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was constantly ironing had an obsession with seeing her shirts and sheets with no creases at all.
    But after roll call and before cleaning duties on Saturday, a treat. One of the first inductions was to the gym, which was built in a barn originally used for horse displays in the past before the building was turned into a borstal and then a prison. We had two trainers who we also shared with the nearby men’s prison Blantyre and we spent some time being taken around the various bits of equipment and told how to use them and how to stretch to avoid any injuries. I had never been to the gym before – actually, that’s not strictly true. Twenty years ago, we at KPMG were given subsidised membership of a gym nearby. I had just given birth to my rather large youngest son and as a result I was rather large, too. I knew from experience (he was child number five) that given time that extra weight would go away and I would be back to my rather thin self but I bowed to the pressure from my colleagues and went for an induction. I bought some sports gear and kept it in plain sight. As the weight dropped off, colleagues commented on how right they had been and how successful the gym regime was proving. I would nod wisely and leave it at that – except of course I never went to the gym once!
    But I had to try and keep fit; there was no running around as I usually do at work or walking up and down the five flights of stairs in my tall, narrow home. In any case, exercise has been proven to reduce levels of stress, depression and anxiety in low-security prisoners , so it could only be a good thing. 80 Also, nice music was played, which was worth attending the gym sessions for alone, and I had company from girlsI got to rather like. Of course, being a hater of gyms I had to find something that was relatively easy and relaxing, so I took up rowing, which I am told is the best thing. I would row gently for half an hour – nothing intense, so horrified was I by reports that the journalist and newscaster Andrew Marr had incurred his stroke while rowing rather fiercely. And I came to depend on this gentle exercise. We would beg the trainers to come as often as possible so that we could open the gym as it was obvious that exercise was making a big difference to our mental well-being. The girls were also all conscious of their figures and there was constant weighing going on while the gym was open. But it was open only a few times a week and increasingly less often as the weeks wore on due to cuts in that area (something occurring across the prison service) and the retirement of one gym instructor who was now part-time and wasn’t being properly replaced. We had hoped for a risk assessment that would allow the gym, like the IT room, to stay open all the time as there was very little harm that could be done by the use of the equipment except for the machines with weights, which we were all happy to see disappear if we at least had the rest of the equipment available to us for longer. But despite hopes that this would indeed be granted and a number of discussions with the governor, it still had not been implemented by the time I left.
    After the gym induction, we went for a walk – there was always meant to be one at 9.45 on Saturday mornings, for which I hurried my obsessive dining room cleaning to ensure I could always take part. That soon became the highlight of my week. A number of us would gather (too few in my view) outside the gym and borrow boots from the farm changing room– the first week I was lent the governor’s boots, so wet was it outside, but usually we would borrow boots left by the farm workers who were only at the farm for an hour on weekend mornings. The walk was just marvellous. Come rain or shine, we would leave the big house behind, and walk through a gate that said ‘out of bounds’ (itself a great pleasure), then climb over gates and ramble through a series of fields full of horses, then sheep with their young lambs