30
Drum: INSIGHT
pragmatist in me wishes to point out that prison
is also a large, grey building where young men and
women watch vast swathes of their lives ebb away.
A poignant moment it may be, but for me it always
feels like a profoundly dishonest one.
There is something quite pleasant about playing
the cynic. I won’t lie; I’ve rather enjoyed bursting
the sentimental bubble of more than one Shawshank
devotee in my time by rolling out one version or
another of the above argument. It’s syrupy; it’s
hackneyed; it’s patronising. And the killer blow,
“I should know, I work in a real-life prison don’t
y’know”. Mmmmm, the sweet taste of a moral
victory, garnished with a healthy dollop of
intellectual one-upmanship. You can’t beat it.
However, what to the cynic is a healthy scepticism
of the overtly sentimental, and a refusal to reduce
life to a patchwork of clichés is, to the believer,
nothing more than an arrogant denial of life’s
emotional reality. And sometimes life delivers a blow
to the gut that even the most ardent cynic cannot
ignore.
Mine came a few months ago, as I sat in the chapel
of the prison where I work, dutifully – I thought –
attending a performance by a handful of prisoners
that had been entitled ‘Rock Shop’. A well-known
musician had spent the previous three days working
with them to put together an hour-long show. I had
heard them rehearsing and, in truth, had turned up
not expecting much, but wishing to be seen to
show my support.
Taking my place on one of the long, hard pews, I
steeled myself for what I anticipated would be an
hour of artless percussion-bashing and little more.
But, as the first few numbers rolled by, I was
incredibly impressed by the virtuosity of some of
the players, and the overall quality of what they
had managed to produce in so short a time. I was
enjoying myself, and could feel the atmosphere in
the room slowly shifting. As we in the audience
listened, and the players played, it somehow began
to feel…less….well… ‘prison-y’. But, I thought, only
in the same way as your last day of school used to
feel less ‘school-y’ because you were allowed to
wear your own clothes and bring in board games
to play. We were being informal, and it felt good.