The harsh lessons of Christmas in B Block, Sir David Longlands

There was an air of expectancy inside B Block at the Sir David Longland Correctional Centre. It was Christmas. Yuletide. The festive season. A time of peace and goodwill to all men.

In the week before Christmas nothing had stirred in our house. The contractors had already sprayed for cockies, fleas, flies and mice but the cockies were guaranteed to re-emerge once the effect of the watered-down spray lost its potency. The heat and muggy conditions inside the cells helped to breathe life back into their tormented existence. It was an existence that meant dodging a flying thong or the slap of a wet towel as they scavenged through the cells during the night searching for crumbs and other morsels of leftover food that might be lying around.

Televisions in B Block fluctuated between Christmas savings at Michael Hill Jewellers and the bombing of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq while the screws (prison guards) geared up for their usual round of parties and beery cheer.

The prisoners contented themselves with private thoughts of parole, remission and release that mingled with hazy dreams of a family and friends. At home. At Christmas. In another place.

It was about that time when old Merv hobbled into the Education Block. I hadn’t seen him for nearly two years since the Remand Centre in ‘96.

A spinal operation had left Merv with an awkward limp that made it hard for him to walk but he had managed to master a crab-style gait that enabled him to get around without the aid of a walking stick. His tenacity and perseverance was a credit to every step he gained without falling over.

“Hello mate. What’s ya doin’?” Merv said with a cheeky grin.

“Ten years mate.”

The cynical reply was lost on Merv and his obvious pleasure at seeing an old familiar face was apparent.

“Ya know where the Education Officer is?" he asked. “Gotta get some courses done to get me classification points down.”

The Education Officer wasn’t around so I invited Merv to sit down and have a cuppa. He didn’t need a second invitation. There’s nothing Merv likes better than to reminisce with another old crim. Especially about days gone past.

The Road. The Bay. Parramatta and Pentridge. He had been there and seen it all. The time when they had shit tubs in Two Jail. And the riots of ’87 in The Road. The escapes that succeeded. And the escapes that had come undone.

“Remember when they drove through the front gate at Boggo Road in the garbage truck?” Merv chuckled.

“Who was that bloke ... McHardie? ... McWilliams? . . . McSweeney? That’s him. McSweeney.”

Merv’s face came alight at his own ability to remember a name from over a decade ago.

“Yeah that’s the bloke. McSweeney. And they pinched him up in Toowoomba. Channel Seven was there when he got pinched. That Frank Warrick. Yeah ... I remember ... and he escaped again. He ended up getting shot the next time.”

Merv was an accomplished jail yard raconteur with a treasure trove of memories. Some reckon he could talk under water with a mouthful of marbles. And maybe he could.

Merv recounted jail-yard stories about incidents and legends that have been handed down through generations of jail time in a place where years are only remembered by the events that happened inside the walls. Some are funny. And some are not so funny. Some are true and some are not so true. Merv knews them all.

Old Merv has rubbed shoulders with some of the hardest men on any prison exercise yard but his memory of those men and their exploits sometimes got blurred with his own pain.

It was the pain of a man with acute myeloid leukaemia. Terminal cancer. A pain that complemented the mind-altering chemotherapeutic drugs that forced Merv’s memory chip to go on the blink every now and again.

Once the fog lifted from his tortured mind the crystal-clear clarity of yesteryear returned with another story. And they all have the same unmistakable ring of truth to them. The truth of a man who knows what he is talking about. It was all that Merv had left. Jail-yard memories.

Old Merv was not a killer. Or a serial rapist. And I don’t think he’s ever robbed a bank. Merv was just an old knockabout. A "boob head". Part of the regular flotsam and jetsam that float through Australia’s prison system every year. He was a "boob head" who had notched up a few receiving charges (32 in fact) and was faced with a terminal sentence that a Court of Criminal Appeal could not reverse.

Merv’s life-expectancy was terminal. Some said he had less than a year. He had become another statistic in the law-and-order game that dominated Queensland politics. He was the human face on a roulette wheel of prison policy that claimed a mandate to protect the community from violent offenders even though “receiving stolen goods” has not reached the Public Enemy Number One stage yet - at least not by Queensland standards.

Merv’s voice interrupted my critical analysis.

“Got emptied up to Woodford last year,” He said. “I got self-bail on the receiving blues in April ... they date back to ‘95 ... and got paroled in May.”

Merv had been on parole for seven months and had reported to Police three times each week as part of his bail requirements. During that time he had registered for a bone-marrow transplant at The Brisbane Mater Hospital.

“I fronted Brisbane Magistrates Court but "the beak" (a magistrate) took my bail.” Merv complained. “Said he had reasonable doubts about whether I would appear on the receiving charges. Five fail-to-appears and an escape in ‘79 put the lid on it.”

“For Chrissake mate, I couldn’t piss off if I wanted to.” He chuckled. “I’d chuck a wobbly. Look at me ... Steady Eddy could run a mile before I’d walk a yard.”

I had to agree. Merv’s chances of pulling a Skase were not realistic by any stretch of the imagination. The leukaemia was evidence of that. Nevertheless, courts and prisons are unemotional precincts that base their assessments on past history - and Merv’s history was not exemplary in regard to court appearances and the odd escape or two, even if it was 20 years ago.

“They sent me back to the Remand Centre and a bloke on Sentence Classification over there told me I was High Security. One hundred and thirty point high. I nearly wet meself laughing.” Merv chuckled uncontrollably. “One hundred and thirty points! Fair dinkum mate, they tried to say I was Darcy Dugan, Russel Cox and Brendan Abbott rolled into one ‘cos I ran away in ‘79.”

Merv’s uncontrollable bout of laughter depleted the remaining oxygen supply in his battered lungs as he wheezed for another breath.

“This system ... this system is stuffed ...” Merv gasped between breaths, “The system is ratshit mate ... I’m telling ya it’s stuffed these days.”

Nobody knows why they dumped Merv in B Block. A place where fresh air and sunlight had become a privilege since the Melbourne Cup Day escape of ‘97.

Merv wasn’t there then but he had seen it all going down on TV. The news flashes. The drama. And the political grandstanding. Then slowly ... one by one ... The recaptures. The stringent security with extra cladding over cell windows and the exercise yards in B Block had become a legacy of the escape.

B Block had become the dumping ground for men that other Queensland prisons did not want and I wondered what Merv had done to achieve the dubious honour of being on B Block’s nominal roll.

“Over at Remand they said I would have to do some educational courses to get me points down,” Merv explained after his breathing returned to normal.

“Get me points down! I told them I would be probably dead before I could finish any of his bloody courses and that shut him up. Next thing I know I am on the van to Longlands. Too hot to handle,” Merv said philosophically. “No jail wants me in case I croak it. So I get to spend Christmas at SDL.”

Merv stood up to leave. I slipped him some coffee and a few teabags. He immediately shoved them down the front of his jocks. The jailhouse snooker. Old habits die hard.

We said our goodbyes and Old Merv hobbled away in his unique crab-like style.

I watched a couple of the young crims hold the door open for Merv as he hobbled through. They followed him up The Spine of B Block to their Units. I watched their receding backs and I pondered about old Merv, Christmas in B Block and the upcoming generation of young crims ...

The authorities expect us to learn compassion but they show no compassion to those in their control.

They want us to learn the value of life but they devalue life by throwing a dying man into B Block.

They claim that B Block is for hardened crims. The no-hopers. The intractables. Then they fill it with the sick, the infirm or the young.

The hypocrisy of a system that is epitomised by law-and-order policies that only result in more people coming to prison for lesser crimes.

And politicians still beat their breasts about tougher laws and longer terms of imprisonment.

Inside the cladded surrealistic world of B Block at SDLCC old Merv struggled with his terminal sentence and fought the shadows to find a bit of sunlight or fresh air.

The system is doing an admirable job of shaping the upcoming young minds of the next generation. Christmas? Bah! Humbug!