Saturday, 6 October 2012
copyright of "Jeremy Bamber Campaign."
Jeremy Bamber: A Life of Less Liberty
This is the first article in the sequence called A Life of Less Liberty, which is a series of four short pieces written by Jeremy reflecting on his 27 years of wrongful incarceration.
“Today marks a year since the death of Steve Jobs the founder of Apple Inc. If I look back to 1985, when I first came to prison, I realize it also marks the year that he and Steve Wozniak were awarded the National Medal for Technology Innovation for their development and introduction of the Personal Computer. Since then technologies built on their essential participation in the world of computing and communications have developed much further than I could have imagined.
I was only 24 when I came to jail, no different from any other young man in being interested engineering, computers and technology. The world was changing rapidly, debate about using a computer for farming was discussed at N & J Bamber and had I not lost my family in the tragedy at White House farm and had I not come to prison, we would certainly have developed our business using computing.
My journey in 27 years of prison has been restricted and I've not experienced much of the technology that all those with liberty take for granted on a daily basis. I have been fortunate to use a computer for some years in the Braille translation workshop at Full Sutton, so coming home won’t be a complete shock for me. But I have yet to learn about the likes of smart phones, i-pads, Google, and Gran Turismo.
We, as societies, all experience many freedoms with the internet, including freedom of movement to be in constant contact with our co-workers or family and friends almost everywhere we go in the world.
We have the freedom to speak to the world without any restriction as to the content through web sites, bloggers and social media sites. We have freedom of knowledge at our fingertips and in the flick of the keypad we can find out the most obscure facts in a second which can enhance and enrich our lives providing us with knowledge for study, work, or simple recreation.
I'm not at liberty to experience these things first hand but I have some knowledge of these technologies from media and friends, of course I have no user experience at all so when justice finally comes, I am looking forward to a whole new liberty of which I could only have dreamed of in 1985, and it seems to me that freedom has never been so good.”
JeremyPosted byJeremy Bamber
This is the second article in a series of four written by Jeremy to mark the anniversary of 26 years wrongly convicted and 27 years wrongly imprisoned.
Star gazing would have become a great hobby as I knew from a young age that I’d be a farmer. Dad inspired me with the wonder of growing the things that made our living and he understood that to engage my interest it had to be on an intellectual basis as well as practical and that’s why I enjoy my time in the Braille workshop. Braille can be tricky to learn how to read and write and there is nothing else like it. So there are no skills you have already that allow you to read a single letter – what you look at are effectively a series of tactile dots, as each character is created from 6 dots.
This is the fourth and last article in the series written by Jeremy to mark the anniversary of 26 years wrongly convicted and 27 years wrongly imprisoned.
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“I wanted to share some reflections on what I might have done with my life career wise had I not come to prison. My earliest memory about what my future career would be is that I wanted to be an astronaut, it seems a bit stupid saying that now, except that I had grown up with the Apollo space launches and I had watched the first moon landing live on T.V and heard those memorable words from the late Neil Armstrong, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” I think I was 8 or 9 years old when I heard those words and it seemed to me that exploring space was the obvious thing to want to do.
There were no street lights around where we lived, so the dark nights meant we could see a million stars in the sky. Dad had learnt to navigate his aircraft using the stars and he would teach me different constellations and the names of particular stars if we were out on a clear night. Dad told me the night sky was important for many reasons, and he always had exciting stories to tell about the moon. I believed the Clangers lived on the moon along with the Soup Dragon and he would make stuff up to make the night sky even more magical. So when I’m peering out between the bars on my window at the night sky I’m hoping to glimpse a star I can recognize, but the prison lights are always blazing, so I’m lucky if I can see one or two stars in the tiny section of sky available to me.
Star gazing would have become a great hobby as I knew from a young age that I’d be a farmer. Dad inspired me with the wonder of growing the things that made our living and he understood that to engage my interest it had to be on an intellectual basis as well as practical and that’s why I enjoy my time in the Braille workshop. Braille can be tricky to learn how to read and write and there is nothing else like it. So there are no skills you have already that allow you to read a single letter – what you look at are effectively a series of tactile dots, as each character is created from 6 dots.
Had I not come to jail I would never have become a skilled Braillist, and I enjoy every moment I am doing it because I know that this will set minds free from the darkness of blindness. It gives my life a value too so that the injustice I’m suffering seems bearable and in many ways my 'career' has been the lifetimes work I have spent seeking for evidence to prove my innocence among the case documents. Searching for truth and working towards freedom helps me to focus on the future in a way that nothing else does.
You never know what is around the corner, but whatever life deals for you it’s important to make as much as possible from each moment. Jail has made my horizons small compared with the dreams I had as a boy and the freedoms I had on the farm.
A quote from Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) inspired me to write:
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
Life innocent and youthful take,
That freedom’s won’t assuage.”
It’s about never getting the time back, but it’s no excuse to blame circumstance for wasting the time we have. I miss everything from my life before jail, and will enjoy those things that freedom brings but I also hope that I can look back and miss much from jail with few regrets but only time will tell.”
Jeremy
“I wanted to write about the social dimension of my imprisonment and explain how things have changed for me since coming to prison. In my late teens I was very lucky to have an older sister who in the late ’70’s was a very beautiful and popular model. Sheila and her modelling mates took me under their wings and showed me around London’s glitzy night clubs on many enjoyable evenings. I think they saw me as a little mascot and I made them laugh and they felt safe with me, even today I’m still in touch with some of them. As the New Romantic era in music came into fashion I was doing A Levels at Colchester Technical College and I seemed to mix with all the trendy girls most of the time as I was never a ‘beer with the lads’ kind of bloke. I always had lots of gay friends too though I’d mix easily with the young farmers locally, my friends generally were from a wide circle. I feel upset that I have missed out on all of their weddings, birthday parties, Christenings and watching them become good parents or celebrate a change of career, and I’ve even been denied the mourning process of saying goodbye at funerals. I have missed all the key times in their lives as I’ve not been able to share so many things with them, or protect them when they were afraid, or comfort them when they were hurt, just to be there for my friends at any time of the day or night when they needed a kind word or listening ear.
At the prison there is just a concrete yard to walk around but I enjoy visits from friends on the outside and it’s great to catch up on how everyone is doing. When friends are happy that’s easy of course but when they have a crisis that’s when I feel it as I’m unable to help them in a tangible way. So I am left feeling useless as a friend and powerless which is tough. I have friends who are the same age as my nephews Nicholas and Daniel and it’s always heartbreaking thinking about the lives they live and thinking about the boys doing the same had their lives not been cut short in the tragedy. But I also love the enthusiasm for life that my younger friends have – the career opportunities now are worldwide and available to anyone who works hard and wants it enough.
When I still had my liberty I used to go to the gym, not as frequently as I do now but I liked to keep fit and working on the farm also naturally helped to keep me strong. Being healthy is something you don’t think about when you are younger but coping with the stress of coming to prison as an innocent man has been difficult. One of the great ways to help with pressure is by going to the gym, whatever type of activity you’re into it makes a huge difference. The prison regime encourages sport and sports training. I’ve done many different activities over the years including football and other team games but I really do prefer to lift weights rather than aerobic exercise. I am dedicated to my gym sessions which are really enjoyable and another way of stress relief is through yoga, and this is something I learnt in prison a long time ago through classes and I’ve continued to use it since then, it makes up part of my physical therapy routine to keep supple, centre myself in difficult times, and it adds to my overall wellbeing because prison is a naturally stressful environment.
I have of course made friends inside prison and I remember doing time in Gartree with Yusef Abdullahi one of the Cardiff three wrongly convicted for the murder of Lynette White. Yusef was a very nice man and a great friend at the time which is why I was upset by his tragic death last year. I felt the injustice of the time in prison which he had lost as a result of his wrongful conviction. We used to share our thoughts about what life would be like when our convictions were overturned and I know at that time neither of us would have believed that his freedom would be taken by his early death and that I would still be convicted even now.”
Jeremy
“My hopes for the future have evolved considerably during my time in prison simply because I never thought I would stay in jail. But I can’t help thinking about all the things I might do when I am free. I used to think I would like to travel a lot or have a farm somewhere like Australia or New Zealand. The many friends I have had over the years have often led me to think about doing things I’d never thought about before like skiing or surfboarding. I’ve thought about having a little Chateau in France with a vineyard or spending time by the sea. The nearest I have been to the beach recently was when I called a friend on a mobile phone and I could hear waves of the sea lapping on the beach where he was, it stirred up happy memories.
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Now I just think about living an ordinary, uncomplicated life with simple pleasures and enjoying the company of good friends. I want to visit the supermarket and choose from an abundance of foods, walk freely about this beautiful country and picnic in the sunset on a summer’s day. I want the the freedom of choice to go to live music concerts, football matches, the theatre, cycling or just staying in, cooking a nice meal and lounging on the sofa with a glass of wine and listening to music.
Other prisoners have visits from their family and while I have lots of friends, the thing I miss the most is my family. Losing them has been more difficult to bear than 27 years of wrongful imprisonment. Our families are always there for us no matter what, they transcend time that friends or lovers lose when they might come and go but family is permanent and consistent. Many miscarriage of justice cases have family to fight for them, support and love them. I will keep fighting to prove my innocence and clear the name of my family which was portrayed as "dysfunctional" simply by the stigma of Sheila’s mental illness.
When I think about what life might have been like had I not lost my family so tragically and come to jail, I imagine my parents growing older and when I speak to friends whose parents are becoming ill and infirm with age, some living into their late eighties and nineties, I feel cheated that I’ve not had all of those years to share and all that time to care. I never got to see my Dad retire or my Mum continue with her work for the WI and Church. I often wonder what it would have been like for my parents to see Sheila’s boys grow up and have children themselves; there would have been another joy for them being great-grandparents as many older people are today. I wonder what my parents would have made of modern farming. I often think of how things might have been for Sheila if her mental health had been managed properly and we had known how to support her, she could have gone on to marry again if her condition was improved.
I think about what might have become of my own life, one can only guess but I know I would have continued with farming which has always been my passion, and I feel sad that modern farming continues to struggle through financial troubles. I worry that wildlife in the countryside is on the decline owing to modern pesticides brought about by new ways of farming. I often wonder if I would have done more travelling before settling down I certainly felt I would like to return to Australia. I consider the things that might have been and the things that will be. I have been denied my own family life, a partner and fatherhood. I didn’t imagine being single at 51 of course but in the future I feel a sense of excitement and exploration. It will be strange to start with but I will embrace and enjoy every moment of my liberty. I want to ramble through the countryside and return to farming in a small way. I want someone to share my life with and all of the simple things, perhaps a country dweller, someone who is in tune with the seasons. I want to do all of the caring and loving that the condition of imprisonment denies me.”
I just want to be free.
A Christmas of Less Liberty is part of a series of pieces written by Jeremy reflecting on his life to mark 27 years in prison and 26 years wrongly convicted of murdering his family in 1985.
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| Ipswich at Christmas time |
“I wanted to share with you some small snapshots from my memories of Christmas time. The fun started from when we got the tree. We were never organized as Dad just liked to wing it and stop and buy trees from the road side. It had to be big; the lounge had such high ceilings and it was a running joke to see just how ridiculously huge a tree Dad would get. Dad loved to get that reaction from anyone visiting at the sight of a 14-foot pine tree that took up a quarter of the room. It was just amusement to Dad, and so, me too- it was just so over the top and great fun. It was like lots of little family rituals with Dad at Christmas. He wouldn’t get a single Christmas present until Christmas eve – Mum did all the main present buying and she used to think about it and make really good choices but, to Dad, leaving it to the last minute was all part of the fun. He had this special Christmas carrier bag which was about the size of a duvet cover with handles, and I could get into it easily; well that came out every Christmas Eve and Dad and I would go to Colchester in the morning and the woo-hoo adventure of it with a visit to Ipswich in the afternoon.
Between us we’d choose things for all those people Dad wanted to give presents to, no lists or plans; we’d just go into the shops and look at stuff we liked, and decide who else might like it and get it for them. Dad being a country farmer, and me just a little boy, we had no idea about what was fashionable or the latest thing to have and so we’d get caught up in the hype of promotions. We would see some guy chopping up carrots with some gadget or other and think that it would be perfect for Mum. Dad’s mission every year was to buy the biggest box of chocolates for sale that he could find, as that was his traditional gift for Mum who loved choccies.
So by the end of the day on our shopping trip Dad’s Christmas carrier bag would be full and wrapped in the shop. Name tags often came off, but rather than unwrap them he’d guess what it was by feeling them and then he would stick the tags back on for who he thought each gift was for. Mostly it was right but it just added to the fun when someone opened a present to find a Lego kit as Gran did one year instead of a box of liquor chocolates that I had already got and at 5:30am when I found them in my Santa’s stocking, and fed them to our dog, Jasper, ’cos they tasted horrible.
I’d go shopping with Mum in Colchester from when I was little up until I was about 15. As I grew older, we would split up in town and then later we’d meet up outside Williams and Griffins at a set time and on our way back to the car we had to go past this beautiful cake shop and tea rooms. The window display was full of éclairs and all kinds of cream cakes and delicious chocolatey things - it was such a temptation and at Christmas it was just magical. So Mum would treat me to whatever I fancied and years later she told me about what I was like when I was little because Mum wasn’t just buying me a cake it was an excuse to have one as well. She said I was always excited about choosing something but I always chose a fresh crusty bread roll and butter, no jam, just a roll and butter and a glass of milk. Looking back now and thinking of those happy times: this cake shop had its own coffee grinder and machine and it made the place smell lovely. I’m thinking about Mum getting the menu and reading out all the sticky treats and cakey things. She’d say “you’d like that, Jem” - trying to tempt me into getting something. I would always have this roll and butter, but sometimes she did tempt me into a banana split.
Every year, Sheila and I would do a Christmas raid on the presents underneath the tree this went on for a few years from when I was about 6 and Sheila about 10. She would come and get me out of bed and we would go down stairs in the middle of the night. Sheila would be the ‘lookout’ and, being the smallest I would sneak into the pile of presents. I would usually plunge into the presents right in the middle, trying not to disturb the pile too much. From there I would un-tape some of the presents and pull out chocolates from them and eat one or two passing some to Sheila. It was great fun - we would spend ages giggling and thinking that no one would ever know we had been in the middle of the presents eating the chocolates. Sheila would pull me out of the pile by my legs when I was done and we would both have chocolate all around our faces, go back to bed and come down in the morning like it with bits of tinsel and pine needles in our hair. Looking back, it must have been so obvious that we had been eating chocolates from our Christmas raid in the night but we really thought Mum and Dad didn’t notice. The best memories of Sheila and Christmas were the times we spent together decorating the tree. Sheila was very artistic and loved to put the decorations on carefully and the tree would look simply magnificent, even if we did have to put the baubles quite high because our cat, Thomas, would get hold of them.
I just remember Christmas as such a happy time that was full of love and laughs and the family’s running jokes, like the over-sized Christmas tree, and one or two family members getting inappropriately drunk. But these memories are all long ago, happy memories. I miss them all: Gran and Granddad, Mum and Dad, Sheila, Daniel and Nicholas – who I can never share Christmas with again. I thought the world of my Sister Sheila, we can never share the laughter of those times or any memories of our childhood together now.
So what of the future and, perhaps, others to share fun Christmases with? For me to carry on in Dad’s footsteps, with an over large Christmas tree, and all our silly running jokes; or will it be another 30 or 40 more Christmases in here with one slice of processed turkey and the prospect of the onset of dementia; having my canteen purchases bullied off me ’cos I will be too old to stick up for myself and too forgetful to remember that someone has robbed me. I don’t want to endure really old age in a maximum security prison, with nobody to help me make my bed or dress me or help me eat, and not being able to take care of myself - living many harrowing years of shuffling about, not even knowing where I am or how I ended up in here.
This will be my 28th Christmas at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, and being locked up for 15-and-a-half hours a day over most of the Christmas period is just horrible. The idea of having endured 27 already with another 28 or so to go, when I’ve proven over and over again that I didn’t murder my family and couldn’t have done is soul destroying. My alibi has been kept hidden from the trial, two appeals, three police enquiries, countless IPCC complaints and enquiries and a total of 14 years investigating by the CCRC and yet no one has uncovered the evidence which we now have. The past year has shown everyone how many high-profile cases of police corruption have gone un-investigated, how police have ignored the pleas of innocent people to help them, how police have taken payments from journalists, and how public bodies frequently cover up the negligence and corruption which is virulent in the UK today and adds to the needless suffering of those who justice is supposed to protect.
I could not continue to fight for justice and freedom without the support and love of the friends around me on the outside. Everyone who writes a letter to me adds to my strength to carry on until the truth sets me free.
Thank you for sharing a part of your lives with me, and I hope that I have shared a part of me that makes you know that our cause is worthwhile. When I am home, my fight won’t end because I will work towards preventing the suffering of other people wrongly convicted and also to bring better healthcare and support to the families of those who struggle with mental illness.”
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Jeremy
21st December 2012
