Days back at the prison and missing the Lyons family, I would be facing sixth class of primary school and the last year of schooling in this prison. Ching was gone but in his place was something more sinister, if only by the fact he had more of a brain and was harder to read.

There was nothing new to report of Brother Grant him for a while until he had finished trying to read us first, and acted on what he thought was the weakest child. On that he would make a serious error of judgement for he thought it was me. When the light went on in his head as to that mistake, it was already too late. He forgot that children get bigger and ever more dangerous as they grow older and much like a mistreated dog, they hold grudges, do not forget and they bite.

This for me was just another year and one I must survive. I got to know Grant a little more on the football pitch one day when he had a row with an older boy, Andy McMahon.

He was about sixteen years old, built strongly, and not to be trifled with, which was all lost on Grant anyway. He ordered a group of boys to attack him. Like a pack of wolves, they circled him pretending to show courage, but in reality it was pure show for Grant's sake for they really were sheep. One boy, called Queenie, due to his feminine side, strayed from the flock.

He was a pet favourite of Mitchell and intended to impress him.

While Andy was distracted trying to gauge whether it was sheep that had circled him or just lambs and engaged in full verbal battle with Grant, Queenie cut from the circle and got round Andy unnoticed. He picked up a fallen goal post. Used with malice, it was absolutely lethal. Andy's senses told him to look round, but the pole was already on its downward arc after being thrown with all the force and badness by Queenie's hands. It crashed with a sickening thud into Andy's jaw which forced spit teeth and blood from his mouth. He fell to his knees with a roar of agony that sent a chill down my spine. The sheep scattered, as Queenie looked shocked and Grant was wishing he was somewhere else. Andy somehow got to his feet covering his face. He started towards the exit door from the pitch, trailing blood and hoping to get help. Grant gave him a wide berth for he knew that he had gone too far.

At the door, Andy was met by McGettigan who was just coming through. Appalled by what he saw, he took Andy straight to the hospital. There he had to have his jaw rewired and teeth braces inserted after the doctors were given some story about how 'boys will be boys' on the football field. As always, the emotional wounds were too deep for Andy and couldn't be reached. Afterwards, back at the prison it was business as usual, or so we thought.

That evening, McGettigan assembled us all in the recreation hall supposedly for a roll call which would be followed by church service. He, however, had other motives. One boy was missing and fear motivated his absence. McGettigan paced the stage while a low expectant murmuring settled on everyone. At last, Queenie appeared from his refuge in the toilets, and entering onto the stage from the only door that side of the building, there was no choice now but to become an unwilling player in a reality play. McGettigan launched, without pretense, into a violent attack. Queenie was quickly bloodied and lay in a cringing, whining mess on the floor, with a few well-aimed kicks to his arse cementing his humiliation.

Anger and disgust hung in McGettigans face as he glared down at Queenie. Of all the plays, and movies that I had seen this drama wound not see its equal, well certainly not an a stage anyway! A roar went up from the audience as we rose to our feet and gave Mc Gettigan a standing ovation.

Though Gettigan had won the battle he had lost the war and could not take it any more. He soon got transferred out of the prison after his third request to leave this place, hoping not to be tainted by the fact that he was here at all.

The following Monday, a more chastened Grant arrived at class and he had easier prey on his mind, Me. He was still trying to find himself and was still at the early stages of that journey, not sure whether he was a man, woman, or reluctant paedophile. That reluctance, kept the worst of him off me, and saved me from his more sadistic perverted tendencies. Like with Ching, my luck held again. Then something happened that moved everything in my favour, and luck had nothing to do with it.

I was beginning to change and look at situations with fresh eyes, the anger that seethed was soothed with a vivid imagination and a budding love of literature. Comics were my first introduction to the power of the written word and then I did something that helped turn my life, if not save it. I was ordered by Grant to go across the road from the prison to a shop and purchase for him a newspaper. I did and I also stole a book with it. This act was encouraged by the fact that I had no money and that it was a book about the fate of a young convicted criminal. It was called, "Borstal Boy," by Brendan Behan. It was a great read about life in a young offenders' prison in England. The story mirrored my own in many ways. That, and because it was told in a true Dubliners style made the book a little treasure for me and cemented my move from comics, well and truly. I read it over again and it nurtured my love of all books that were well-written with earthy true life stories and it would inspire me to have a go myself to write. This was cemented and encouraged more by an event in Grant's class that made me believe that perhaps I might have that gift.

Grant told the class to write a three page essay about anything that came to our minds whether it be people, places, or feelings. I choose for my essay the last minutes of the Irish patriot Kevin Barry, who at eighteen years old was hanged for his part in yet another rebellion against foreign rule. The previous month I had read about him in a school history book and was very moved that someone so young could be killed in cold blood. A life cut short by nothing short of murder. My essay set out to reveal the emotions that he must have felt in those last minutes of his life and of those around him - loved ones, friends or foes.

When the essays were collected, I studied Grant's face to get a gauge on who had done what and how well. I could see he was truly startled when he came to my few pages.

He left his desk and walked briskly towards mine. He started to check through the books underneath it hoping to find what he thought I was copying or plagiarizing from. Finding none, he returned to his desk somewhat perplexed, and in a last attempt to clear up his puzzlement, he accused me openly of copying my essay from a textbook. As I stood up with a certain uneasiness mixed with pride, I told him I did not copy anything and it was just my imagination that the story came from. He must have felt little choice but to score me 100 points out of a 100 and never looked at me the same way again. A new respect mixed with a certain unease was his new emotion dealing with me after that day. I immediately became aware of it. We gave each other a wide berth as best we could and I was left well alone with the invisible line in the sand drawn. It would be soon tested a month later when the Brothers went away for a three day retreat to pray for their sins, and could not ask for forgiveness for the ones they did not even know they had committed. They were replaced by new faces to guard over us and with that came a chance to have some fun. They were not aware of the prison routine and felt out of place. I would do my best to exploit the situation.

For the most part, we had the place to ourselves. There were plenty of places to poke around and have a few adventures. One of the first places my little gang looked into was the schools storeroom was a veritable Aladdin's castle to a group of children. Instead of diamonds, Egyptian's masks set in gold, or emeralds dotting its floors, we had instead new shoes, soaps, jackets, towels, shirts, ties, and belts to trawl through. The treasure here was the adventure of breaking in and to leave with a few trophies as proof. One in our little group, John Connelly, was just skinny and small enough to crawl through a small opening in a window and open the door for us. Mission Impossible was accomplished without a hitch and the goods were stored and hidden with not an idea of what to do with them. The replacement Brothers had not known of the missing booty or even visited the store and as the days passed, complacency set in. I was about to be shocked out of it very quickly for Grant had returned.

Everything was fine for the first couple of days until Grant had to go to the store.

There he went into a posture of shock, and almost swallowed his false tooth by what he saw before him. He rounded up the Magnificent Seven, me included, and grilled us one by one.

We all held firm and denied everything. Grant became confused and called the "police." A detective duly arrived and set himself up in a room and interviewed us one by one. When my turn came I was frightened, anxious, and overawed.  I was met by a soft-spoken, middle-aged man who seemed a little unsure of himself for he didn't know there was a prison in Galway for children. But this was his job and if he had lived long enough to see a more enlightened time, might wonder what his duty was on that day. I suppose this was a bit different than bank robbers and murderers, but he made the most of it and he was good. He told me that he knew everything and simply told me that it was my idea. My mind started racing, I was petrified and desperate to get out of this. For the first and only time in my life I exonerated myself and blamed one boy for something that the seven of us were equally guilty of, and the only sympathy factor that I could hope for even now was that I was twelve years old. The sacrificial lamb was to be John Connelly. It turned out that most of our group blamed him as well. This resulted in John receiving a savage beating from Grant in front of us, and one that was so bad that not even to this day have I ever really forgiven myself for being part responsible. The line in the sand was not crossed yet for the only telling off I got from Grant was "that he was very disappointed in me," it would prove to be a gross understatement on his part.

For a period, life fell into an almost relaxed mode, and Mick Lyons sent a letter now and again helping to keep my spirits up. They meant so much to me as if a lifeline to that other world outside these walls, a world that so far I only indulged in on school holidays, and was also there to remind me what I was missing making me ache for its freedom. Mick was a true friend.

A woman claiming to be my aunt also sent me a letter and one to my brother, Michael. More letters followed, often with pocket money. We were also given the news from her that we had two older brothers in England. This all came from our Aunt Dillie. She even sent us a watch each, and my old one had long since been broken or bartered and we were now the only boys in the prison to have such visual luxuries. With it, came a kind of status symbol. Dillie was preparing the ground for the return of the prodigal sons, who she knew would arrive someday on somebody's doorstep.

Christmas soon came along and I was with the Lyons family again and I at last saw more clearly that my brother was becoming more isolated as the seasons changed, just a certain little bit at a time and maybe only I noticed the difference. In this place it was hard to notice things like that, how a childhood dies away rather than passes, leaving a blueprint for a crippled life to follow. For most of us we became fish in a tank unable to stop swimming in case we would drown, and for many that would come later. As for me I was getting ready to break up that fish bowl except I didn't know how, not yet anyway.

Summer holidays quickly followed and seemed to arrive again without notice. The Lyons and my adopted brother, Mick, came to collect me. This summer was special for not only did I have a great time, but I knew that I was going to start Technical School shortly afterwards outside the prison walls, which meant a greater freedom that I had ever before.

It was another sign of progress in a changing Ireland for they had introduced this school to the prison several years before, even though the Tech was only just up the road and had been around for over thirty years. Before that most boys future here was either dishwasher or farm hand, just above an animal for there was little difference in the pay.

In that briefest of summers, I felt suddenly in a hurry, and when it ended, I was ready for this new world out there. Mick had me suited and booted for the occasion with a few pound hidden in my pocket. In the Jewish tradition I was already a man twelve months ago and in my head I was one, and at times it would show I had grown up too fast in some ways and not enough in others. Street smarts though would help keep my feet firmly on the ground.

DAY RELEASE After we had been warned yet again by the Brothers not to say anything about the goings on in our little prison to anyone outside of it or face dire punishment, about twelve of us set off on a wet, dreary, Monday morning to start technical school without a soldier of Christ as an escort. That fifteen minute walk was the most memorable of my life. My brother, Michael, was in our group but set himself apart, pacing behind us enough to be only distinguished by his red hair and unmistakable gait. For him, it was just another lonely road. For the rest of us, there was an unspoken promise to watch out for each other for we didn't know what kind of reception would come in this new place, for in our minds these people were outsiders.

We need not have worried for a medley of beautiful confusion awaited us that made twelve angry and defensive boys all but invisible, and that was the best part. Pretty girls were everywhere and recent stirrings within me had me confused why I was so attracted to them mingled with Catholic guilt that was telling me I should not feel that way. The guilt was easily overcome by evolutionary longings and I was very disappointed that they were segregated into different classes.

That first morning, confusion died away as we were assigned our classes. Michael was sent to a different one from mine. Three with me sat among twenty boys of backgrounds so different and in a place so removed from our imprisonment that we found ourselves now to be "the outsiders," and there was no going back. The genie was let out of the bottle and we only had to be careful what we wished for. The teachers of this place were actually normal healthy human beings as well, with no outward signs of brainwashing except for their own peculiarities.

There was Mr. Heneghan, (no known relation to our not-so-dearly departed shoemaker), teaching English while always scratching and searching his beard. He never quite found what was in there.

Mr. Doyle, teaching Irish but preferring not to teach anything, with a bar of chocolate and a newspaper instead as his daily diet. He had us, for the most part, teaching ourselves.

Mr O'Connor, teaching woodwork, carrying his long and gangly body, and ever so patient demeanour.

Mr. Ratton, teaching metalwork, seemed to have a lot going on inside his head, often talking to himself and would later be in the danger zone of talking back.

Mr. Ryan, teaching art, clearly was for the birds and hardly knew we were there.

Then there was a priest named Walsh that was out to save our souls in the nicest possible way, and Mr. Nestor, our science teacher, had a fearsome reputation that disguised a very nice man.

There were many other teachers here too but did not stand out as much with the whole place been presided over by the newly elected headmaster, Mr. Lynch. He had his eye firmly on a young female teacher, Miss Ann Doyle, who was almost twenty years his junior.

Every hot-blooded male, teacher and pupil alike, were staring after her as well. She was drop dead gorgeous.

In the two years that I would spend here I could not be happier with them all as teachers with Mr. Nestor teaching me a lot. Not just about science but about life. He deferred to me and the rest of us from the reformatory in a paternal manner which told me he knew what others did not want to know and liked him all the more for it. Even with the students, barring an odd fight, there was not too much to get worked up about around here, though the envy of their lives was an emotion that was always with me.

Day release eased me in every way and I was getting happy on a more constant level and becoming that much more removed in my head from my prison. It was sometimes hard for me at the end of a school day, believing that the students here were going home to warm fires and love from their parents. Smoking chimneys from the nearby houses carried with them other beliefs of brother and sister happily fighting over dinner as to who was getting the extra portion of desert, while cautioned by their mother in mock dismay to behave themselves. These images need not be true, only imagined, and I had to discipline myself over time not to fantasize so much which did not help to ease my discontent.

Back at the prison I was now classed as one of the big boys, or senior ones, distinct by the fact that I was going to the technical school. This was seen as a rite of passage of sorts and I felt with it a sense of achievement crowned with a little pride. For Michael, it had the opposite effect; this new freedom only opened up to the elements his fear of exposure, laying bare the shame that he felt as a teenage boy coming to and from a prison everyday. He would forever be beyond loving himself or felt the deserving of it, and had pretty much stopped talking to most boys save for a select few, and I was not one them. I did not mind so much for to me he was always a struggle to talk to him. Gerry Hunt remained in his inner circle and on the same wavelength, while also been able to tune into everyone else's frequency. So at times I would use him as my conduit to message Michael, and I didn't send many.

It was business as usual in the prison with the "ordinary cruelty" of everyday life here going on unabated as a fact and a way of life, and for the most part I was beyond it.

My independence was asserted and I was left alone. As that school year wound down I looked forward to the summer with the Lyons and started to feel quite old on the eve of my fourteenth birthday. I had already lived a lot for one and while wise in many ways, I was still a boy. In this prison my only family were these children, but knew I belonged to another even if they did not want me. My curiosity was driven more by who they were rather than what they had done. The anger of it all would kick in later. These same emotions I'm sure ran in a furious pace through the minds of every inmate here, and some could not keep up with the torrent of thought which often led to tragic ends for themselves later in life and for others. I never got that complex back then, placated perhaps by the books and movies that I indulged in that made me realize early I was not that important against the backdrop of other peoples suffering. This sense of realism would prepare me for my final year in this place and my toughest one, and it would come as a surprise to know how ready I was. All it needed was a final act of cruelty to know cruel I could be.

Christmas came and went and I was spoilt well by the Lyons both in body and spirit, and after I came back, Michael, my brother, was still holding on, but just barely. He was returned early to the prison from the people who had him over the holidays because of a family tragedy. Their only son was killed climbing a mountain. He was also Michael's best friend at that time and the news was a crushing blow to him and could not now mourn his loss, not in this place. Over the next couple of months he got a little better in himself, then was inconsolable again before he became completely engulfed in his depression. For me, I had troubles of a different kind for as his were many, mine were few, and all about the girls that seemed to be everywhere.

In the technical school and between classes I would be in love with every pretty girl that passed and would not have known what to do next if any looked my way or asked me the time of day. What do you do with girls anyway beyond the obvious attraction I would ask myself. I didn't have much of an answer except it had something to do with taking your clothes off and I couldn't even get to the talking stage. This great clue was given to me by other boys, but beyond that they were clue-less apart from stories about girls that were long in bluster and very short on detail. My own paranoia, that stemmed from being too defensive, (a symptom of long term imprisonment) had me confused whether girls who looked in my direction actually fancied me, or were just staring at me with eyes that masked hidden contempt. I was all out of rejection slips and not ready right now for anymore. I was starting to take my eye off the ball for these thoughts were a luxury and a trifle of sorts that made me too easily forget that I was still going home to a prison where anything can happen. I did not notice Michael was at an all time low and began to stumble. One week before final exams he fell and was torn apart by a system oiled to destroy.

FALLING OVER SOCIETY AS WE HAVE CONSTITUTED IT, WILL HAVE NO PLACE FOR ME, NONE TO OFFER; BUT NATURE, WHOSE SWEET RAINS FALL ON UNJUST AND JUST ALIKE, WILL HAVE CLEFTS IN THE ROCKS WHERE I MAY HIDE, AND SECRET VALLEYS IN WHOSE SILENCE I MAY WEEP UNDISTURBED. SHE WILL HANG THE NIGHT WITH STARS SO THAT I MAY WALK ABROAD IN THE DARKNESS WITHOUT STUMBLING, AND SEND THE WIND OVER MY FOOTPRINTS SO THAT NONE MAY TRACK ME TO MY HURT.

OSCAR WILDE The days leading up to that week Michael was in full teenage rebellion mode and nothing would stop him. The soldiers of Christ always had a back up plan for just such an emergency. The red button had been pressed for ambush and caught everyone off guard, and me the most. Michael was already near to six feet tall with broad shoulders and narrow hips. His appearance gave pause to those who wanted to challenge him. So he was left alone for a short while, a pausing of breath for the hyenas now circling him, looking for weakness that would decide their move. A probing attack by a few fat soldiers had them caressing the bruises on their shoulders that sent them scuttling for the remnants of their courage and found they couldn't find it anywhere. This could only have a one in three outcome as we had seen it all before. Michael was going to be beaten into submission, transferred to another reformatory, or sent to an insane asylum as decided by the nut cases running this one.

The outcome came swiftly when two big men in white coats came on a Friday evening. They left us to wonder no longer, as most of us that were playing in the yard looked on in disbelief at the drama unfolding in front of us. One of the boys propped up a small radio on a wall in front of me as we watched, and a slow melancholy song drifted from it.

This provided the emotional translation for me as I watched Michael being shoved between these men into a car. It was Don mc clean singing 'Vincent' and I felt he must have seen Michael too when he sung the words 'this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you'. With two Brothers as back up, one at the wheel, and the other, Grant, as another minder, I began to seethe with anger at what was happening only feet from where I was standing. I looked at Michael's resigned sad face devoid of any hope and prayed to the man within me to help give it back to him. The only answer I got back was the urge to rip Grant's throat out while letting him know that my brother and I were somebody. This along with all the other emotions that surged within me was bursting through my eardrums and started to boil my blood. Amazingly, I did not fall apart or do anything, perhaps knowing there was little I could that would do any good. A nervous pulse tweaked at my temple giving the only sign of the ticking time bomb in my head that had no date set for when it would go off. I carried this rage around with me for a while letting some of it spill out onto the football pitch and at the school, picking on bully boys on and off the field instead, for my own moral compass would not let me be one myself. In a game between the school and the local Claddagh team soon after, I scored an own goal by going over the top against their goalkeeper.

PJ was their last line of defense and I was ours and we were losing fast. The usual gouging and kicking was the conversing of teenage boys slung together in a muddy, and often bloody melee of a day like this. The blood that ran down my face I wore with pride and refused any aid lest it be seen I had not played hard enough. Fresh from kicks, insults, and giving as good as I got, I was on fire and aimed at the reigning bully of the match, PJ. He had run out of creative name-calling and was on his hunting trip against other prey not aware that he was the hunted one.

Our first probing kicks and punches at each other left no winners and we were quickly pulled apart leaving me to believe that it was the end of the matter. But PJ felt he had lost face and was not given respect and I was the last one to know it. Everyone left for the changing room and as I pulled off my jersey, PJ was sneaking up behind me gingerly walking along the sitting bench giving him a nice elevated position. He roared my name and as I turned around I was caught completely by surprise. He shot a massive kick into my chest bull nosed by the hob nail boot that he was now wearing. The adrenalin in me was doing its job for I hardly felt a thing. In that split second, PJ knew he bit off more than he could chew and I was about to bite a lot more off him. By the time it was all over I had gained another friend, him. Only two days later, when he was carrying a slightly altered jaw and a personality that carried a different point of view, he shook my hand warmly.

Lately, I hardly noticed much around me anymore for all I wanted to see was Michael. I needed to know what happened. With the help of Fr. McLoughlan, I would soon get that chance for he guilted Grant into allowing me to see him in his new prison that called itself a Mental Institution.

Here in this place the means of keeping you in line and held in submission were a little different than our one. There was cold baths, electric shocks to the brain, and drugs, and just like our prison, all perfectly legal with Michael filling me in on the fine print when I got there. His living agony had been written by Oscar Wilde long before when he was at his lowest moments of despair. It could not describe the Michael I knew any better when I greeted him in this house of madness. The years of not talking to me were gone in an instant for this was survival at its rawest with no time for the troubles of the past. We needed each other now like never before. He talked so much and spilling out words that were held in store for so long that he physically shook with the emotion of it all. We were brothers again.

Fr. McLoughlan left our company giving Michael a chance to show me around. It was on a Sunday so security was a bit lax when he brought me into what he called "the torture room," going under the disguise of medical therapy. It was a room with little else except a steel bed covered by a flimsy mattress, with a leather leg and arm restraints. This took away the last desperate acts of protest of people filled with fear. Their pleading would be muffled by a leather mask placed across their mouth with a biting strip in it and a tube to let them breathe. Burly men held them down while electric wiring became attached to their heads.

Then somebody simply pulled a switch. Jarring bolts of electricity shot into the head again and again, killing brain cells, creating memory loss, and nightmares that left them with an insomnia from a fear of sleep and what it might bring. This was my brother in 1971, a boy with raging hormones on the edge because he could not take it any more. He was punished severely because of his teenage rebellion. It had all happened just days before his final exams in the technical school, his punishment timed to perfection leaving him cheated of any chance of a decent job.

The last words he spoke to me that day, as a male nurse roughly pushed between us pushing a bunch of pills into Michael's hand, were, "I'm afraid, Barry, do not forget me." I just nodded and clenched my lips and didn't need to reply.

Back at the prison there was not much to decide. I had to break out of this place or I might be sharing electricity with Michael, not to mention some dodgy medicine pills. They would not need much of an excuse now, for all eyes were upon me and the only way forward I could see was to finish my exams now just two weeks away. When they were over, and just when it seemed I had all the excitement I could handle, the long lost Dillie came to visit a couple of days later. Along with her came sister Kathleen and two half blood brothers I had never met. Virtual strangers had come to visit, and for me it seemed like we were getting ready for a monkey's tea party where anything could happen, and as ever in my life, it did.

As I met them for the first time after all these years, it was tense, stuffy, and very strange. Kathleen could not stop crying from carrying too much guilt; Dillie was guarded and carrying none. And the two lost brothers, Anthony and Brian, were excited at the prospect of having family that up to a few months previous neither of us had known existed. They too were pretty much unsure as to what was going on.

Brother Hourigan was hopeful that all of this would have a happy ending as his time here was nearly over and Grant was to be the new man in charge. Visitors were always a danger for the lid might be lifted off this place, and in many ways it was a race against time for Hourigan was getting old and out of his depth. He wanted his reputation intact before they retired or buried him and he knew that changes and a lot more were nipping on the heels of this 'religious republic.' For the next week I was allowed to come and go with my new family and sometimes we would go and see Michael. Even here things were looking up. They had offered him a job as a trainee male nurse in the asylum for despite their most valiant attempts to drive him insane, they could not find anything wrong with him. Timing had also forced everybody's hand for they did not know whether my very distant and extended family were friend or foe. It was an easy question for me. The tea party had begun.

Dillie swooned around making cursory enquiries to the Brothers as to how Michael had been and a few regarding me. Questions more to mark her authority than theirs and it had the desired effect; she was the boss. In the mental asylum the feeling was more mutual as Dillie, the nurse, was right at home. Her attitude fit right in with all the other ones, muting any idea of individuality by agreeing too collectively that they were right and everybody else was wrong. Their uniforms and titles disconnecting themselves much from empathy and understanding, often leaving themselves open to the question as to who needed help in the asylum.

Kathleen was still crying most times as if to underline the despair of it all while also raising a few eyebrows - was this one visitor or patient? And my two new blood brothers, Anthony and Brian were very, very bored.

These two were as different to each other as Michael was to me. Anthony at nineteen was good looking and one year older than Brian. An open book to his closed one, happy to his sad, and always interesting.

Brian looked fragile, troubled and needy, and would prove in time to be the deadlier of the two. For now they were the brothers I never had but their meeting me was no different than their leaving, it meant little.

It applied the same way to me when it came to Dillie and Kathleen as well. I was tired of being polite when all I really wanted to know was what the hell was going on.

Nobody spoke about Mum or Dad and at the very best they danced around the subject. It was as if they did not exist and in too many ways they didn't. Ten days of revolving doors with these people, with sparse questions asked or answered, made everything seem like an infinity of time. They at last mercifully left.  Soon after, I had passed my exams with a couple of honours in my favourite subjects, science and English, and I was feeling quite relieved and chuffed at myself. The Brothers found me a job.

Not quite what I had in mind forgetting I was invisible to them when it came to a career as well. It was a "trainee" dishwasher. Despite this prison, the remnants of my pride would not let this happen and I went cloak and dagger style to get an application form from the local trade college where I did an exam, got accepted, and picked a trade with my eyes shut on a piece of paper that turned out to be bricklaying. I gave it no more thought than that. They gave me a date to start that was two days before my fifteenth birthday.

On that day I was escorted by a recent arrival in the prison, Brother Stapleton, and he helped to turn it into a morning of deep embarrassment for me.

Stapleton looked like a long dead pontiff staring regally from an old oil painting. His great belly made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, whether a baby was on the way. He often caressed its shape, rested his hands on its great overhang, and even balanced tea and biscuits on it as well. This was my escort as he paraded me before the pupils of the trade school and its management. My secret was out before it could become one, an inmate of a reformatory prison, a bastard boy, and probably a thief. And if they were not thinking that, I thought they were, and that was more than enough to give more weight to that chip on my shoulder that was fast turning into a heavy rock. Stapleton acted as if he got me the position here and talked to the management in a rhetoric that was over their heads and mine, and perhaps his as well. I could detect the faintest of smiles on one face that asked the question of 'what hole did this little fat man crawl out of'. This gave me a certain hope that this place was okay and that I would be treated all right. It turned out to be true and it would go on to prove itself to be great fun and just what the doctor ordered.

Everybody that I came to know, teacher and classmate alike, were good to me and with this they even paid me some wages on a Friday, just to learn. It could not get any better than this. I became so hyped up with the happiness I felt that learning was a minor distraction to the sense of fun I was feeling. So much so, they even gave me a written warning to behave myself from the 'three strikes and you're out rule book.' It did little to calm me and in gentle dismay the teachers just gave in to me for they remembered Stapleton and filled in the blanks. A pep came in my step every day that I spent here and slowly with great hesitance, my confidence grew a little more.

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