Diary – 18 June 2015

Off to prison to visit a writer friend, first jailed led some years ago for trying to find a hit man to kill his mother’s toy boy. My friend had no objection to his mother having boyfriends per se, but what irked him was that she’d left the toy boy her house. After good behaviour, my friend was released on the condition that he would not leave the UK. But he did, phoning every so often from unexpected places such as Lake Geneva and Chartres. A court meanwhile had awarded him the house, so the hit man had been unnecessary. Last year, re-entering the UK by plane, my friend was met by police and taken away in handcuffs. Thanks to the Howard League for Penal Reform and English PEN, the ban on prisoners receiving books is over, so at least he can read.

When I arrive at the prison, my friend is waiting for me in a red prisoner’s over-vest, and he seems perky. I buy him a Galaxy bar from the café at the edge of the room and encourage him, now that he has time, to write. He will, he says, but only when he finds out the true identity of his mother’s toy boy and how the interloper wheedled his way into his mother’s life. I make a note to buy him some books. Crime and Punishment, perhaps?

My son Nicholas, 31, who has Asperger’s syndrome, often defends the vilified. At a special school, when aged seven and asked by the teacher: ‘Was Henry VIII a good man?’ he replied: ‘Yes.’ She was annoyed. He told me later: ‘I had the right to say that.’ Other baddies he’s championed are the vengeful woman in the film Fatal Attraction, and Jimmy Savile, who he feels sure must have done at least one good thing.