wandsworth in 1976 that I first began to be seriously affected by the isolation. I would hear noises and rush to the door to see who was talking. If I heard anything, I would be convinced that someone was talking about me.
    I was definitely being affected in a bad way. I started getting urges to jump people for looking at me. Eventually, they got a doctor up to see me, but I lost control and went for him. Fortunately I was restrained. I felt myself disappearing under a very big, black cloud. Depression hit me. I always felt very close to erupting violently. It was obvious to everyone it was time I moved on … but where to? Nobody wanted me.
    Then the van pulled up, the cuffs went on, and away I went.
    They put me straight into the punishment block at Walton Jail, Liverpool. I was told by the Governor that I would be staying there until I was moved toanother prison, which would be as soon as possible.
    Three days later I was piled into the van and heading back on the 200-mile journey to London. When I got back to Wandsworth, I was put in the same cell I’d left three days earlier.
    It was now becoming insane. The system was fucking up my head!
    The Governor was at my door right away; he couldn’t understand why I had been sent back. He agreed it was completely wrong and said he would personally arrange another move somewhere else. Weeks went by and I was beginning to get fed up again. Then the Governor came back to see me. He told me no prison would accept me – except Parkhurst’s notorious C Unit.
    I had little choice. I said, ‘OK. I’ll go back.’
    It only took a day before I was in the van and on my way back to the Island. But something told me a big fall was imminent. I was a more dangerous man than I had ever been in my life. I was now desperate.
    This trip is like no other prison trip, as it’s across the sea. It feels like you’re being sent so far away, and that you may never come back. One day I’d like to make the trip ‘unchained’ and free.
    Parkhurst’s gates opened and in we went. I was back on C Unit in no time – but it was all different. New faces … a lot of cons had moved on. It would never be the same for me because, on top of it all, the Twins had moved. Ron and Reg had taken the atmosphere away with them. It was now so dull. That’s why they were special – they actually threw off a personality that would hit a place as soon as they walked in.
    The Twins were now on the hospital wing, for some peace and quiet. This C Unit was the most violent in the country. Big George Wilkinson grabbed