John North: The friendly face of jail

IF someone in these parts is said to be "in Bishop" he's usually a patient in the town's General Hospital, just as "in Sedgefield" meant Winterton psychiatric hospital. Being "in Durham" is something else entirely.

"Durham" is Her Majesty's Prison, Durham Jail, the Big House. Its reputation is grim, its reality - as last week's inspectors' report confirmed - sometimes little better.

"First time visitors are really fearful, totally in shock," says Ruth Cranfield. "Because they have no experience of it, they're completely disorientated. They used to have to queue outside the prison and that was awful, especially after a long journey. We try to make things a little more welcoming here."

Ruth is secretary of NEPACS, a Durham-based charity which runs visitors' centres, play areas and tea bars at prisons throughout the region. There are even two caravans on the Northumberland coast for prisoners' families.

"Some mothers tell their children they're visiting dad at the factory, others tell them the truth about prison. I really don't know which is sadder," says Sheila Seacroft, another volunteer.

The Durham visitors' centre, once an assistant governor's house in front of the forbidding old jail, is also the charity's headquarters. Officially, it's 22 Old Elvet.

It's bright, cheerful, informal, friendly. There are sitting rooms and rooms in which privately to talk; a cafe, well-equipped creche - none of the books appears to be about cops and robbers - and a youth room. "No adults allowed" it says on the door.

On the wall, there's an award from the Chester-le-Street Volunteer Bureau, naming NEPACS voluntary organisation of the year. "It's not exactly the Oscars," someone says, "but we appreciate it, nonetheless".

The charity is supported by the prison service but is independent of it, its offices determinedly without these walls. Visitors usually enter by the front door and leave, for the prison, by the back.

Dora Milburn, another of Durham's 65 volunteers, says the centre changes attitudes straight away. "You can see the anxiety falling from them. I don't think they expect smiling faces."

Out the back and out of sight sit a couple of uniformed prison officers, first contact with a harsher reality. There are locks and chains for fastening baby buggies - you never know who's about - and lockers in which personal belongings and any money over £10 must be left before entering the prison. A notice warns that the prison service will not be responsible for any loss or damage.

The two officers seem amicable - most are, says Sheila Seacroft, but they're still prison officers and they're still in uniform.

"We were quite nervous when we were first getting prison officers in the building, but we've moulded them to our ways," says Ruth. "They're quite understanding, most of them."

The officers can also be a useful fallback in the rare event of problems. "I sometimes think that people should be more angry than they are, the way they're often treated for no good reason," says Sheila.

The charity was formed in 1882 as the Durham Discharged Prisoners Aid Society, became the North-East Prisoners' After Care Society and is now simply NEPACS. Though the after care role has diminished - there are other agencies - they try to build bridges with the community and can offer small grants to released prisoners' families.

"We're trying to dispel the idea that offenders, and particularly their families, are somehow alien and nothing to do with us," says Sheila.

"We're not a very glamorous charity, but we've some of the most dedicated volunteers in the business. Keeping families together is the main thing."

Ruth Cranfield insists that the relationship isn't patronising. It's open and friendly, she adds, they know when to talk, when to listen, and when to do neither. "Sometimes prison is such a shock for the families that we're the only ordinary people they can talk to."

It's a fairly quiet day when we visit the visitors' centre; Saturdays, they say, are "bedlam". One or two volunteers are recalling a visit by "Mr Reynolds and his henchmen". It could be any Mr Reynolds, of course.

There are leaflets headed "Escape" and "Liberty" - freedom from drugs, not going over the wall - others about understanding search procedures and what can be taken in to a prisoner.

For some strange reason, newspapers and magazines can only be bought from Martin's in North Road. Magazines in the visitors' centre range from Bella to A Love Supreme, a Sunderland FC fanzine and thus relevant to a punitive regime.

The centre operates seven days a week, helpers ranging from university students to pensioners. They're co-ordinated by June Diffey.

"The prison service are rightly concerned with security, we're concerned with prisoners and their families," she says.

"Our job is to make people feel as comfortable as possible, to give them as much information as possible and to help with problems where we can."

Despite their efforts and their evangelism - there was even a talk to Stanley WMC, a night to remember - the image remains, for want of a better word, institutionalised.

"Someone said the other day that if I wanted to help a good cause, why didn't I work at a hospital or something," says Dora. "We've still a lot to do."

They'd much welcome volunteers, members (minimum £5 annually) or donations. Alternatively, of course, just pay the visitors' centre a visit. "Let's just say," says Dora, "that most people are a lot less worried when they leave here than they are when they come in".

* NEPACS, 22 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HW (0191-332 3676).

50 years on, and still stirring things up

DAVID Jenkins, the indelibly remembered former Bishop of Durham, marks on June 13 the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.

"I shall just go into a perfectly ordinary church somewhere and keep quiet about it," says the marvellous Bishop David, 80 next January.

The jubilee was announced, however - albeit two weeks prematurely - at a service in Durham Cathedral last Saturday to mark the tenth anniversary of women's ordination. "I was reduced to speechlessness," he says, improbably.

Bishop of Durham from 1984-94, he is now an assistant bishop of Ripon, lives in Cotherstone, in Teesdale and remains vigorously active. "It takes me a little longer to get going but I'm reasonably cheerful and I'm going to Oxford this weekend to stir things up a bit," he says.

In between academic and ecclesiastical activity, he is a bird watcher, walker and avid reader of "animal" books, particularly about tigers.

"I have no regrets, you have to rely on God, but I have had many failures and people have been very kind.

"I'm damned if I'm going to stop believing in God now, I just wish I knew what he was up to."

LAST week's column on the end of Darlington councillor Rod Burtt's 35-year engagement to Judith Kent - they finally married ten days ago - has attracted worldwide media interest. There was even a call from Bella magazine who, presumably unable to find a name like Burtt in the phone book, offered a tip-off fee for the information. "Send it to a cancer research charity," we said. The cheque is doubtless in the post.

DAVID Atkinson in Stokesley, once described hereabouts as the North-East's biggest Temperance Seven fan, reports that John Davies - one of the nine - has died, aged 77. "I think he's the first to go," says David.

Older readers will recall You're Driving Me Crazy, the band's improbable 1961 number one. Others, like Pasadena, followed.

"They were good musicians and a pack of nutcases," says David, which ma y explain why Davies appeared as Sheikh Wadi El Yadounia and habitually wore a fez.

Davies later gained a reputation for re-mastering old jazz recordings - "so good they put his name on the sleeve," says David. Now, sadly, the Seven are only eight.

A YET more venerable note, Olly Burton in Durham wonders if John North readers can help find the words of a "clever patter" song performed by Richard "Stinker" Murdoch on the fondly remembered radio show Much Binding in the Marsh. It began, he thinks:

Twopenny buns are half a crown

And fourpenny buns are one and elevenpence.

There was also something about taking his mother to the ice show, quite a nice show...

Much binding? Someone will recall it, no doubt.