#peterhead prison

[whereskatieandgrady]

Peterhead Prison

[aimeedaisies]

The Princess Royals Official Engagements in April 2025

01/04 Received Lieutenant General Richard Cripwell (Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Bailiwick of Guernsey). 🇬🇬

02/04 As Patron of Farms for City Children, visited Lower Treginnis Farm in St David’s, Haverfordwest. 🧑‍🌾

03/04 As President of Racing Welfare, attended the Charity Luncheon at Aintree Racecourse. 🐎

04/04 As Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Medical Service, held a Meeting via video link with Major General Scott Malcolm (Surgeon General). 🇨🇦🩺

07/04 As President of the UK Fashion and Textile Association, visited Toray Textiles Europe Limited in Mansfield. 🧵

As Patron of the Eric Liddell Community, opened an Exhibition at 15 Morningside Road in Edinburgh.🥇

As Patron of the Haig Housing Trust, visited Veterans Housing in Edinburgh. 🏡

08/04 Visited Aden Country Park in Peterhead. 🌲

Visited MACBI Community Hub in Peterhead. 🤝

Visited Peterhead Prison Museum. ⛓️

As President of World Horse Welfare, visited a Rescue and Rehoming Centre and attended a Reception at Belwade Farm, Aboyne, Aberdeenshire. 🐴

09/04 Visited Three Kings Cullen Association at the Cullen Community and Residential Centre in Cullen, Buckie. 🤝🐴

Visited Cullen, Deskford and Portknockie Heritage Group at 11 the Square in Cullen. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Visited Gray Composting Services in Banff. ♻️

Visited Banffshire Partnership Limited at the Boyndie Visitor Centre. 🤝

10/04 Opened BAE Systems Naval Ships’ Applied Shipbuilding Academy in Scotstoun. ⚓️

As Patron of Sense Scotland, afterwards visited TouchBase Glasgow. 🧡💜

As Patron of the Friends of TS Queen Mary, attended a Reception at the Glasgow Science Centre. 🛥️

Visited the Traumatic Brain Injury Unit at the Briar Centre in Stonehouse. 🧠🤕

As Patron of Columba 1400, held a Twenty Fifth Anniversary Dinner at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. 🍽️

11/04 As Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, officially opened Edinburgh Futures Institute. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🎓

Opened Nautilus Welfare Fund’s Nautilus House in Wallasey. 🏡

14/04 As Guardian of Give Them A Sporting Chance, held a Management Team Meeting. ⚽️

As Guardian of the Chaffinch Trust, held a Management Team Meeting. 💼

15/04 As President of the Royal Yachting Association, attended the Youth National Championships at Plas Heli Cyf in Pwllheli.

As President of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences, held a Dinner at Windsor Castle for the Commonwealth Study Conferences Canada’s As President’s Council and the Caribbean-Canada Leaders’ Dialogue. 🇨🇦🏝️

16/04 On behalf of The King, held an Investitures at Windsor Castle. 🎖️

22/04 As Former President of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers, presented the Princess Royal Award and the Royal Dairy Innovation Award. 🥛🐄

24/04 With Sir Tim Attended the Commemoration Service of Turkey at Çanakkale Martyrs’ Memorial, Gallipoli. 🇹🇷

With Sir Tim Attended the Commemoration Service of France at Morto Bay Cemetery, Gallipoli. 🇫🇷

With Sir Tim As President of Commonwealth War Graves Commission, afterwards visited the Seddel-Bahr Military Grave of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Doughty-Wylie at Seddulbahir, Gallipoli. 🪦

With Sir Tim Attended the Commemoration Service of the United Kingdom, Commonwealth and Ireland at Helles Memorial, Gallipoli. 🇬🇧🌍🇮🇪

With Sir Tim Visited Seddülbahir Castle, Gallipoli. 🏰

With Sir Tim Attended a Commanders’ Reception at the Kolin Hotel, Çanakkale, given by His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey (Her Excellency Ms Jill Morris). 🥂

25/04 With Sir Tim Attended a “Spirit of Place” Ceremony and Dawn Memorial Service at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli. 🌅

With Sir Tim Attended a Reception at the Bengodi Hotel, Eceabat, Gallipoli Peninsula, given by the Australian Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey (His Excellency Mr Miles Armitage) and the New Zealand Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey (His Excellency Mr Gregory Lewis). 🇹🇷🥂

With Sir Tim Received the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia (Her Excellency the Hon Samantha Mostyn) and Mr Simeon Beckett at the Bengodi Hotel. 🇦🇺

With Sir Tim Received the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon MP (Prime Minister of New Zealand) and Mr Mark Talbot (Senior Foreign Political Advisor) at the Bengodi Hotel. 🇳🇿

With Sir Tim Attended the Australian National Service at Lone Pine Cemetery, Gallipoli. 🇦🇺

With Sir Tim Visited Walker’s Ridge Cemetery, Gallipoli. 🇦🇺

With Sir Tim Attended the New Zealand Memorial Service at Chunuk Bair Cemetery, Gallipoli. 🇳🇿

28/04 As Patron of Sense, attended the Charity’s Seventieth Anniversary at Sense Touchbase Pears in Selly Oak, Birmingham. 💜🧡

As Chancellor of the University of London, attended a Graduation Ceremony at the Barbican Centre. 🎓

29/04 Visited Youth Court Solutions Service operating from Wellingborough Magistrates Court. ⚖️

As Patron of the Horse Trust, visited the Weigh to Win Programme at Slad Lane in Princes Risborough. 🐎

As Patron of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, held a Centenary Reception at Buckingham Palace. 🦋🐾🐍

As Patron of the Forces Employment Charity held a Dinner at St James’s Palace to mark the One Hundred and Fortieth Anniversary of the Charity. 🫡💼

30/04 As Patron of the English Rural Housing Association, Attended a Housing Conference at The Queen Elizabeth II Centre. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏡

As President of the City and Guilds of London Institute, attended the Tenth Anniversary of the Princess Royal Training Awards at Goldsmiths’ Hall. 🏆

As Royal Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, attended a Reception at 41 Portland Place. 🩺🏥

With Sir Tim As Patron of the Whitley Fund for Nature, attended the Annual Awards Ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society. 🦋🧡

Total official engagements for Anne in April: 52

2025 total: 149

Total official engagements accompanied/represented by Tim in April: 14

2025 total: 18

[scotianostra]

Johnny Ramensky, the Scottish safe cracker was born on April 6th 1905 in Glenboig, Lanarkshire.

Born Jonas Ramanauckas, the son of Lithuanian immigrant parents, this is the type of story that would make a great film, so settle down to enjoy the life of the man who became known as John Ramsay, Gentleman Johnny, and Gentle Johnny

His father was a miner who died when Johnny was young and the young Ramensky also became a miner. It was while he was down the pit that he learned his skills with dynamite which were to prove so useful to him in later years.

Johnny drifted in and out of trouble from the age of eleven and moved to the Gorbals area of Glasgow during the Depression with his mother and two sisters. He developed an amazing physical strength and acrobatic ability but in order to obtain some money, he became a burglar, specializing in robberies involving climbing up external rone-pipes to gain entry to premises. He also developed skills in picking locks and safe-cracking with explosives.

While his activities were criminal, he had his own code of conduct and raided business premises rather than people's homes. And when he was caught, he never resisted arrest. His philosophy seemed to be "if you are caught, you are caught - it's all part of the job".

His life of detention began at age 18 when he was given a term in Borstal but later he served various terms in both Barlinnie and Peterhead Prisons. He eventually spent more time behind bars than outside. It's often easy to sentimentalise and sugar-coat the past, there was something about him which meant that even the police who snared him and the courts which he frequented as regularly as others visit their local supermarket, regarded him as somebody who was more interested in eluding an alarm and breaking a code than becoming rich from his forays.

Johnny was married during one of his spells out of prison and the couple had a baby daughter. But in 1934, while he was serving a sentence in Peterhead, he was told that his young wife was dead. He was refused permission to attend the funeral and Johnny's sense of justice was outraged. So he made the first of many escapes from the prison.

In 1942, he was serving yet another jail sentence in Peterhead Prison. The army offered to give him special commando training and Johnny accepted. After all, it meant he was out of prison, earning a wage - and fighting for his country. Part of a crack commando unit, he was dropped behind enemy lines and used his skills with both explosives and burglary to good effect, stealing important German documents.

During the war in Italy, he entered Rome with the first troops to reach the city and blew open the safes in 14 foreign embassies - all in one day!

For his commando service and dangerous exploits, he was awarded the Military Medal and given a free pardon at the end of the war. But not longer after his return to Glasgow he was back to his life of burglary and was caught and jailed again.

In November 1955 he was sentenced to 10 years’ "preventive detention" at Peterhead Prison, which should have given him a few privileges. But he found there were none. He served over two years with exemplary conduct and still there was no move to the better conditions of "preventive detention". So Johnny responded in the only way he knew how - he escaped. Of course, he was later recaptured but he was at least given an opportunity to put his case to the prison authorities - which achieved nothing. Johnny escaped (and was recaptured) from Peterhead (Scotland's strongest jail) no less than five times including three times in 1958. Sometimes the prison warders didn't know whether he was inside or outside the prison. His fifth escape evoked wide-spread sympathy amongst the public which was illustrated by a song "The Ballad of Johnny Ramensky" by Norman Buchan (a Member of Parliament), which was printed in the Scotsman newspaper, and another musical tribute, Let Ramensky Go, was penned by none other than Roddy McMillan, the star of Para Handy.

Not long after starting a prison sentence in Barlinnie in Glasgow, Johnny was in the exercise yard and suddenly threw off his boots and shot up the wall, using cracks in the mortar as toe-holds. He reached a roof - but could get no further. Equally, the warders couldn't get him down - and Johnny was demanding to see the Chief of the Prisons Department! Attempts to reach the roof were met by a barrage of roof slates - watched by a growing audience outside the prison walls. He stayed out on the roof for five hours, eventually coming down when it started to get cold.

In 1962 Detective Superintendent Robert Colquhoun (retired), said "Like most policemen who have come in contact with Ramensky, I find him an engaging character, the kind of man who, applying his brain to another, more acceptable, type of occupation, could probably have made good." Before he had retired, DS Colquhoun received a message from Johnny (who was once more in prison). He had heard that the policeman was seriously ill. The message contained his good wishes for his speedy recovery, plus the advice that he’d been taking too much out of himself chasing Johnny around! As he grew older and the escapes continued one question was being asked: Why does he keep on doing it, at his age and in his state of health? A police officer who knew him well said

"Johnny never expects to get far when he breaks out now ... he's just got to do it to prove that he still can."

Johnny remarried and started a second family during his all too short periods out of prison but persisted in his life of crime into his old age - by which time his abilities as a cat burglar were beginning to fail him. In 1972 he collapsed in Perth Prison and died shortly after in hospital. In addition to his family, the many people who attended his funeral came from both the law enforcement and the law breaking sides of society. Whatever his faults, Johnny Ramensky was respected by them all. His obituary appeared in every Scottish national newspaper.

That's not the end of Johnny Gently though, he lives on at Peterhead Prison, now a museum where Ramensky served so many years behind bars, has created a exhibition space which highlights different aspects of his career.

[dogma-kingslayer]

What do I believe captain Price would be like as a leader?

I’ve done this before for König, I’m just struggling with a few things and sorting out flight school stuff and work, if there’s anyone else you all want to know about, ask!

-price is a man of planning, before missions he plans everything out to the smallest details. That’s not a thing unique to him, that’s an SAS thing (if you have not seen SAS preparing an assault on a building, look it up.). He likes to run through missions and positions with his soldiers, they should know the plan off by heart once it gets to the real thing

-he likes to see his trainees succeed, he’s a caring man. While training he is harsh and tough, but he does have the best intentions. SpecOps is difficult, and he likes to see people actually improve. Sure, he’d be tough in sparring, but best believe that man would give you a canteen and ask “y’good?”

- going on the last point, he’s an approachable man. Doesn’t matter what he’s doing, if one of the recruits is struggling, or one of the enlisted soldiers or an officer wants to ask him something, he’ll gladly assist. Ask him for help while learning something? “Sure, kiddo, what d’ya need help with?”

-but when someone’s fucked up, god it’s known. The way he spoke to shepherd? He’s got a quiet anger. It’s scary.

-he’s also fatherly to some of the soldiers, considering how he spoke to Soap, especially in the original game, and Gaz in the reboot? It’s not intentional (at least I believe) but he does turn into a father figure. He’s no softie, but he does genuinely care for the soldiers below him (not sure for the ones above him, minus MacMillan… he did threaten a general and a colonel.)

-onto how he talks to his soldiers, he likes to joke around and do banter, the all ghillied up mission in the reboot just shows that, he was bantering with Gaz (as a brit I love good ol’ British banter)

-price does genuinely look after his soldiers, his tactics and battle plans aim to minimise casualties. Another SAS thing, compare the peterhead prison riot to the Iranian embassy siege, in Peterhead they used different things (trainers over boots, batons) than the embassy (full black kit). If Price believes one thing would be better to have than another, he’d have his soldiers use that

In conclusion

Price is a man who cares deeply for his soldiers below him, he wants them to stay safe in battle and in the base, and is always willing to help someone improve their own skills, he really is a true leader

[thepastisalreadywritten]

22 May 2025

Hiding her true identity behind more than 40 aliases, con artist Annie Gordon Baillie made a living swindling shopkeepers across Victorian Britain.

But in the 1880s, the Scottish fraudster took her criminal activities to a new level.

She arrived on Skye during the Crofters' War, a violent clash between tenant farmers and landowners over land rights.

Posing as an aristocratic novelist, she saw an opportunity to make a fortune by convincing 1,000 islanders to relocate to a patch of Australian swamp.

Annie's story is told in a new series of BBC Radio 4's Lady Swindlers with Lucy Worsley.

The episode draws on newspaper articles, court reports, and a book called The Adventures of a Victorian Con Woman: The Life and Crimes of Mrs Gordon Baillie by Mick Davis and David Lassman.

Annie was born into poverty in Peterhead, a fishing port in Aberdeenshire, in February 1848.

By her 20s, she was defrauding shopkeepers and running up credit for goods she had no intention of paying for.

In the 1870s, Annie became more ambitious and set up a fake charity to establish a Protestant school for girls in Rome, a heartland of the Catholic faith.

Donations poured in but the school was never built.

"The law catches up with her briefly in 1872 and she spends nine months in prison for fraud," said historian Worsley.

Following her release from prison, Annie had a whirlwind few years.

She married an opera singer and the couple had three children. The family spent some time in New York.

But in November 1884, she turned up on the Isle of Skye "wearing fancy clothes and jewels," according to Worsley.

"She passes herself off as a wealthy literary lady, who is writing a novel about the plight of the crofters of Skye," she added.

Skye, along with other west coast island communities, was in the grip of the Crofters' War.

Waged throughout much of the 1800s, it was a dispute between landowners and communities of tenant farmers distressed by high rents, their lack of rights to land, and eviction threats to make way for large-scale farming operations.

The process of moving families out of inland areas where they had raised cattle for generations to coastal fringes of large estates, or abroad to territories in Canada, had started with the Highland Clearances in the 18th and early 19th Centuries.

Both the clearances and the Crofters' War were marked by violent clashes between people facing eviction and landowners and the authorities.

One of the bloodiest incidents was the Battle of the Braes on Skye in 1882.

After being attacked with stones by a crowd of men and women, about 50 police officers from Glasgow baton-charged the mob.

The unrest spread to Glendale in Skye, and in 1883, the frustrated authorities called for military intervention to help round up the ring-leaders.

In early 1883, the iron-hulled Royal Navy gunboat Jackal appeared in Loch Pooltiel, off Glendale.

Marines disembarked from the Jackal and landed at Glendale's Meanish Pier to help police in making arrests.

Newspapers sent reporters to cover the dispute's twists and turns, so Annie was well versed on the "war" and any opportunity to benefit for it.

Philanthropy was all the rage among wealthy Victorians, and Annie tapped into that.

Posing as a "lady novelist," she told Skye's crofters she would fundraise for their cause.

Annie did an interview on her "charity work" with the Aberdeen Evening News, turning up at a hotel in Portree in a striking crimson dressing gown and fingers adorned with jewelled rings.

Scottish historical and crime writer Denise Mina said the disguise distracted people from what Annie was really up to.

"She had a great eye for an emotive cause," Mina said.

"Physically, how would I describe her? She's very pretty, very petite and always well turned out."

But Mina added: "She is taking money from crofters who are just about to go to war because they have been run off their land and burned out of their homes."

"She is going to raise money and leg it with the dosh. It is quite spiteful what she is doing, but it is all wrapped up in this lady façade."

Annie's scam took a bizarre turn when she suggested the islanders quit Skye and emigrate to Australia.

She even travelled out to Australia to negotiate a deal for land as a new home.

In Melbourne, she was shown an unwanted area of marshy ground.

Annie said 1,000 crofters could relocate there, and give up farming and become fishermen instead.

But Mina said: "The whole point is the crofters don't want to leave - that's the whole dispute."

The deal collapsed and Annie returned to London where more trouble awaited her.

Publicity around her scheme had caught the attention of a Scotland Yard detective - Det Insp Henry Marshall - who had long been on the trail of Annie and her shopkeeper frauds across London.

She was arrested in 1888, leaving crofters on Skye still waiting for their "golden ticket" to a new life in Australia.

Annie was later jailed for five years for swindling the shopkeepers.

The money involved in the frauds was believed to be far less than the true amount of Annie's ill-gotten gains over the years.

After her release, she was soon back in jail — this time for stealing paintings.

Once released from prison, she emigrated to New York where in 1902 there is a record of her being placed in a workhouse as punishment for vagrancy.

And then she vanishes without a trace.

Lady Swindlers' in-house historian, Prof Rosalind Crone, said Annie's story exposed the "dark side" of charitable giving in Victorian times.

"It wasn't always about helping the unfortunate or supporting worthwhile causes," she added.

For crofters, the war led to a public inquiry and eventually legislation that protected their land rights — and hopefully any chance of ever being scammed by phoney lady novelists again.

[trade-wind]

Whitehills to Peterhead

Friday 26th July 2024

We were up early to make sure there was enough water to get out of this 'cosy' harbour! Off at 06.30 in sunshine and calm waters past an enormous colony of gannets feeding all around us before going round Rattray Head and in to Peterhead at midday. The marina manager had abandoned his mobile so there was a bit of gilling around in the harbour before going in (also quite shallow!). Berthed below the prison with several oil platform supply ships in the harbour. An interesting place...

[real-total-drama-takes]

Prisons

Background

● The Scottish Prison Service is in charge of all of Scotland’s prisons and Young Offender Institutes

● Some of the most famous prisons in Scotland include:

○ HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow

○ HMP Edinburgh (also known as Saughton)

○ HMPShotts

○ Polmont Young Offender Institute

● The prison population of Scotland is currently (as of 2022/23) 7,507 inmates, of these 5,396 were sentenced. Approximately 2,111 in custody who have not been

tried yet. There are 15 prisons in Scotland.

● The vast majority of prisoners are men (7,220) - 95% of the prison population in Scotland.

Why give someone a sentence?

A sentence is the punishment the courts decide should be given to someone who has been convicted of a crime.

The aim of sentencing is to:

• Punish the offender

• Reduce crime rates

• Reform and rehabilitate offenders • Protect the public

• Make the offender give something back to those affected by the crime. (Justice)

Custodial Sentences

Commonly referred to as a “prison sentence”.

● These involve detention – either in a prison or

young offenders institution

● Those convicted can be sentenced to anything between a few weeks to a life sentence

Sentences can be ‘suspended’. This means that if the person does not re-offend within a certain time limit, they will not have to serve the custodial sentence.

Types of Prisons

Young Offenders’ Institute

• For those aged 16-21

• If the offender reaches the age of 21

whilst still serving their sentence, they are transferred to an adult prison.

Closed prison

• High levels of security

• For those who have committed serious

offences.

• Prisoners confined to cells for the majority

of the day.

Open prison

• Lower levels of security. Prisoners not confined to cells for most of the day.

• Used to accommodate prisoners who have been deemed to have a low-risk of re-offending and a low-risk to public safety.

• Only one open prison in Scotland – HMP Castle Huntly near Dundee.

• Some prisoners may be allowed off site to attended training courses etc.

HMP/YOI Corton Vale

- Custodial services for female offenders including young offenders.

HMP/YOI Polmont

- Provides custodial sentences for male prisoners between 16-21 years old.

- Prisoners may be on remand or serving sentences of 6 months to life.

HMP Grampian

- Approx 500 prisoners

- Male, female and young offenders

- Replaced HMP Aberdeen and Peterhead in 2014.

HMP Barlinnie

- Receives prisoners from the west of Scotland.

- Retains male prisoners serving sentences of less than 4 years.

- Prisoners serving longer sentences will be moved to other prisons ( eg. Shotts).

Advantages of Prisons Disadvantages of Prisons

Advantages of Prisons

They help to rehabilitate offenders – courses are offered to improve education and employability after serving their

time

● The longer the sentence given, the more effectively prisons rehabilitate – only 17% of offenders in England and Wales who serve 10 years or more reoffend

● Prisoners are also given the chance to work – this gives them a sense of purpose and wellbeing

● They have the time to think about what they have done and reflect on mending their ways

They keep the public safe – dangerous offenders and people who are a threat to public safety should not be free to live amongst the law-abiding

For example, convicted killer Lucy Letby’s long custodial sentence (life imprisonment with a whole life order) ensured that she cannot harm anyone else.

Prison is a tough sentence and deters crime – because prison is a punishment, it puts people off from committing crimes.

For example, This may deter possible murders from taking place due to the life sentence that can be given as punishment.

Disadvantages of Prisons

High Reoffending Rates – Around 58% of prisoners who are released from prison after short term sentences commit another offence within a year

If prisoners come out of prison and reoffend, can they really be said to work?

Negative Impact on Families – Prison can cause the breaking up of marriages This can cause long term damage to the child and makes them statistically more likely to commit crime themselves.

For example, statistically children of criminals are 2.4 times more likely to commit crime

Cost to the taxpayer Alternatives to prison cost much less to the taxpayer

It’s also much harder to get a job when you have been in prison, which means that many released offenders live on benefits, costing the tax payer even more money.

For example, in 201/22, the average cost of housing each prisoner in England and Wales was £46,696

Overcrowding – Overcrowding is a major issue in Scotland's prisons.

This creates difficult conditions for prison officers and prisoners

Many people argue that minor offenders should be given alternative sentences to avoid this problem getting out of control.

For example, Barlinnie is operating at 20% above its intended capacity

“Universities of Crime” - when a minor offender is imprisoned, they will mix with much more hardened criminals

This can lead to them learning how to commit worse crimes, so instead of being rehabilitated, they actually become more hardened criminals themselves on release

- nat5 mods anon

.

[bradenton171]

THE SAS | 1987 PETERHEAD PRISON RAID | EPIC SPECIAL FORCES MISSION

[jason-1971]

HMP Peterhead was a prison in the town of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, operating from 1888 to 2013. Since June 2016 the former grounds operate as the Peterhead Prison Museum. 

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“There are indications that the regimes in Scottish prisons were harsher than those in English prisons in the first half of the twentieth century. At Peterhead prison prisoners are not recorded as behaving unusually violently, in fact less so than elsewhere, yet the punitive style of the warden's job was emphasized by the carrying of cutlasses before 1939 [!], the carrying ofrifles until 1959 and by the use of the whip well into the 1940s' (Independent Committee of Inquiry, 1987, p. 25). The Scottish Office Prison Report for 1946 notes a food riot at Peterhead prison. In 1955, prisoners went on hunger strike. In 1959, the protest by prisoners about a shooting incident was followed by the decision to end the policy of staff carrying firearms (ibid., p. 24). As in England and Wales, the postwar trajectory of policies in Scotland affecting the regimes of prisons was determined by government responses to the perceived problems of housing long-term prisoners. Following Radzinowicz's rebuttal of Mountbatten's recommendation of concentration, the dispersal system was established by 1970. In Scotland, a new system of classification of prisoners, introduced on 1 July 1966, was seen as the means of locating prisoners in appropriate institutional regimes. Classification, applying to male prisoners only, had operated for more than a century, to identify two types of prisoner: 'the majority, who recognize the legitimacy of the system, and the deviant, subversive minority, who manipulate the first group to further their own ends' (ibid., p. 26). The post-Mountbatten refinement of classification in Scotland involved, first, dividing prisoners according to their security risk, A being the highest risk and D being the lowest risk. Second, prisoners were classified according to age and 'aptitude for training'. Those who seemed to oppose imprisonment could be placed either in the segregation unit at Inverness Prison or in the solitary confinement unit at Peterhead Prison. By labelling a minority of the prisoner population as potentially disruptive, classification intensified the problems of control that the system was partly intended to solve. The effect was compounded by the reduction of the quality of life of prisoners experiencing segregation and isolation in Inverness and Peterhead. Predictably, 'in the 6 years between 1966 and 1972 there were a series of confrontations at both Peterhead and Inverness. Conflict was endemic in both institutions' (ibid., p. 28). This culminated ip the riot in Inverness in December 1972, during which several prisoners and officers were injured. This contributed to the plans of the Scottish Office to develop a new Special Unit at Barlinnie, the Glasgow prison, with a more positive regime. Riots in Scottish prisons, 1975-87 The series of major confrontations between prisoners and the authorities which occurred at a number of Scottish prisons between December 1985 and January 1987 have been described as 'the worst and most violent confrontations in recent penal history' (Independent Committee of Inquiry, 1987, p. 37).

Low Moss Prison experienced disturbances in December 1985; there were rooftop protests at Saughton and Barlinnie in June and July 1986 and again in Perth and Barlinnie in January 1987. A 'dirty protest' took place in the segregation unit of Inverness Prison in November 1986 and, in March 1987 when prison officers were taking industrial action at poor conditions and overcrowding, a hunger strike at Barlinnie involving 300 prisoners (ibid., p. 11). The disturbances at Peterhead between Sunday 9 November and Friday 14 November 1986, which culminated in a rooftop protest, were the largest in scale of these incidents. The independent committee of inquiry recalled that statistics from the Council of Europe showed Scotland's rate of commital in December 1986 as higher per 100, 000 than any other member state and for 1986 as a whole, second only to Northern Ireland (ibid., p. 103). There was an increase of 50 per cent between 1984 and 1985 in the number of adults sentenced to three years or more and by 1985 27 per cent of the prison population was serving sentences of more than three years (ibid., p. 104). Nearly a decade earlier, conditions in Peterhead, built in 1888 and for two decades Scotland's only maximum security prison, had been described as extreme. It was situated on a bleak part of the north-east coast of Scotland, thirty miles north of Aberdeen. Protests against conditions were repeated through the period. In May 1975, five prisoners went on hunger strike and in 1977 more than eighty prisoners twice refused food. In October 1978, seven prisoners barricaded themselves in for 24 hours. In August 1979, ten prisoners took to the roof in a four-day protest at the news that legal aid had been refused to prisoners wishing to petition the European Court of Human Rights over conditions (ibid., pp. 31-2). In the late 1970s, A Hall housed the category 'A' and long-term prisoners, where there was 'no fixed sanitation, no separate recreation, no separate dining facilities, so that it is possible for a man doing 20 years to spend the whole of his sentence, apart from his working hours, within the confines of the hall. The cells are cold, badly lit and badly ventilated' (Anon., 1978-9, p. 10). The general response of the prison authorities and the Scottish Office to these protests was to punish the prisoners and ignore their grievances (ibid., p. 32). On 5 May 1982, a riot followed allegations by prisoners of staff brutality (ibid., p. 35). A significant disturbance in October 1983 in which fifteen officers were injured was followed by the major eighteen-hour riot of January 1984, which ended when officers in riot gear attacked the barricades (ibid., p. 35). Tension remained high in the prison throughout 1984 and 1985. A month after the Scottish Office Industry and Home Affairs Minister had visited Peterhead Prison in October 1986 and stated that conditions were 'extremely good', riots occurred there and in several other Scottish prisons. At Peterhead on that occasion, the riot lasted four days (ibid., p. 37).

After the Peterhead incidents, the official announcement of an inquiry by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons was followed by demands for an independent inquiry, among others from local Members of Parliament, the Scottish Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (SACRO), the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties (SCCL), the Scottish Churches Council and, significantly, the Scottish Prison Officers' Association (SPOA). A public meeting was called on 4 December 1986 at the Gateway Exchange in Edinburgh, representing prisoners and their families as well as the above interests, which decided unanimously to set up an independent committee ofinquiry. The case for an independent inquiry was argued forcefully in the subsequent report of the Independent Committee of Inquiry, on the grounds that official inquiries 'are often inadequate in developing a full, comprehensive and impartial investigation of events and issues' and often tend to be "'views from above" rather than ''views from below". This is particularly evident in those inquiries into penal establishments and their regimes. Prisoners are rarely, if ever, provided with an opportunity to put a case from within the prisons' (Independent Committee of Inquiry, 1987, p. 13).

The independent committee of inquiry recommended the closure of Peterhead and the reduction in the use and length of prison sentences (ibid., p. 104). It concluded that in Peterhead 'the treatment of long-term prisoners is lacking in direction. In short there is a policy vacuum. The regime itself is hard, brutal and lacking in compassion. Prisoners and staff alike are entrenched in a prison culture incomprehensible to outsiders' (ibid., p. 101): 

It is a matter of grave concern that 71% of the respondents to the questionnaire issued to prisoners stated that they have experienced brutality by prison staffand 62% stated that they have witnessed acts of brutality. Prison officers carry out such acts in circumstances (e.g. solitary confinement cells or isolated corridors) which make allegations difficult to substantiate. This, combined with the lack of proper and effective complaints procedure, makes it virtually impossible for prisoners to seek redress ... Symbolically, Peterhead stands in the minds of staff, prisoners and the public alike for confrontation, boredom, despair and violence. (Ibid., pp. 101-2)

The independent inquiry deplored the plans of the Prison Department to move the Barlinnie Special Unit from its Glasgow prison base, with its reputation for dealing with long-term prisoners in a relatively humane way, the philosophy of which 'stands in direct contrast to the current thrust of penal policy which is dominated by security, control, segregation and isolation' (ibid., p. 101). The concentration of long-term prisoners in a single site 'creates penal apartheid in Scotland's prisons by once more establishing a dustbin prison in which those regarded as difficult can be isolated, segregated and brutalized' (ibid.).” - Robert Adams, Prison Riots in Britain and the United States. Second Edition. Consultant Editor: Jo Campling. London: MacMillan, 1994. pp. 137-140.

[p-retty-hurts]

HM Prison Peterhead, Scotland

[dannyboy2611]

A post about one of WW2 unsung heroes, Johnny Ramensky

[scotianostra]

On May 25th 1909 Oscar Slater was found guilty of murdering Marion Gilchrist in Glasgow.

In December 1908 83-year-old spinster Marion Gilchrist was beaten to death in a robbery in West Princes Street. The robber was disturbed when her maid returned and fled with just a brooch, although there was jewellery worth £3000 - £280,000 today – hidden in her wardrobe.

Slater left for New York five days later but earlier had allegedly tried to sell a pawn ticket for a brooch. Because of this – or because he was the most convenient suspect – police applied for Slater’s extradition. And although Slater was told that this application would almost certainly fail, he voluntarily returned to Glasgow.

At his trial, defence witnesses provided Slater with an alibi and confirmed that he had announced his visit to America long before the murder. Despite this he was convicted by a majority of nine to six (five not proven and one not guilty) and in May 1909 was sentenced to death. Scottish juries have fifteen, rather than the 12 in lots of other countries.

However, his lawyers organised a petition, signed by 20,000 people, and the Scottish secretary was forced by public opinion to issue a conditional pardon, commuting the sentence to life imprisonment.

He served 19 years in Peterhead prison.

Most who have looked at the case believe in Slater’s innocence, including a subject of a recent post, Arthur Conan Doyle who, in 1912, published The Case of Oscar Slater and argued for a full pardon. To no avail.

In 1927 a book by William Park led the Solicitor General, a year later, to quash the conviction on the ground that the judge had not directed the jury about the irrelevance of Slater’s previous character.

Oscar received £6,000 (£300,000+ today) in compensation. He died in 1948.

Although not cleared of the murder many eminent people through the years have put weight behind the theory that this was a miscarriage of justice.

The last photo is Oscar walking free at Westminster London.

There is avery detailed account of the case here https://randomscottishhistory.com/2022/10/03/oscar-slater-verdict-aftermath-podcast/

[farieshades]

A short stop in Peterhead to visit the prison museum. Great experience, 8/10

[reekierevelator]

The Time Has Come

John Maclean (1879 – 1923) reviews his life as he prepares to address the horde of a hundred thousand people which has gathered on Glasgow Green to hear him speak after his release from Peterhead Prison.

��           So here I am again.  Back on the speakers’ platform; fingers twitching and mind racing.

In a few minutes I’m expected to give a rabble-rousing speech to the thousands upon thousands of people staring up at me, despite the fact that until yesterday I was languishing in the sewer called Peterhead Jail, despite the fact I’d been on hunger strike for eight months.  But I’ll manage it.  I will do it, just as I did it after prison the last time, 1916. For even now that the war is over there are still too many who don’t understand, who aren’t yet class conscious, who can’t see through the fog of capitalism. I will do it because however weak I am today, I am no longer being force-fed twice daily through rubber tubes.

I can hardly believe it’s only 1919.  The trial seems such a long time ago.  But it was really only a year ago.  I was fit and robust then.  I conducted my own defence.  I spoke from the dock for an hour and a half, logically rebutting in turn each of the trumped up charges they laid against me. Defence of the Realm Act indeed. Then as now I said I wished no harm to any human being; that all my actions were entirely humanitarian in nature.  But they insisted I was a threat to society, that I should be keen to kill my fellow workers in other countries, that I should be more patriotic. Patriotism - the last refuge of those scoundrels; Dr Johnson was right.  And maybe it’s true that I did try to undermine their war effort, their drive to slaughter millions. I tried, just as my friends Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg did in Germany.  I was convicted of sedition, of trying to bring down the state, and sentenced to five years in the Peterhead hellhole. But now that the war has ended, I’m not such a threat, and in response to public clamour they set me free.     

 Was it all worth it?  I suppose I should be grateful to have avoided the fate of my Edinburgh friend. James wanted to bring trade unionism and socialism to another part of the United Kingdom, the Ireland of his father and forefathers. Connolly was brought up among those Irish immigrants crammed into the caves under the arches of the city’s South Bridge. After fighting for workers’ rights against the Dublin lock-out he founded his Citizens’ Army. And in 1916, for his trouble, he ended up severely wounded, dragged up against a wall in Dublin Castle, and shot dead by soldiers. But I’m sure this country will find that’s not the end of the Irish story. Maybe that’s something Maybe that’s what I should tell them.

I still have my friends in Glasgow - Jimmy Maxton, Guy Aldred, and Willie Gallacher Jimmy’s the clever one.  One day someone will probably write a doctoral thesis on Maxton’s thinking and end up as Prime Minister.  And Guy, like me, he’s seen his fair share of courtrooms.  America saw its way to amend its constitution with a Bill of Rights in 1791. But poor old Britain had to wait for Guy to be repeatedly arrested on this very Glasgow Green, for making speeches and gathering crowds, before the courts eventually agreed that public free speech, public meetings, and public processions really ought to be part of everyone’s civil liberties.  And Willie, he’s seen the inside of prisons too, Willie still guides the unions, leading the Shop Stewards Movement on the Clyde. But he’s left his syndicalism behind, thrown in his lot with Lenin and Trotsky and founded the Communist Party of Great Britain.  One of these days I can see him in Parliament, a Communist MP.

Looking at this huge crowd of people eagerly waiting to hear me speak I know many campaigned relentlessly for my release from prison.  And now they expect a victorious call to arms, a vibrant, revolutionary speech, all fire and brimstone. They want to greet a Scottish Lenin at the Central Station rather than the Finland Station. But the prison regime has exhausted me and destroyed my body.  And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t known hardship before, growing up in the poverty in Pollockshaws where my Gaelic speaking parents had landed up after being forced off their Highland land.  In school they called me a lad o’ pairts, a clever wee boy. The Free Kirk arranged for me to be trained as a teacher.  And after that I went on to Glasgow University and took my MA in Economics. But it was the terrible housing, poverty, and illness I saw all around me that drove me to a proper understanding of economics from a socialist perspective. It’s seventy years since Engels, in Manchester but writing in German, found himself forced to describe the awful condition of the working class. And fifty since Marx wrote about the Highland Clearances.  Yet sometimes it’s hard to see that very much has changed.

Of course, when I started to speak in public about the need for reform, the need to redress the terrible ills of society, I was sacked from my teaching job. Then they barred me from teaching in schools altogether.  Nothing daunted, I founded the Scottish Labour College to teach people about socialist economics. I espoused the co-operative movement. I got the Renfrewshire Co-op to push local school boards into providing facilities for adult education, economics education. During the war I did what I could to support Mary Barbour and the women’s fight against the rent increases, imposed by absentee landlords while their conscripted husbands were away fighting in France.  Aye, one of these days they’ll put up a statue to that wonderful woman.

And now Willie Gallacher and the Clydeside workers have decided they have to strike again. Trying to reduce working hours to a forty hour week.  And it’s not that they want the same pay for fewer hours. They’ll take a bit less pay.  All they want is to make some room in the yards to give jobs to all the unemployed demobbed soldiers. But in Parliament they fear an uprising, a Glasgow Soviet, a Soviet Scotland. Churchill’s tanks are even now being marshalled in the Gallowgate. Thousands of English troops are arriving by train. Meanwhile, the Scottish troops are confined to barracks in Maryhill.  And if Willie speaks to them at Maryhill he knows the troops will come out for him. Revolution is in the air.  But I’ve told him, that kind of battle – workers in khaki killing other workers in khaki – that’s not for me, not what I want to see. If there are to be tanks on Sauchiehall Street they must be faced down without bloodshed. But can I convince this heaving crowd of that?

Like me, most of the people here couldn’t see what the so-called ‘war to end wars’ was all about, why everyone had to starve or die because of it.  Just one imperial power slaughtering the workers of another imperial power as they tried to gain a bigger slice of the cake, the wealth of the exploited colonies, for the benefit of their own capitalist classes.

The Russian workers couldn’t understand it either.  We all cheered when they abandoned the war in 1917 and overthrew their government.  I well remember chairing the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets.  And then Lenin appointed me Bolshevik Consul in Scotland.  I hear they’ve even named a street after me in St Petersburg, or Leningrad as they’re calling it nowadays.  There’s even been talk of carving my name on the Kremlin’s walls. But what do those things matter – his ribbon, star, and a’ that?

I’m thirty-nine and feeling nearer ninety.  The force-feeding when I went on hunger strike in prison didn’t help. Some even say they tried to poison me. Now they tell me pneumonia is setting in – that I’ll probably be dead in a year or two.  People might remember me for a while, before I’m eclipsed by others; Scottish people better able to fight for socialism and independence, people who understand the true nature of Scotland.  If my funeral attracts as big a crowd as the one before me now it will be the biggest funeral Glasgow has ever seen.  Maybe I’ll be a footnote in some socialist history of Scotland, or someone might write a song, a poem, or a play about me.  My dear wee daughter Nan says she’ll write a book about me.  A hundred years from now will anyone read that passionate speech I made from the dock? Will that speech’s prediction – of another world war twenty years from now - prove true or false?  Will the egalitarian principles I've lived and fought for ever really be able to establish themselves in an independent Scotland?  Marx said capitalism forces companies to compete, to exploit resources and labour, and the devil take the hindmost. The losers are taken over, merged, or eliminated altogether, whatever the cost to the workers. Eventually there will be huge companies, but there won’t be many. I suspect, as Marx predicted, that companies will become global, capitalists billionaires, and the gap between rich and poor will only widen. Could an independent socialist Scotland really stand in their way?

Ach, so I lost my safe middle-class teaching career, I lost my health. I gained a prison record. Have all those things really been for nothing? - But good grief, what kind of self-serving question is that for me to be asking myself?

Oh dear, the Convener is nodding towards me now.   It’s time to get up on the old hind legs and give this multitude some eloquent words to chew over.  Maybe their reaction will provide the answer to some of the questions tickling my brain.

[noisykate]

Whitehills

17 May 2020

We are now in Whitehills, a little town facing north, above the Cairngorms. After a fast passage with both wind and tide behind us, we were met by the harbour master, who took our lines and told us all about the place, after apologising that he hadnt been able to respond to our calls over radio and phone to check that the narrow, blind entrance was clear. He is justifiably proud of this little town.

The pressure is now off, as we are within reach of Inverness, where we are to meet Barrie and Sandra on 31st May. 

Whitehills is a pretty little place with stone cottages and paved alleys, and several decent little shops selling fresh fish. 

Peterhead, by comparison, was dismal - the architecture brutally ugly, in the best tradition of joyless Scottish Puritanism, which seems to require that any embellishment, for any reason other than utility, is a sign of weakness and must be removed. The large modern prison above the town has only relatively recently replaced the Victorian prison, which is now open to the public. The Victorian building was built there to provide a workforce to build the port at Peterhead, now an important all-weather port for this part of the coast. It took several decades. Many of the smaller ports are simply untenable in strong onshore winds. Impossible to imagine the conditions inside the prison or out in the quarry, or out building the breakwaters - we are here in May, and the sun was shining. In the middle of winter, no heating....simply awful. 

Our friends Alan and Felicity on Voila! are heading south again soon, to meet their young granddaughter at Heathrow after her first flight on her own. 

We will probably stay here a day or two, then move on to the next place, probably closer in to Inverness. 

Missed out that we did manage to get into Edinburgh, from Eyemouth. No cars available, so we went on the bus, which took about 2 hours each way. Loved Edinburgh - mellow stone buildings, in graciously proportioned streets, the street plan making use of the famous hills. And all on a human scale which London has largely lost, particularly the City, which I now find horrible - oversized bolshie glass monstrosities, all pushing to be the biggest and best in the road, and all failing. 

The Edinburgh museum was a wonderful find, the glorious glazed-roof soaring over beautifully proportioned balconies of artifacts. Modelled on Crystal Palace, apparently. 

Whitehills: