IT’S time a good-looking bloke like me got married, but the powers that be don’t see it that way. I applied for permission to marry the lovely Mary-Ann, but this was rejected on March 10, 1994. Governor George Lawler called me into his office. I had already mentioned to him that I wanted to marry and I had the distinct impression that I was given permission. But later they said I was jumping the gun, and that they had only ‘recommended’ that I could go ahead.
I thought it would only be a matter of some paperwork. After all, we are both adults. I don’t think I was asking for any great favors. It’s not as though I wanted to honeymoon at Christopher Skase’s joint in Spain. A small service inside the jail and some hundreds and thousands on bread and butter would have sufficed. But I got a letter from the General Manager of Corrective Services, Big Ben Marris, ‘the Prisoner’s Friend’, telling me permission had been refused.
However, Big Ben said he was willing to consider the request in 12 months’ time. Basically, it works like this. If I want an extra bit of toast or butter or permission to get a pair of sunglasses sent in, or a gold cross and chain, or a pair of runners or a contact visit, I go to the Governor of the prison. But anything larger than a contact visit and I have to get down on my knees and call on divine intervention as the Governor is powerless to help. He has the power to punish but his power to grant requests is limited.
Things were different in Pentridge. There the Governor has had the power to authorise anything from a striptease show to a boxing match and day leave to Luna Park if he felt so inclined. He was the boss of the jail. The bugger has so much power he could almost have you shot at dawn. But this is not Pentridge. As for the wedding bells, the hand of fate has interfered again. Every time I have ever got within 300 yards of the wedding chapel fate has stuck a spanner in the works.
I have become philosophical about the old hand of fate, particularly when that hand is attached to some arthritic bureaucrat. They are all the same. They are stiffer than a body after six hours in the boot. They are given a teaspoonful of power and they want to swing it round like a baseball bat. Oh well, never mind, it’s all part of life’s rich tapestry.
A rooster one day, feather duster the next.
GETTING to the stage where I wanted to get married has taken a while. I told Mary-Ann right from the start that all I wanted was a friendship and that not only was love and romance not on the agenda but I had no real understanding of the word ‘love’, and I certainly did not want to put another lady through the same torment I had put poor Margaret through.
As usual I set forth with the very best of intentions and after I received the shattering news that I had lost my High Court appeal against conviction, I had every clear intention of asking the lovely Mary-Ann to pick up her swag and boot off down the road, but she told me she loved me and had no intention of going away.
I explained to her that it is a stupid and impossible situation, but my protests fell on deaf ears.
She is a wonderful girl from a farming family in Richmond, just outside Hobart. Her grandfather owned six or seven pubs in Hobart but sold them to take up farming, which is a pity, as I always wanted to marry the publican’s daughter.
Anyway, I swore I’d never marry in jail. In fact, I swore I’d never marry. I’ve promised marriage a dozen times over and been able to avoid it on each occasion, but I’m no longer a young man, and someone has to care for me in my dotage.
Mary-Ann first heard of me in London. She had read my book while on holiday and became involved in a heated debate over my good name in a south London pub and swore to come in to see me as soon as she got back to Hobart.
She said she fell in love as soon as she saw me. In all modesty, this is perfectly understandable, as to know me is to love me.
The screws joke with me about marrying into the landed gentry when they see the Jag-driving farmer’s daughter come to visit. Ha ha.
Grave digger I may be, but gold digger? Never.
Mary-Ann has no brothers and only one sister and there were various crude jests about Mr Hodge not losing a daughter but gaining a Chopper, and at least I’d have plenty of room down on the farm to bury the bodies. (Memo to all authorities and potential in-laws … the bodies bit was a joke.)
I think jokes about Mary-Ann and myself are in bad taste because in spite of the comedy I do trust this woman with my life, and at the risk of using that word, I do love her. I have explained to her that I will more than likely break her heart and run rampant amongst the local harlots upon my release, but even that did not deter her.
Mind you, I think that after five minutes of running rampant I’d need the aid of an intensive care unit and a heart specialist. I suspect any rampage throughout the assorted massage parlors and dirty girl centres of the nation upon my release is far fetched, to say the least.
Mary-Ann is very good-natured, loving, loyal, kind, generous, warm and she doesn’t nag at me.
Unfortunately Margaret, for all her wonderful qualities, nagged at me without mercy. When she didn’t nag at me the bloody dog would nag at me. I would have had GBH of the ears, if I had any.
Sometimes Margaret would stand there nagging and the dog would bark at me in time with the nagging and while I thoroughly deserved it, I’m most pleased Mary-Ann is not of the nagging disposition.
She went to a posh private girls’ school and speaks with a slightly la-di-da voice which I think is cute. I know it is a bit sad to get married in jail but the truth is I don’t want to lose her.
THE ‘let’s get Chopper out of jail’ campaign that started during the year is a tribute to the loyalty of Mary-Ann and all the great and good friends I have in six states.
Mary-Ann got the ball rolling with a small advertisement in the public notice section of the Hobart Mercury newspaper, on December 29, 1993. It went like this:
Attention, I am in Risdon Prison convicted of a crime I did not commit. I was found guilty by a majority verdict jury decision and sentenced to be held at the Governor’s pleasure. If you feel that my conviction was wrong and that my sentence is totally unjust and that I am not a danger to the general public then say so in writing to the Governor of the State of Tasmania, General Sir Phillip Bennett, Government House, Tasmania 7001. Thank you, Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read.
Mary-Ann comes in to visit me each week. As I say, she is a top chick and loves me dearly but I sometimes worry about dragging her with me through years of pain, visiting me in jail, as I care for her too much to want to see her hurt.
It is a very unhappy situation that does not sit well with me. Mary-Ann is a big buxom beauty and if I wasn’t in jail I would pull her on like a wet soapy sock.
She is a happy, cheerful, loving and loyal girl who tells me she entered into the relationship with her eyes wide open. Margaret said the same thing, but no one’s eyes are that wide open.
Sometimes, I feel I don’t want to be loved by anyone as I then have the tears and pain and sadness of that person hanging on my heart like a dead weight. I carry the guilt of that person’s pain on my shoulders.
It is not fair on me or on that person. Prison and passion do not mix. A jail is not the place for hearts and flowers emotions. Mary-Ann, as a rule, comes in to visit me with a shirt or top that shows a reasonable amount of cleavage, while talking to her my eyes are mostly glued to her ample cleavage. Bad manners, I know, but if Mary-Ann don’t like it she can bloody well wear a poloneck jumper.
She sends me polaroid snapshots of herself which are quite lovely. I showed one to my little mate Greg Hutt, nicknamed Buck. Greg looked at the photo then said, ‘Is that the chick that visits you, Chopper? I’ve seen her. She’s a buxom lass. She would walk a mile before she would even notice I was wedged between the cheeks of her bottom. Ha ha.’
The moral of that story is don’t ever show your girlfriend’s photos to Bucky, but in his rather crude, comical manner he was paying Mary-Ann a compliment. A few more compliments like that and he could end up in the dim sims, like some other people we needn’t mention.
Comedy aside, the situation with Mary-Ann bothers me as I don’t want another Margaret situation. It is all too painful. I don’t want to launch forth into the uncertain future that goes with a 12th of never jail sentence with anyone’s broken heart sitting on my shoulder.
For a bloke who has never seen himself as a great romantic, I’ve certainly walked a pathway in life that’s littered with the broken hearts of tearful women.
I once said to Mary-Ann, ‘I don’t want to get into another relationship and for Christ’s sake don’t fall in love or you will drown yourself in your own tears.’ Prison is no place for love affairs. How it all happens is a puzzle to me.
As I’ve said before, when I am outside there are few women interested in a man with no ears, but when I am inside there are offers aplenty. A tragedy, when you think about it.
All a bloke like me needs and feels happy with is loving friendships – cheerful, cheeky scallywags who cheer me up. Those are the perfect relationships to have in prison, and thank God I have people like that on my side.
I treasure those friendships, but a love affair is like a Greek tragedy in prison. It is a bitter-sweet adventure into the world of tears and pain. It’s a pain you cannot let go and when you do, it hurts even harder.
MARY-ANN asked me if I’d be faithful to her when I get out.
I told Mary-Ann exactly what I told Margaret in 1986, before I got out of Bendigo Prison to join her: ‘I’ll be faithful to the best of my ability’. Mary-Ann asked the same question Margaret did: ‘What do you mean by that?’ and my reply was exactly the same: ‘I’m a very sexually faithful man.’ In a manner of speaking.
Women think you’re just pulling their leg when deep down they should know you are a total ratbag. How can any bloke who has been locked up in a cage for a long time be 1000 per cent faithful to any woman?
It’s like a dog on a chain. You put the dog on the chain for the night then let him off the chain in the morning and he runs around and around the backyard like a raving nutter.
You lock a man in a cage for a year or two or longer, then let him out, and you’re going to be a sad girl if you think he’s going to come home and sit in front of the telly with a tinny, 24 hours a day.
When a bloke gets out of jail after a long stay he runs around like a mad rat, drinking all the piss, eating all the food and pinning tails on every donkey, or should I say ass, he can find.
It doesn’t mean you don’t love the girl you have at home but it’s like boiling water and having nowhere for the steam to go. Then one day the lid gets removed and something’s got to blow.
It’s a bit unrealistic for any woman to come along to any bloke when he is in jail, form a relationship with him then say to him, ‘Please be faithful to me when you get out, please stay home, please don’t gamble all your money and please don’t go falling victim to the wiggling bottoms and fluttering eyelashes of loose women.’
The only thing that will pull me up is middle age and laziness and the fact that I’m no longer in Melbourne with the nightclubs and massage parlors.
One of my publishers, John Silvester, came down to visit me a while back. They must serve a nice drop of scotch on the plane, because he certainly looked pissed to me, but regardless of that it was good to see the sly scallywag.
He was telling me of the new rage in Melbourne, table-top dancing, where these exotic dancers get up on tables and dance for you personally, and according to him these chicks all look like they jumped out of the pages of Penthouse or Playboy magazine.
He was telling me about some nightclub called Santa Fe Gold and the gaggle of girlies at that place. My God, can you imagine me in Melbourne now, fresh out of Pentridge and drunk in charge of a hand gun in the middle of that place, especially with the rumors that some of my old enemies from Lygon Street, Carlton, are flat out trying to invest money in the new booming table-top dancing industry.
I wouldn’t be able to help myself. It would be like ‘High Noon in Dodge City’.
Being faithful all depends on the temptations that await me on my release. I won’t be returning to Melbourne, so there will be no dead dagos or kidnapped dancing girls.
Tassie isn’t quite the end of the earth and from what I’ve seen, half the toss-up molls in Australia live in Tassie, and a bloke fresh out of jail planning on being faithful to his beloved wife or girlfriend is going to be in for a hell of a mental, emotional and moral tug of war.
Anyway, it’s a fairy tale debate because the way things are going, by the time I get out of here, a good root and a green apple would probably kill me.
As for being faithful, well I’ll certainly put my best foot forward until I shoot myself in it. Lucky for me, Mary-Ann, apart from being good natured and understanding, is also a very realistic women. The truth is, the only person I’ve ever really been faithful to in my life is myself. Ha ha.
I WILL digress for a moment and answer a question in relation to myself and the fairer sex. All my life since my teenage years I’ve always had and kept the friendship of females, and I am by no means a romantic or a playboy.
I think the answer is that I always treated ladies like I treated men: with sarcastic disregard, yet blind loyalty when the shit hit the fan. I treat them as mates. Most of the female friends I’ve had and still have to this day have never been romantically involved with me.
I’ve put holes in my manners with a fair few of them but, as I keep telling the buggers, what’s the use of having mates with tits if you cannot get the buggers to knock the top off it now and again, for Christ’s sake?
Females are strange creatures. A good female friend of mine who I went to school with was giving me a lift home one night. I was a bit pissed and I put the hard word on her. She told me off for my bad manners and I said sorry. I then said, ‘Lend me $200.’ She said ‘okay’ and I took it out of her purse.
I then asked her to drive me to Home Street, Elsternwick. She said ‘no problem’. About 20 minutes later we pulled up outside and she asked, ‘What’s this place?’ and I said, ‘it’s the Daily Planet massage parlor’ and got out of the car and said goodbye to the lady in question, and I started to walk across the road to the parlor.
She jumped out of the car and yelled at me, ‘Mark, come back here at once, get back in the car, get back in right now.’ I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ She yelled, ‘You snip 200 bucks off me and then get me to drive you to a parlor!’
I said, ‘I’ll pay you the dough back’. She screamed that the money was not the point. I said, ‘Well listen, it’s your arse or one of theirs.’
She said, ‘Okay, hop back in the car.’
I gave the 200 back to her and she dropped her pants, calling me a bastard every inch of the way.
I was at her wedding three months later, and we are still friends today.
I guess the trick to getting away with murder like that with friends and loved ones is that when the same lady was in trouble several years later I put my neck on the chopping block and risked a life sentence in jail to help her out.
Yes, I said I’d never do it,
So please don’t ask me why,
I swore I’d never marry until the day I die,
But in spite of the best advice,
And in the face of common sense,
She grabbed me by the heart,
And so I jumped the farmer’s fence,
She’s probably worth a million quid at subdivision rates,
But I’ll have to ring the wedding bell to crash the farmer’s gates,
Yes, the things I’ve had to do, and not by halves or quarters,
All to win the pretty hand of the Richmond farmer’s daughter.