still dreaming 8

 And if you really want to understand how close this place is to breaking, you only have to look at Christmas. People on the outside think Christmas in prison is just a sad dinner and a few cheap decorations, but that’s not it—not really. It’s the one time of year when the pretending stops. When the walls feel thinner. When the weight of everything you’re missing presses down so hard you swear the air gets thicker.

I want to talk to you about Christmas.
Not just any Christmas—a Christmas behind bars. Thirty-five of them, in my case. Thirty-five times I’ve watched December roll in like a reminder of everything I can’t reach. Times I can’t be with my family. Times I want to cuddle my nieces and nephews. My mum. My children. My grandchildren. Whole branches of my family tree I’ve barely held. People out there probably wonder why I can’t just see them. Why don’t they visit? Why don’t I go on a home visit?

Because the government has placed me over 400–500 miles away from my family.
Hundreds of miles between me and the people I love, like someone thought distance was part of the punishment. In my view, it’s a piss take. And what about Article 8 of the human rights—the right to a family life? Where does that go? Does it get suspended at the gate? Folded up and thrown in a drawer somewhere? It certainly doesn’t count for us. Not in any practical sense.

So Christmas becomes this twisted version of what it’s meant to be. You sit in a cell trying not to picture your family around a table, or kids ripping open presents, or your mum laughing at something stupid someone said. And the worst part? You don’t just miss them—you miss the years. The faces change while you’re stuck behind the same door. Babies become adults. Parents become frail. You blink and decades have gone.

This is why I write.
Why I do this blog.
Why I make music.

Not because it fixes anything, but because it gives me a voice in a place that tries its hardest to silence you. It’s how I explain to people what it’s like—the pain, the loneliness, the feeling of being forgotten. People think we’re hardened, emotionless, unbothered. But Christmas exposes the truth: even the strongest men in here feel it. You hear it in their voices. You see it in their eyes when the doors shut at night.

And yes, the drugs are always there. Crack, weed, heroin, and fish—spice. They crawl through the place like mould. Some lads use just to get through the season. I get why. I’ve seen friends collapse. I’ve seen friends die. Thirty-five years ago, when I first came in, maybe I’d have gone down that road too. Maybe I’d have taken anything just to numb the hole where my life used to be.

But I’m 52 now.
A man who’s been away from his family for 35 years.
And I say to myself:
Fuck the drugs.
Fuck the shortcuts.
Fuck anything that keeps me in here longer than I need to be.

Because at this point, my family is all that matters. Getting out is all that matters. I won’t throw away the little future I’ve got left for a smoke that makes time disappear. I want to be there for my people before it’s too late.

So here I am—my 35th Christmas behind bars—trying to explain something no one on the outside will ever fully understand. You can sympathise, you can imagine it, but until you’ve lived this nightmare… until you’ve counted the Christmases instead of the days… you’ll never really know.

And when this place finally collapses under the weight of its own pretending—when the system stops running not with a bang but with a sigh—remember this too. Remember Christmas. Remember that behind every statistic, every report, every “incident,” there’s a human being staring at a wall wishing he were home.

Because prisons don’t break in riots.
They break in silence.
And Christmas is the loudest silence of all.