damp segregation cell prone to cockroach infestation for twenty-three hours a day. See Ibid., 24 March and 5 May 1979.
62.IRIS, 12 January 1979.
63.Irish political prisoners, pp. 73–4.
64.Republican News, 10 March 1979.
65.Ronnie McCartney, 12 April 2008.
66.In June 1978 Brixton contained 412 cells shared by two men and 315 cells shared by three. The total population was 1,032. HC Deb 27 July 1978 vol 954 cc840–1W. The Certified Normal Accommodation of Brixton was enumerated as 649 in October 1975, at which time it held 968 inmates. HC Deb 14 October 1975 vol 897 cc668–73W. In 1980 the average prisoner spent less than twenty-three days in Brixton ahead of trial, although certain prisoners, including all suspected IRA personnel, spent much longer. Session 1980–8 … 19 January 1981, HM Prison Brixton, p. 77.
67.Times, 20 October 1978. See also Times, 22 August and 30 October 1978.
68.Times, 1 November 1978.
69.Times, 2 November 1978.
70.Newsline, 25 May 1983.
71.Cited in Times, 1 November 1978.
72.Cited in Times, 1 November 1978.
73.Newsline, 25 May 1983.
74.See Frank Norman to the Editor, Times, 25 October 1978 and PROP, Prison Briefing, No. 3, 1982.
75.PROP, Prison Briefing, No. 2, [London] 1982.
76.Guardian, 9 October 1978.
77.Guardian, 9 October 1978.
78.Guardian, 9 October 1978. PROP alleged Gartree staff had undertaken courses in the Wakefield Prison Officers Training School with a view to bringing their new unit on line. The Home Office dismissed this claim and Lord Harris criticized the airing of ‘wild allegations’ concerning the prison. Ibid. Harris visited the wrecked complex with John Farr MP. Construction of Gartree’s £395,000 F Wing began in January 1976 during the tenure of Governor George Lakes and it operated as a Segregation Unit for seventeen years. Dick Callan, Gartree, The story of a prison (Leyhill, 2005), pp. 40–1, 48–9.
79.Quoted in Guardian, 9 October 1978. A disproportionate number of Prison Service staff hailed from Yorkshire and Scotland. It was a matter of official record that ‘not many people born in London’ worked in Wormwood Scrubs, Brixton or Wandsworth. See Session 1980–8 … 19 January 1981, HM Prison Brixton, p. 81.
80.Times, 1 February 1980.
81.Daily Telegraph, 10 May 1980. See also Guardian, 25 November 1981.
82.Times, 3 November 1978.
83.Times, 3 November 1978. See also Guardian, 25 March 1978. Brixton, in 1980, had a notably high level of overtime due to the additional role of its staff in performing transport and security for court appearances. Around 80 per cent of persons rostered for free weekends were called in for duty until an industrial dispute led to more ‘normal levels’. Session 1980–8 … 19 January 1981, HM Prison Brixton, p. 78.
84.Jackie Kaye to the Editor in Irish Post, 14 October 1975.
85.Times, 3 November 1978.
86.Guardian, 8 January 1980.
87.Guardian, 8 January 1980.
88.Guardian, 12 January 1980.
89.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 80.
90.‘John McCluskey speaks’ in FRFI, March 1985, p. 14.
91.Times, 4 October 1975 and 1 July 1976 and Camden New Journal, 3 November 2011. Jenny Bourne, editor of Race and Class, knew Dick from his time working as a volunteer with the Institute of Race Relations, which published the journal. Nigerian Franklin ‘Frank’ Davies, who had a prior conviction for armed robbery, had attempted to join liberation movements in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and Mozambique in the 1970s. In 1974 Dick attended the Sixth Pan African Congress in Tanzania. He died in a swimming accident in Africa shortly after being released from Wormwood Scrubs in August 1988. Medical student Anthony ‘Bonsu’ Monroe, also West Indian, ran a school for black children with educational difficulties. The attempt to rob the weekly takings of the Knightsbridge Italian restaurant went awry when a staff member fled to alert police and the trio initially refused to surrender. Angela Cobbinah, ‘The Spaghetti House Siege of 1975’ in Camden New Journal, 3 November 2011. See also Jenny Bourne, ‘Spaghetti House siege: making the rhetoric real’, Race and Class, October 2011 and Moysey, Road to Balcombe Street, pp. 102–4.
92.Interview with Shujaa Moshesh (aka Wesley Dick) in FRFI, January 1989, p. 8.
93.Moshesh in FRFI, January 1989, p. 8.
94.Guardian, 8 January 1980.
95.Guardian, 8 January 1980.
96.Guardian, 12 January 1980.
97.Republican News, 13 November 1978.
98.Irish Times, 3 November 1978.