Fascinating story of life within the British prison system

My rating:  5 out of 5

An autobiography of Veronica Bird’s life, with the main focus being on her time working within the British prison system, and the remarkable improvements she made to the prison service.    

This is an engrossing and fascinating book.  Veronica was born in 1943 and was one of 9 children born into a family living in poverty.  Despite a very challenging upbringing she makes a success of her life, and this is her story told with humour, and some interesting historical background.

Most of Veronica’s adult life was spent working within the prison service, and there is plenty here about the psychology of life in British prisons, both for the prisoners and the staff.  Her inspiring story contains many eye-openers and mentions many well known prisoners. 

Her descriptions of prison conditions are really enlightening, and the idea of working within these establishments seems pretty nightmarish and very frightening. 

Veronica worked within the prison service for 35 years, in some of the harshest prisons in England, and tells her story in an interesting and fast moving manner.  Wow, this is a powerful and fascinating read.   Photos are included in the book. 

5*s from me, as this is such an interesting story of how one woman turned disaster prisons into places of humanity.   There are a lot of editorial errors in the book, which would normally knock my rating down considerably.  However this is such a great book, that, to my mind, it still deserves 5*s – let’s hope it gets a properly edited reprint soon.