LITMIR.BIZ

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an old man in a madhouse just turns my blood cold! If this were my end, then I’d sooner die today.

      A lot of these old boys have spent three-quarters of their life inside, so really it would be cruel to set them free. Imagine it! Fifty years in a lunatic asylum, living with dangerous killers, then at the age of 70 they free you! It just can’t happen! There were times I was up on the roof protesting for better treatment and better conditions, when some of these old boys were shouting up to me from their cell windows, ‘Come down, stop tearing our roof off.’

      This used to confuse me, as in a prison cons would shout, ‘Tear the place to bits.’ But these old boys were in my heart. They had suffered more years than any men I knew. Obviously, they were mad or had been. One had killed two men with his bare hands. But that was long ago, before arthritis set in! These old boys were legends, historic, myths waiting to be born!

      After a while, one learns to accept the madness. I was surrounded with it. Some of the madmen are really fun to be with, and I soon learned to relate to them. I soon became one of them. I ended up the maddest of the mad. There is no one madder than myself! Please believe it. But my madness is still a mystery. There is no cure, as there is no diagnosis. Over the years, I’ve been labelled all sorts. Nowadays, I just don’t care; I’ve taken the Frank Zappa stance. I am who I am! Some love me, some loathe me, some respect me and some despise me. But after all that’s been, I still love the insane, as they’re exciting, dangerous and highly explosive! For me, mad dogs are gentlemen.

      I end this chapter with a poem of mine:

      Psychopathic Poet

      Yeah, I put three bullets in his head.

      If that’s what the coppers said.

      Yeah, I stabbed a man through the heart,

      Twenty-five times with a poison dart.

      Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve done it all.

      I’ve lived my life behind this wall!

      The girl I loved she passed away,

      My blood ran cold that tragic day!

      Soul deep I’ve tried to find,

      Red-hot coals inside my mind!

      Charles Bronson

      Prison No. BT1314

       3

       CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED INSANITY

      Insanity is everyday life inside the asylum — screams, banging about, violence and pain, but mostly depression. We are all lost souls living from day to day. We, Category ‘A’ inmates are like chess pieces — they pick us up and move us where they choose to; we have no say in it!

      I’ll tell you what’s insane — years back, sitting on a plastic pot and having a crap — full-grown men sitting on a potty — then, when the cell door is opened, walking to the recess to slop it away! At times, I’ve slung it all over a screw — not a pretty sight!

      Everything is mad in jail, and it gets under your skin, it makes you sick. It drives me to the edge and pushes me over. I’ve been unstable ever since. My senses are now on turbo! I expect anything, like my door crashing open and shields smashing me up against the wall or smashing into me whilst I’m in bed. They then wrap me up, secure me in a body belt, put on the ankle straps and cart me away. It’s happened so many times. It can still happen today, even as I write these words — it’s my life!

      Tension is no longer a coiled spring ready to pounce … it’s a way of life for me and it can cause hate and bitterness. I went through a period in which I hated; I was full of hate but I came out of that stage, I learned to ride it, I learned to juggle it. I’m now a connoisseur of madness. I play them at their own game. And that’s all it is, a game!

      We all have to play a part; the system knows it’s only a game, a game of insanity. I smile and laugh now, I don’t take it seriously any more ’cos the system loves to upset people! Nothing would please them more than to open my door and see me dead, hanging, or a cut-throat lying by my dead body. They haven’t the bottle to kill me! They’ve had 30 years to do it, but I’m still here and they know I’m telling the truth! Truth hurts, see, truth is a weapon; kill me or drop me out! Leave me in my madness, I love my own space!

      Insanity is prison life. It breeds violence and madness and really fucks you up. It made me what I am today — unpredictable. I’m a very confused man, but I have this power to help the insane. Mad people come to me, I attract them — like attracts like! They wave to me regularly, pure 22-carat nuts! But I love them all. My life is now madness; the madder the better for me.

      I once had a thought, before I married my beautiful Saira, that I’d like to meet the maddest bitch on the planet, and I mean dangerously mad. I’d like to fuck her in a pit of scorpions, poisonous ones, or swim with her in shark-infested waters. Live dangerously — drive at 130mph the wrong way up the motorway at 3.00am and hope nothing is coming so we could laugh and cry together!

      Another outlandish thought was to get two guns. One bullet in each … spin the chamber … she puts her gun into my ear, I put mine in hers. Click! Click! It’s love. What girl could or would do that? Find her, if she exists! She’s the one, pure mad. She doesn’t smoke or do drugs but she kicks ass. She fights to live.

      All aspects of life are insane, but this prison shit is the maddest! I’m now getting older, some say too old. ‘Old Charlie’s past his best.’ ‘Charlie should get out now and retire.’ Who knows when the end will fucking come? Right now, I’m living on the edge. Madness is all around me; I smell it, I stink of it; I’m the ultimate madman: a poet, an artist, a sculptor, a writer, a fitness freak — I’m also a man of respect. Not bad for a madman, eh?

      I’ve kept my morals and self-discipline, which is more than I can say for the system. The system is jealous of me. I’m caged up and they’re fucking jealous of me. But am I jealous of them? The screws, the governors and the doctors — am I fuck! They’re all puppets — ‘Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.’ All for what? A wage, power or just to be evil. Whatever! They’re all fucking insane. They’re the same as me; the only difference is that I admit I’m mad — they never will. They sit on their fat lazy arses, scratching their fat lazy bellies. They fart away their lives. Oh well! That’s the insane for you. Until they start to change, then how can I?

      Insanity. Can anybody define it? Just what is it? Let me tell you, it’s a terrible pain, or can be. Ronnie Kray once told me, ‘It’s a gift of life, if you keep it under control.’ But my view is, it’s a pain in the head. There are so many different forms of insanity, from the silly to the dangerous. Some mad people are quite harmless, loving and good-natured. Others are homicidal maniacs.

      Me? Well, I guess I could be classed as unpredictable. Some would say the best thing for me is a .38 in the crust. Yes, I am, in fact, one of the insane and proud of it! My insanity has taken me on a journey through all three maximum-secure asylums in England, and at one time I was Britain’s number one madman.

      But right now I need to explain to you about insanity. I’m not a doctor or a poxy professor. I’m just a man who understands it, only ’cos I’ve lived among the mad for many years. I can smell it, taste it and feel it. Insanity hits me like a mallet over the head. And what is more, insanity cannot be cured. No mad person can be cured. They can be controlled, and then apparently get better, but the madness never goes away. You’re born mad and you die mad!

      We get urges, like some people want to stuff themselves with food or beer, or the reverse, they like to throw the food back up — it’s all in the mind! We are addicted to madness and at times we lose the plot, just like a seizure. Believe me, it’s never cured; we get older, slower and more mature,

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