Touring the prison convicts built

BY JILL WORRALL

It's nearly 20 years since the cell doors clanged shut behind the criminals incarcerated in the Fremantle jail.

Somehow it doesn't seem long enough to have erased the violence and despair that seems to have seeped into the prison's walls. They have had a long time to accumulate these sinister vibes, because the prison has stood on the hill above the town and its harbour since 1852.

The construction of the prison was the ultimate example of a do-it-yourself project the prisoners built it themselves. Building for posterity probably wasn't a priority as they toiled away in the heat of Western Australian summers, but inadvertently or not, the jail was made to last. It housed maximum security prisoners up until 1991.

Today, the prison is Western Australia's most popular tourist attraction, has won many awards and has been nominated for World Heritage site status.

It is the most intact of Australia's convict sites, of which, as New Zealanders enjoy reminding Australians, there are quite a few.

I toured the prison by day, but those of a more ghoulish disposition and with stronger constitutions than me would probably relish the night tours even more.

Fremantle jail comes complete with a death row and a gallows, so it is not for the faint-hearted, no matter what time of day you visit.

A fraction late for the tour, I had to run for a door before the tour guide locked it behind his first group. He watched me calmly as I approached.

"It's not often you find someone in so much of a hurry to be locked in a jail," he said laconically.

James was a short, stocky man with a luxuriant waxed moustache and a sense of humour so dry it was combustible.

My brother-in-law, a former prison guard in one of Britain's most notorious jails (Rampton) was watching him closely.

"I'll bet you he was a screw here," he remarked. I wasn't brave enough to ask James, and he never let on, but I found out later that he had been a former guard.

We passed through the "reception" area, where prisoners were given their uniforms and then sent to the white-tiled shower room, and into a central courtyard scorched by sun, the light blindingly white on the limestone walls.

The modest size of the prison entrance belied the scale of the facility the main block was vast, four storeys high. Far to the left, beyond a wall, was another high roof it had once housed female prisoners. To the right were the remains of the quarry that had yielded much of the stone for the construction work.

James led us inside the main block.

Prison cells opened up off both sides and above us were two more floors, accessed by a wired-in staircase and narrow walkways.

A net stretched across the entire width of the block just above head height.

"The suicide net," James explained.

He held up the bucket that was the only toilet facility for each two-man cell for most of the day.

"Have a guess why the guards always walked around directly under the walkways?" he said.

On the ground level, some of the cells have been restored to illustrate prison conditions since the first inmate arrived in the 1840s.

There were no beds at first, just hammocks, and at one point, cells had toilets, until the stench from the drains became too bad even for a prison and they were removed.

One contemporary cell was covered with paintings one prisoner had been granted permission to decorate his cell as a form of therapy.

The entrance to the chapel was from the second level.

Bright light streamed in the tall, arched windows. Behind the sanctuary a prisoner had painted The 10 Commandments, The Nicene Creed and The Lord's Prayer.

James pointed out that the sixth commandment had been changed slightly from: "Thou shalt not kill" to "Thou shalt not murder".

Attending church was a popular activity, James said, although for many men it was not anything to do with their spiritual wellbeing.

An upstairs gallery seated women prisoners from the adjacent block.

"Can't you just see the women peering over the railing saying, `Ah men?"' he said. The overseas tourists looked bemused.

The kitchens and scullery were on the ground floor. Working in the kitchens was sought-after work for prisoners, not the least because when they weren't at work, they could watch television or listen to music in an adjacent room.

This room had once been the prison bakery. There was a photo of the brick oven, with two inmates unloading bread from it.

"You'd never eat the bread here," said James, who'd seen me looking at the photo.

I asked why.

"You just don't want to know what the prisoners put in it," he said. It was my turn to look bemused.

"Look, if you knew everything I did about what went on in here, you'd go home, take a long, long shower and then burn your clothes," said James with surprising vehemence.

Beyond the kitchen was the exercise yard. Three or four-metre-high walls topped with razor wire formed a rectangle together with the wall of the prison block itself.

In the centre were a few benches and tables shaded by a metal canopy.

This canopy had been a prison improvement only late in its existence.

Previous prisoners spent almost all their waking hours in this yard, unprotected from the heat which could soar to more than 40 degrees Celsius.

They were watched over by a guard in a metal cage if a fight broke out, he watched and took notes, but never interfered. It would have been one man against many.

Just before the prison was closed, prisoners were allowed to paint murals on the exercise yard walls. Outback sunsets, graceful eucalypts and kangaroos, the paintings were devoid of any sign of human activity. Our guide believed this was a deliberate if unconscious decision on the artists' part a way to escape to a world devoid of human misery and violence.

James showed us where prisoners were flogged, and invited everyone into the darkness of the tiny solitary-confinement cells. He then led the way to the gallows where 44 prisoners were hanged.

I waited outside. For me there had been enough horror emanating from the ordinary prison walls without venturing into the execution room.

As we left, I said to James that I had guessed what went into the bread.

He told me I was right. For a few days at least a no-carbohydrate diet looked good.

- © Fairfax NZ News