News of the hostage-taking incident soon filtered up from the chokey to the wings. Whatever the nature of Albert’s offence, we all had considerable sympathy for his predicament. We, too, had spent long periods in the chokey. We well knew the damage it could do to a man. I, personally, had spent long months in the chokey, a couple of years previously at Albany.
From the day I was arrested, all my energies had been concentrated on trying to escape. After all, I could hardly just sit still and watch my youth drain away. But it was far from easy to escape from the top-security jails, and Albany was state-of-the-art as far as security was concerned.
I managed to move on to ‘E’ wing, which was the closest to the perimeter fence. Once I got out of the wing, there would only be a short distance to travel to get to the fence, thus cutting down the risk of bumping into patrolling screws.
There were still several major problems to be overcome, though. First, I had to find a way to get out of the wing. The walls were made of specially hardened German bricks, and to dig through them would take ages and would be very noisy. The window bars were of manganese steel, uncuttable by any blade. Then, as any escape would have to be made at night, I would have to find a way to climb down to the ground from my cell on the fours, a drop of at least 35 feet.
The next obstacle would be the inner perimeter fence. This stood all of 24 feet high and was topped with a roll of barbed wire. Halfway up the fence was strung another roll of special razor wire. Every 20 feet or so, there was an electronic ‘trembler’ bell, which would ring in the control room the moment anyone touched the fence. Beneath the gravel path running alongside the fence were buried geophonic detectors which would go off the second anyone stepped on the gravel. Along its complete length, the fence was bathed in the glare of bright lights and scanned by closed-circuit TV cameras. It would be impossible to sneak out of the jail unnoticed.
The outer perimeter fence stood 20 feet beyond the inner one. It had no barbed wire on top, but did have the roll of razor wire halfway up.
Beyond that lay freedom. But ‘freedom’ was a field that lay in a triangle between three prisons. Parkhurst lay 400 yards to the east and Camp Hill 500 yards to the north. Clearly, I could only run south.
The final problem would be to get off the Island itself. It was a four-mile swim to the nearest point on the mainland, in waters that were beset with dangerous currents, and through one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Only a desperate man would even contemplate it.
I was desperate enough, though. I would rather die than just watch my life ebb away. I set about overcoming the various problems. There was plenty of escape expertise among my fellow cons at Albany, but I couldn’t just wander around asking everyone. Luckily, there was one old boy called Fred who lived on my landing. He was a store of information and very trustworthy. His help was to prove invaluable.
I also needed a partner. A ladder long enough to reach the top of the first fence would be heavy, and would take two of us to throw it up. Gary was a young fella who lived on the same floor as me, but along the adjoining spur. He immediately expressed a strong interest in escaping, too.
Fred suggested that we use a carborundum stone to cut the bars. This oblong-shaped block, usually used for sharpening chisels, would certainly be hard enough to cut manganese steel; it would also be very quiet. However, it promised to be a long, slow process.
A 24-foot-long ladder would be needed for the fences. We would climb on to the top of the first fence, pulling the ladder up after us. Then we would use it to climb down the first fence and up the second. As there weren’t any 24-foot ladders lying about in Albany, we would have to make one. Then there would be the problem of hiding it in a wing that was searched twice a day.
Several fellas on the wing were into keeping and breeding birds. Some had built large aviary-type cages in their cells, containing budgies, cockatiels and finches. I hated the thought of all the noise and mess myself, but, in the interest of the escape, I would suffer it.
Plywood and short lengths of wood were regularly smuggled out of the carpentry section of the woodmill opposite ‘E’ wing. The screws knew the wood was used as hobbies material and largely ignored the smuggling because it gave people something to do and kept them quiet.
I got several large sections of ply and some two-by-two. The birdcage I constructed was 6’ 3” long, 2’ 6” high and 2’ 6” deep, with a long wire-mesh front. I built a false bottom into it, which gave me a secret compartment 6’ 3” long, 2’ 6” deep and 3” high. This was where I intended to hide the ladder.
It would have to be in sections. It would be impossible to smuggle a 24-foot length of timber out of the woodmill, even if there was one that long in there.
We waited until there was a particularly thick screw in charge of wing cleaning, then told him that we needed to go over to the woodmill to have a couple of broken brooms repaired. With Gary and I carrying the broken brooms, the screw escorted us to the woodmill.
We waited while the job was done, then, just as we were leaving, a friend of mine came up to us with an armful of timber. ‘Do us a favour, fellas,’ said Jonah. ‘Take this wood over to the dining hall, will you? It’s needed to make some shelving.’
‘I ain’t fucking carrying it,’ said Gary, according to our prearranged plan.
‘Give it here,’ I said, in a tone that indicated I was disgusted with Gary’s negative attitude. ‘Here you are, guvnor. You carry some and I’ll carry some.’
I handed a couple of lengths to the screw and picked up the rest myself. The lumpen screw said not a word. Perhaps it was my assertive manner: he was used to obeying orders.
‘OK, guv,’ I said as we arrived back on the wing, ‘I’ll take it across to the dining hall.’
To my surprise, the screw readily agreed, then wandered off. That had been the crucial point of the operation. We had doubted that any screw would be thick enough to leave us in possession of four six-foot lengths of four by two.
We hurried upstairs to my cell. I quickly took off the fascia panel on the front of the cage, revealing the secret compartment. I slid the lengths inside.
We now had enough wood to make one continuous 24-foot length, but we had to find a way to join the lengths together. I made three ‘sleeves’, each two feet long, out of thick plywood. I lightly nailed thin ply over the open ends into which the lengths of four by two would slide. Then I put the ‘sleeves’ in the cage and stood several food pots on them.
This would now give me one continuous 24-foot length to climb the first fence with, but there were no hand- or footholds. I made eight triangles out of six-ply at a hobbies class, saying that I was constructing a geometrical solid as a mobile to hang in my cell. The instructor obviously had a limited knowledge of solid geometry. I walked unchallenged from the class with the triangles that I would screw to the lengths of four by two for handholds. We had our ladder. All that was missing from the cage were the birds that would justify its existence.
I had noticed that most cockatiels I had seen were both bad-tempered and vicious. A bite from one could be quite serious. I bought a large young bird with a thoroughly homicidal bent. ‘Nice’ would sit in the cage, almost immobile, until someone was fool enough to put his hand in. Then the bird would fall on it in a frenzy of biting, leaving the intruder with a sore and bleeding hand.
I surrounded Nice with six zebra finches who would make a break for the door the second the cage was opened. The screws on searching duty soon learned just to look into the cage without poking about. There wasn’t much to see anyway. The false bottom was largely an optical illusion, concealed by the long fascia panel.
It was Fred who solved the problem of how to climb down from my cell to the ground. He stole some webbing from the shop where they made knapsacks. Other than the fact that it was elasticated, it was ideal and strong enough to hold a horse.
That only left the problem of getting off the Island. We did have some outside help, but we could hardly ask them to come on to the Island, because they would be trapped with us the moment it was sealed off. I had noticed on a map in a book by the sailor Chay Blyth that there was a lifeboat station not far from the jail. We resolved to drag the lifeboatman out of his bed in the middle of the night and force him to take us across. Failing that, we would just steal one of the thousands of boats anchored along the Island’s coast.
We started to cut my bars with the carborundum block. As expected, it was long, slow work, but, with Gary and I taking turns, and with Fred watching out for the screws, we gradually wore our way through the metal. Each night, I would dummy the bar up with Polyfilla and paint it the same colour as the bars.
Suddenly, there was a security alert. Some fool on another wing had been caught tampering with his bars. We heard that there was to be an intensive bar check using sophisticated electronic equipment. Time was now of the essence.
My bars were now cut, so we dispensed with the plan to cut Gary’s as well. Instead, we would cut the ordinary steel frames of our respective doors, just where the locks slid into them. We did this in a surprisingly short time, concealing the cuts with painted cardboard. By late afternoon we were finished.
The wait until nine o’clock bang-up was nerve-wracking in the extreme. If either of us had been subjected to one of the regular special searches, the game would have been up. Gary and I sat in the darkness of the TV room, hoping that out of sight was out of mind.
Just before nine, Gary and I both banged our own doors shut, then waited for the screw to check us through the spy-hole and put the bolt on. This passed without incident. We were safe for the moment.
For weeks now, we had been checking the times of the passing patrols. By 2.00 a.m., the jail was silent and the patrols intermittent. At 2.30 a.m. we made our move.
Gary pulled his door inwards, the lock and bolt both passing easily through the dummy cardboard. He padded around the landing to my cell, withdrew the bolt and pushed the unresisting door inwards.
I had already removed the lengths of four by two from the secret compartment, screwed the triangular ‘steps’ to them and fixed a ‘sleeve’ to each of three ends. ‘Nice’ the cockatiel, not at all amused at being disturbed at this unearthly hour, created a din that threatened to wake the wing.
The knapsack webbing was tied to the bars, trailing out the window to the ground. I sellotaped the small screwdriver to the inside of my left arm. A homemade knife was taped to the inside of my right.
I climbed, feet first, out of my window. It was only a narrow gap and the sawn bar bit into my chest. With Gary pushing on my shoulders, I suddenly slid free. I clutched frantically at the webbing rope as I plunged earthwards.
I seemed to be falling for ages, but this was due to the elasticity of the webbing. Eventually, I bobbed up and down on the exposed wall of the wing, 30 feet from the ground and bathed in the glare of the lights.
Bobbing and turning on the webbing, I climbed to the ground. As I passed the security cage that protected the window of one of the nonces on the twos, I banged into it, waking the fella inside. I saw him come to his window and watch me.
Now on the ground, I called up to Gary. One by one, he threw down the lengths of ladder to me. They smashed into my outstretched arms with surprising force. By the time he had climbed down to join me, the ladder was assembled and ready to go. We set off across the short distance to the first fence.
As we emerged from the cover of the building, it was as if we were stepping out on to a stage. The lights blinded us and made us feel terribly exposed. Every camera seemed to be trained on us.
Any system is only as efficient as the people who operate it, though, and this system was operated by Albany screws. Luckily for us, it was ‘situation normal’ in the control room: feet up and heads down. A brass band could have marched along the fence and they would have missed it.
Unfortunately, however, the nonce I had woken was also a grass. He had rung his bell the moment he had seen us. It was only because the screw had taken so long to answer it that we had got so far undisturbed.
We threw the ladder up against the first fence with an impact that must have sent every trembler bell ringing. I raced up the rungs. Suddenly, there was a shout from over to our right. Two screws accompanied by dogs emerged from a nearby workshop. They were hatless and with their shirts undone. They must have been having a sly sleep in the shop.
I carried on upwards, hoping I could reach the top before they pulled the ladder away, pitching me into the hanging razor wire underneath. I was conscious of Gary climbing below me. I jumped into the roll of barbed wire atop the fence.
All at once, there was a sharp crack as the ladder snapped. I looked down in time to see the screws throw their weight against it, sending Gary tumbling to land at their feet. Both dogs ran in and pinned him to the ground.
I was safe for the moment, but marooned on top of the fence. I had no ladder now, but there was still a contingency plan. Using the knife and screwdriver still taped to my arms, I might be able to climb the second fence.
Bending down, I gripped the top of the fence. I rolled forward, kicking my legs free of the barbed wire. My lower body crashed into the fence as I hung there by my fingertips. I looked down to see where the ground was, but the grass was long between the fences and the night dark. Everything was blackness. I let go of the fence, hoping for the best.
I had bound my ankles with tape in readiness for just such a drop, but it still jarred me to the bone. I felt one of my ankles go but, as I rose to my feet, I could feel that it was badly sprained rather than broken. I looked up to see both screws standing barely a yard away from me, but separated by the fence.
Hobbling now, I stumbled across to the second fence. I tore the knife from my arm and felt in my pocket for the screwdriver. It was gone. It had obviously fallen out. I looked around frantically. It would be impossible to find in the long grass in the darkness. My escape was over.
The rest was all anticlimax. Eventually, a posse of screws came between the fences and got me. I was led away to the chokey. I was subsequently sentenced to 15 days’ bread and water and 56 days in the block. Gary avoided the bread and water, but lost 180 days’ remission. Within a day of our unsuccessful attempt, a rope was found on one of the wings. This was the last straw. The screws decided to do a general search of the jail. They went about it in such a bloody-minded fashion that they triggered off a riot. Soon, the chokey was overflowing. Scores of men languished in solitary confinement.