Zoom meeting

Following on from Malcolm Lorimer’s talk on Crime and the Clergy, Michael gave us his experience of working in Strangeways Prison in Manchester.

Between 1973 and1975, Michael was studying at Manchester University and was invited to join the Student Chaplaincy Team, who visited Strangeways Prison, the team consisted of Anglicans, Methodists, Catholics, Imans and Rabbis. They would go to the prison on Wednesday Lunchtimes and they had a pass to get in and were met by a trustee prisoner, who would take individual members of the team to meet new inmates or prisoners in the Hospital Wing, where they would shake hands with the prisoner as they would with any normal human being and discuss any problems which the prisoner might have.

The overriding atmosphere in the prison was the smell of urine, particularly in the Punishment Block, which was downstairs in the Dungeon, where often the inmates were on hunger strike and lived amongst rotting food.

There was a mixture of crimes committed from Murder, Petty Crimes, Embezzlement and Sexual offenders, although the latter were later moved to separate institutions.

He also took a Sunday Morning Service, which was always a popular event as it enabled the inmates to get together as group rather than being couped up in their cells. Also there was a study group, which met on Thursday evenings, again this was popular, with about 30 inmates attending, again they mostly wanted to get away from the boredom of their cells.

 Michael stated that the Sit Com ‘Porridge’ was very true to life in the Prison.

In April 1990, there was a Riot, which started in the Chapel and lasted for several weeks, causing a great deal of damage to the building, which necessitated rebuilding large areas of the buildings.

Tony Webb proposed a vote of thanks to Michael and members responded accordingly.