The Women of HMP Forest Bank

HMP Forest Bank can’t be reached by tram. It’s nestled just on the Salford-side of the Irwell, not far from the M60, cut off from the multi-coloured modernisation of snaking Metrolink branches and millennial BBC employees that haunt the wealthier suburbs. It’s a Category B prison, predominantly home to men held “on remand”, men still presumed innocent under law but denied bail by the courts. It’s a huge, ugly building – mostly obscured by the perimeter fence – with an unassuming reception where, after you’ve been scanned and searched, you can visit friends and family for an hour at a time under the watchful eye of the blinking cameras on the wall.

It’s always quiet on the way out. When the door shuts and the men have gone, the women hold their children close. “We’ll be back next week,” they say, and I hate it when they’re brave. We file out past the primary school paintings (a purple monster by Ava, aged 9) and the Where’s Wally mural, staring resolutely at the wall until the red and white stripes blur and dance. I always feel guilty at how relieved I am to be outside.

The first time was the worst. I cried when I left, curling in on myself against the curved concrete wall as the rain seeped through my clothes and onto my skin. A woman whose name I never learnt came to me immediately, wrapped me in her chest, and held me like a child. “My son has been inside countless times,” she told me. “It’ll get easier.”

She walked with me to the bus stop. “Slowly though, love,” she said, “my feet don’t work like they used to.” She teased me about my boyfriend on the inside, and didn’t believe me when I said we were just friends. She told me about her son, about how he’d been bright and kind and happy until the drugs, and then a zombie until he’d tried to stop. He’d quit heroin cold turkey, and she’d never been prouder, until she realised the drinking he turned to instead made him angry and cold. “He never did have a high tolerance, after all” – she smiled at that, remembering his friends carrying him home after his first teenage rebellion; how she held his head as he threw up that night and laughed at his groans as he got up for school the next morning.

He’d lived with her before, and now the house was empty. She bought ready meals most days and ate them in the front room – the second chair in the kitchen made her sad, and “It’s not like you can cook a roast for one.” She watched Strictly on a Saturday and Corrie on weekdays, and visited her son as much as she possibly could. She always went alone. She was worried they wouldn’t let him live with her when they let him out – the incident happened on her road, after all – but he had nowhere else to go. “It’s not like they care,” she said. In their attempt to wash their hands of him, they’re booking his next stay.

She never told me exactly what he did, and I didn’t need to know. She loved him anyway, and I loved her for it. I’ve not seen her since. Maybe her son got transferred, maybe he’s free, maybe our schedules just don’t line up. Either way, in my head, she was my guardian angel, and I wish I’d remembered to say thank you.

The bus from outside prison only goes once an hour and I often miss it. The alternative is walking 10 minutes to the 93, over the rusty bridge and across the roundabout back into Prestwich. I like the reminder – the birds over the river and the bustle of the women in the chip shop all chaotic and messy and free, a far sight from the lines and rules and concrete of Forest Bank. Mostly it’s just me, but sometimes on weekends there’s a few of us. We loiter at the bus stop and I feel 14 again, sharing cigarettes and life stories with strangers without a second thought.

There’s a girl around my age who I’ve seen a few times. She calls me posh and uptight and grins at me when I cough up a lung on her vape. Her boyfriend’s inside. He’s fit, apparently, but “None of the photos ever do him right.” I laugh at her for that, and she tells me that they got shouted at for making out for too long at today’s visit. “What are they gonna do, take his tongue away?” They’ve been together since high school (“on and off”, she reassures me), and she’s already planning their future together when he’s out. She doesn’t think he did it, but she doesn’t know how to help, and he won’t talk about it. “Men,” she says, and rolls her eyes. The older women look at each other and pat her on the arm. They’ve seen it all before.

Every now and again there’s a baby. We all coo over them, and jostle to hold it as Mum goes through security. They sometimes cry in the hall, and it makes everyone smile. One woman brings her baby to see the man who hit her. They’re separated now, but it’s not that easy – “He’s his dad”, she says. Nothing is simple. It’s complicated, and raw, and human – but she’s doing her best, and she thinks that he is too.

I’d like to think I won’t spend much more time in Forest Bank. My friend’s trial is soon, and it’s likely they’ll be moved to a “proper” (non-remand) prison after that, hopefully a Category C or D that gives them more time outside and less stuck in a cell. I won’t miss it, but I won’t forget it either, the cruelty of a system that rips families apart and the care of the women who try to put them back together. They’ve done more for me than they could ever know.