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