Friday, December 08, 2006

A Rose by any other Name...

I can't go in to how this subject cropped up the other day but in the course of a conversation the name of an English prison was mentioned.

We do have some good ones, names I mean, for prisons... and some boring ones. The prison in Liverpool is called Walton Prison - not very exciting really and then there is a new prison which has been built on the outskirts of the city. It was no doubt a good idea of the city council to build the thing in the middle of nowhere but it does have one drawback. I discovered that while my mother was in hospital and I caught the bus to go and visit her. The bus takes a relatively circuitous route and stops at the prison on the way to the hospital.

Now, there is no other building, shop, house or anything for miles around and so if you get off at that stop you can ONLY be going to visit an inmate. A bit embarrassing if you are a young mum with young kids and you get off or on at that stop - it's pretty obvious that your husband is doing time!

I bet the councillors didn't think of that.

Anyway, in Manchester they have strange ways.. I mean Strangeways which is a pretty good name for a prison but by far the best is the prison in west London.

How could you beat a prison with the name "Wormwood Scrubs"?? It's pure Dickens... if a prison had a sound it would be... w o r m w o o d scrubs... you can hear the cell doors creaking...

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