Diary 2008
Dear Reader
Somehow Dear Reader sounds a bit naff but it will do. What follows is a diary — of sorts. I have worked from the digital recordings that I was given. As such the following is a transcription of conversations, monologue and other assorted meanderings. It wasn’t the easiest task I have ever performed and, at times some of the text may take a little license — all in the interest of keeping the whole thing lucid.
I’ve marked it all up in diary fashion, as the recordings frequently referred to the dates. As such it seemed logical to display it in this form.
You are probably reading this and wondering what I am gibbering on about but, hopefully, it will all make sense when you read the ‘diary’.
Enjoy.
Giles Taylor
Gordon Brown
59 Minutes
Tuesday January 1 ^st 2008
I don’t know why I’m using this thing. It has taken me a week just to work out how it operates. It’s a digital recorder and I’ve never used one before but, after fourteen years in prison, the world is a scary place and I need some order in my life.
It’s a tiny object and I’ve already discovered that I can keep it in my top pocket and record conversations without anybody knowing. I’m intending to keep an ‘aural’ record of the next few months — if I can work the bloody thing.
I was given it on Christmas day by the hostel and told it might help if I use it to note down my thoughts. It had been left by a well wisher and, as the new boy, I was trusted to use it and not hock it for drink money. I think the idea is a pile of crap but in a world of iPods, broadband, HD TV and SEO I’m like a polar bear in the Sahara — wrong place and lost.
I have a hangover — my first New Year hangover in nearly a decade and a half. A couple of the lads at the hostel managed to blag a few bottles of Buckfast and a half bottle of Glen’s, and we celebrated the birth of 2008.
I’m stunned at how little I have in the world. That bastard Dupree took everything. He owns my homes; he raided my bank accounts and even emptied my offshore account. When I stepped out of the prison gates I had the clothes I stood in and one hundred and eight quid in my pocket (the money I had on me when I was arrested).
I was given a bed in a hostel near Hammersmith for two weeks. Two weeks that I spent trying to get back on the ladder that I had fallen from — but it would seem that Dupree has ensured that the first rung is so out of sight that I may as well try and climb Mount Everest in a pair of slippers.
I door-stepped those of the gang who were still around and got blanked. I tried those who had retired but was told my name was bad news. I received eight kickings in as many days and the writing was on the wall. London was not for me. I was so skint I had to hold up a local corner store to get enough cash for a ticket back home.
Glasgow was little better. Everyone is drawing me a blank but the kicking ratio has fallen — only three so far.
I’m sitting on the edge of a single bed in a room that sleeps four. My room mates are all out looking for booze. It’s what they do every night. I’m not there yet but a few more weeks and I might take to the slippery slope with gusto.
Rachel’s letter is stuffed into my holdall. I’ve read it so often I can tell you the spacing between letters in millimetres and could, if asked, forge it to the point where a handwriting expert would struggle to tell original from copy.
I’m planning a trip to the pub tomorrow. I’ve no idea if it is still there or if Stevie is to be found. Not that I have a blind clue as to who Stevie is.
My head hurts and I’m off to the front desk for some painkillers.