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Insanity - My Mad Life. Charles Bronson
Читать онлайн.Название Insanity - My Mad Life
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isbn 9781782192527
Автор произведения Charles Bronson
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
Maybe in some way it had been a blessing in disguise. I was starting to experience all of the chains and shackles of solitary life. Solitary wasn’t just about being locked in a room for 23 hours out of a 24-hour day. Solitary was about living with yourself, tolerating the things you couldn’t change, being able to accept things going wrong, anticipating things going wrong, hoping they didn’t go wrong!
That night, after being freed to solve the problem, I was back on the wooden shipping pallets, and for the first time in a week I was experiencing sound sleep. I made a point of stacking the pallets four high, leaving plenty of ground space to avoid the little creepy crawlies of the night! I’d read about an earwig lodging itself in Charlie’s ear — fuck that!
What the hell was I doing here? How long would it last? What was the aim of being in solitary … I really didn’t know. What has come out of it, though, is a greater understanding of what has caused Charlie to display such a violent temperament and how it came about.
Some of the things I came across in Charlie’s writing made for harrowing reading. How could I compete with what he was writing about? It became a challenge. I thought of the TV show Survivor, based on people being stranded on a desert island, the last one winning £1 million. Charlie would have won hands down. I mean, what torture the poor contestants must have suffered having to endure the agony of being stranded on a sun-kissed desert island and having to eat a fish’s eyeball. I think Charlie deserves £1 million for each year of his life spent in solitary conditions. The pain of being branded a lunatic and enduring the ravages of Broadmoor, Ashworth and Rampton special secure hospitals couldn’t be reinvented. I mean, what could I possibly do to get near to that? I just couldn’t get to grips with what he’d gone through.
I was starting to feel angry at how he had been caged up like an animal; I was starting to blame everyone but Charlie. I began to have violent thoughts, such as, The system’s a fucking joke, run by lunatics … I caught myself mid-thought, realising that it would be easy to become extremely violent when put in isolation — but what about after 24 years of it?
I continued enduring the mock solitary conditions. How long before I would crack? Is this what happened to Charlie? I didn’t have the disadvantage of people winding me up; I didn’t have malicious prison officers tormenting me or the humiliation of losing my privacy; I didn’t suffer the embarrassment of having to sit on my hands while someone shaved me; I was play-acting, trying to find the beast within me! I eventually started talking to myself, but didn’t dare answer! They say when you answer yourself, it’s the first sign of being mad. I wondered if Charlie talked to and then answered himself, but in another voice. I could see where he had got all of his ideas from and how they manifested themselves.
I would suggest to any writer that if you write about any subject then you would be advised to immerse yourself in your subject matter — fact or fiction. It doesn’t bring a better understanding, it brings oneness, and until you achieve that oneness you cannot impart the subject matter to the reader with the artistic input and authority it deserves.
The first cigar, after it all ended … brilliant, fan-fucking-tastic? No! The Havana Special tasted like an old sock! I endured the dried seaweed taste until, after a short while, the cool flavours the Cuban cigar imparted to me the thoughts of how the leaf had been gently rolled, traditionally, on the thigh of a virgin, which made me think about the ‘S’ word. I didn’t get much sleep that night! Charlie Bronson deserves a medal as big as a house, and I hope that what I have been able to do to his handwritten manuscripts is enhanced by my own experiences of solitary.
Stephen Richards
I think Charlie’s had a rough deal and I think they’re treating him all wrong. I know that if Charlie was free he could make a living; obviously he couldn’t get a normal job, but he could make a living by being on the crime circuit like most of the other well-known characters from the underworld.
I go down to London every year, always ending up having a meal in the Blind Beggar pub. On one particular occasion, Frankie Fraser came in with a tour party, showing them the notorious haunts where shootings took place from the days of the Kray twins. I got talking to Frankie and said, ‘I’m not on the tour, but I’m a big ’60s crime fan,’ and I introduced myself as Mick Peterson.
Frankie said, ‘Oh, yeah, I know you.’ We just left it at that because he was taking his tour around the sights.
A few years later, I went to a boxing tournament and caught Frankie’s eye. I went over and said, ‘All right, Frank, I’m Mick Peterson.’
Frankie said, ‘I’ve never seen you for ages … remember when we were in Dartmoor?’
‘No, that wasn’t me, you’re thinking of Charlie Bronson,’ I said.
Frankie was adamant it was me he’d met and said, ‘No, no, no. You!’
Frankie was convinced I was his old prison pal, Charlie Bronson, and he was saying to this other guy, one of the organisers, ‘Me and him …’ pointing at me, ‘we were in Dartmoor together.’
The man pulled me to one side and said, ‘Were you and Frankie really in jail together?’
‘No, no, he’s got the wrong bloke. I think he thinks I’m Charlie Bronson,’ I replied.
Eventually, I read one of Frankie Fraser’s books and he said he knew Mick Peterson, but not Charlie Bronson! So I don’t know if there was another Mick Peterson besides the one who eventually changed his name to Charles Bronson.
I think if Charlie was free then he’d need someone to look after him and point him in the right direction. The last time he came out of prison he was left to his own means – no money and no prospects. Now, though, Charlie could earn a good living just from his books and going around giving talks and interviews. I don’t think he would need to sign on at the dole office.
I’m a big Tottenham Hotspur fan, as is Charlie, although I’ve still got a soft spot for my local team, Hartlepool United. Charlie and I have a lot in common, in that we both like a drop of vodka and a pint or two of Guinness and, of course, our past links with the crime world. I was just as bad as Charlie when I was younger and my criminal record proves it. Charlie would bash people up and I would, too, but I paid the price and learned my lesson. Now that Charlie’s remarried I think he’ll realise what he’s missing being behind bars, and that’s what can drive the man on to win his freedom … thinking of his family.
Good luck, Charlie.
Michael Peterson
This is a book about madness. Unbalanced minds. Disturbances of the brain. Unpredictable people. Uncontrollable, dangerous and fearless! Men I’ve lived with, eaten with, laughed with, cried with, fought with! Men of insanity. Lost souls inside the asylums of hell, criminal and lunatic asylums, such as Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth, all top-secure establishments in England. These three are the only ones in England that cater for the criminally insane. Scotland has only one — Carstairs. I’ve been an inmate in Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth. I was one of ‘them’. I was once Britain’s most unstable madman!
This book is a complete one-off! If you’re a nervous type of reader, then don’t read it. You’ve been warned! You are now entering the world of insanity; please keep hold of your sanity until the book comes to a stop!
Just imagine — you’re on a stretcher in a hospital, being wheeled to the operating theatre;