The Livery Newsletter and Gazette Issue 32 Spring 2020 | Page 22

A Visit to The Clink
Last June, in Ironbridge, at our first ever event as
Master and Mistress, I was lucky enough to sit next
to a delightful, twinkly-eyed Welshman called Geoff
Hughes. Geoff was the Immediate Past Master of the
Livery Company of Wales and a Liveryman of The
Haberdashers’ Company. I mentioned to him that
I was pondering about organising a Mistress event
with something related to the prison service. His
eyes lit up - I was talking to the right man! Prisons
– few (if any) people in the UK know more about
prisons than Geoff! He had spent 27 years working
in over 100 prisons in England and Wales and is
a former governor of HMP Belmarsh (the highest
security prison in the UK), Cardiff Prison and Drake
Hall Women’s Prison. He assured me he would be
delighted to give a talk to a group of Mistresses and
Consorts.
I couldn’t believe my luck. With my speaker settled
I then needed to organise a venue. I’d heard about
The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton. The meals are
all cooked and served by prisoners working towards
their City and Guilds NVQs in Food and Beverage
Service, Professional Cookery and Food Hygiene.
Having spoken to the people there and seen their
lovely afternoon tea menu, I decided this was the
right place.
On a freezing February morning this year, around 30
friends from our Livery company and 40 Mistresses
and Consorts from other Livery Companies joined
Andrew and me at The Clink Restaurant in Brixton
for my Mistress Event.
The security was what you would expect on entering
a high security establishment and no, we couldn’t
22