BRITAIN’S NOTORIOUS PRISONS: WORMWOOD SCRUBS
ITV, 9pm
Those who like to complain that prison inmates have it easy these days would do well to watch this episode of the documentary series. Both former prisoners and employees paint a vivid picture of how life was inside the category B, 1,300-capacity Victorian-era institution that has housed a conveyor belt of infamous gangsters and criminals, from Charles Bronson and the Krays to, er, Keith Richards and Pete Doherty.
Former inmate Marvin Herbert describes the rancid smell of “slopping out” every morning – when prisoners had to empty and rinse their own toilet bucket into a trough. But that was nothing compared to the ever-present threat of violence. “You need a weapon in jail, because they’re not coming at you with fists, they’re coming at you with weapons,” says Anthony Roberts. And those weapons can be fashioned from something as simple as toilet roll, while some inmates would strap magazines around their torsos as makeshift stab vests. However, it’s the outrageous story of double agent George Blake, who staged an improbable escape from Wormwood Scrubs and fled to the Soviet Union, that injects a bit of comparatively light entertainment.