James Freeman describes a new autobiography by a former convict described as the English Jimmy Boyle
Glasgow's archetypal hardman, Jimmy Boyle, learned to sculpt in Barlinnie Special Unit and went on to become a famous, if controversial, figure - artist, author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and minor luvvie.
His English equivalent, Frank Cook, most famous graduate of the Hull Prison Special Unit - a direct imitation of its famous Scottish precursor with more or less the same aims and methods - now seems well on the way to becoming an English Boyle, although perhaps without the polish, the fortune, or the social cachet.
When I visited Cook at the unit in Hull in 1991, it was already with wide experience of the troubled Scottish prison system - the riots, hostage-takings, the damaged buildings and people - and with a close-in knowledge of the travails of the Barlinnie Special Unit and its most famous son. It is only now, with the publication of Frank Cook's biography*, that better understanding of the forces at
play emerges.
Cook, once the most dangerous gunman in the north, if not all, of England, was manipulating the media to a band playing; inviting the then Glasgow Herald to meet him in Hull, ostensibly to see that the achievements of the BSU were not unique but could be replicated outwith Scotland, was part and parcel of his grand plan.
The amazing thing is that Frank Cook succeeded. Despite a childhood and adolescence of almost indescribable horror followed by a criminal and penal career of equally unbelievable violence, he is now a respected commentator on the English prison system. No seminar on what works to reduce re-offending, no TV discussion on the futility of more and more overcrowding is complete without Cook on the panel.
Since his release, aged 43, in 1996, having spent all but 16 years in institutions and jail, Frank Cook has worked as sculptor, journalist, and lecturer. He has travelled widely in Europe and further afield, speaking alongside prison directors, church leaders, academics, three Home Secretaries, lords - even royalty - in his efforts to raise social awareness about the reality of imprisonment.
Throughout his book Cook acknowledges that not all prison officers were evil, nihilistic dinosaurs intent on degrading and controlling their charges. Particularly towards the end of his prison career there were men who helped him to make the painful break from incorrigible man of violence to star pupil on the way to rehabilitation and freedom.
In this respect his career exactly parallels that of Boyle. Cook met the same antagonisms, especially from prison staff and policemen who had had to contend with him, as did Boyle. Cook, had, however, absorbed all the lessons from A Sense of Freedom, becoming the master manipulator of the media to the extent that he was giving the Home Office, in his own words,
the heebie-jeebies.
In those final days in the Hull Special Unit he brought as many as possible into the act - the pop group The Beautiful South went for tea, footballers were
courted, and ''Prince'' Naseem Hamed ''popped down to help with some fundraising''.
A nice lad, says Cook of the boxer, and contrary to his public image, very humble and unpretentious. Perhaps he was frightened.
As he fought to control his demons and succeed, Frank Cook contacted Jimmy Boyle, who, according to Cook's account, pledged he would visit the Hull Special Unit ''with a media entourage''. At this point Cook was actually locked down in a secure unit at Durham Jail, having been involved in a confrontation with a social worker in Hull Prison.
Boyle, however, gave him enormous encouragement. He returned to Hull to a great welcome from his fellow inmates who ''cleaned the shit off the walls and tidied the place up''. The illicit hooch was broken up, but many of the staff were unhappy because the system had backed down and compromised their power.
It must have been worse for them when, a week later, Jimmy Boyle arrived at Hull with the promised entourage. The resultant ballyhoo in the English media led to Cook being invited to speak at a power-sharing conference at Grendon Underwood Prison, a therapeutic community jail for psychotics of which he was also a graduate. Boyle was there, as was Kenneth Baker.
Cook writes: ''I spoke with pride and conviction, always keeping in mind that I was an advocate for all the prisoners in the country, and I was rewarded with a standing ovation.''
Frank Cook's story is a racy, lurid account of a wasted, useless life made infinitely worse by the institutionalised stupidity of the prison system. Since Jimmy Boyle and others like him collided head on with the Scottish system, matters here have changed radically, mostly for the better.
The same cannot really be said of the English prisons where improvement and reform seem to have become inextricably linked to whatever political agenda is expedient on any given day. The Scottish philosophy that prison, if it is about anything, has to be about cutting crime in the long run by helping criminals break the circle, has little real weight south of the Border. There will be plenty left for Frank Cook to address in coming years.
n *Hard Cell by Frank Cook and Matthew Wilkinson, the Bluecoat Press, #5.99.
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