Home life
Bailiffs•
Alice Thomas Ellis
Avery cheeky letter from the bailiffs proposing to imprison someone or maybe me. It begins with a fine impartial- ity — Dear Sir/Madam, Re: Rate Arrears. The annoying thing is that when they dunned us they didn't dun us for enough, so it's their silly fault. It all started when someone discovered yet another person in the garden peering through the windows. He asked what he was doing and the man said he was a bailiff, showed him a sheet of paper describing the contents of the house — washing machine, tumble drier and a lot of tatty old books — and went on to speak of something quite incomprehensible cal- led walking distraints or something. Some- one said he was sorry to put him to all that trouble and the man said, not to worry, if it wasn't for people like us he'd be out of a job.
I have quite often heard people say that they wouldn't mind a spell in the slammer — no responsibilities and a chance to catch up on Swann's Way, and write the autobiography they'd always in- tended, but those with first-hand experi- ence never seem at all keen on it. Except for one lady I met some time ago who used to go round in black leather, a series of chains and a crash helmet. She would punctuate her conversation with the re- mark, 'Of course, you realise I'm a les- bian.' To which people would respond, 'Cor, you never are. Fancy that.' She used to demonstrate about things, and she liked going to Holloway because there were so many girls there. I once visited a friend in one of the more modern penal establish- ments and apart from a great deal of conspicuous locking and unlocking of doors it was rather like being in the Little Chef — a lot of formica and glass and an overall feeling that on the whole you'd rather be somewhere else. It's the same with nervous breakdowns. People who've never had one seem to imagine it would offer the opportunity for a nice rest, forgetting that sensations of nameless ter- ror and total personal inadequacy are not all that conducive to peace of mind.
On the other hand, I'm hooked on Beaumaris jail, which is now unoccupied.
It reminds me of the National School where I went as an infant, and was built at around much the same date. They both have an air of solid assurance, and even the jail has a heavily respectable feeling about it. The female felons used to work in the laundry while the men were busy on the treadmill round the back, and while it was clearly no rest home I have sometimes thought I might not have desperately re- sented being incarcerated there; except for the diet, which was boring in the extreme — bread, gruel and a weekly bowl of gristle — though it probably compared well enough with what the average servant would have received at the time. The cells have little windows and primitive wash- basins and, provided one didn't have to share, they are preferable to most motel bedrooms. The only really creepy, nightmare-inducing part is the death cell, which contains a harrowing account of a condemned murderer who took such a dim view of the whole business that he resolute- ly refused to be so .accommodating as to permit himself to be hanged without pro- test, barricading himself in his cell with his bench, refusing to listen to reason and closing his ears to the chaplain, governor and hangman who were grouped outside, imploring him to come and be killed like a gent. He said he hadn't done it. When they finally winkled him out and dragged him to the scaffold he said that on the instant of his death the clock opposite the jail would stop and would never go again. And it did and it hasn't. Though it has to be admitted that most of the clocks in public places throughout the country seem to be suffer- ing from the same syndrome for whatever reason. When I was a little girl they all worked. My mother describes it bitterly as 'progress'.
When I was the age the daughter is now, slaving away in my National School, I used to get my sums wrong on a slate using a slate pencil. Now I get them wrong on the kiddies' calculators. Which reminds me that I should apply myself to the word- processor and sort out this little matter of the bailiffs: otherwise I shall end up inside and the editor will have to find a replace- ment for me.
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