Reading, being set deep in a valley at the confluence of two rivers,
is an unhealthy town, close and sultry by summer, and damp and misty
by winter. The gaol is a handsome building, erected in red brick after
the manner of an old castle, with battlements and towers. One almost
expected a portcullis to be lowered at the great gate; and when we were
within the double gates we certainly felt as though a portcullis had
been drawn after us. We stood in a small cobbled yard. Behind us was
the broad wall in which the double gates were set, flanked on each side
by the Governor’s and the Steward’s houses. Before us a flight of stone
steps arose, leading to the offices, behind which was the large male
prison. To the right a wall arose dividing us from the work yard; and
on the left a high blind wall arose, pierced only by a single door near
the wall round the jail. This was the female prison—ordinarily so, but
for the time being our habitation.
Yet what astonished me most was the sight of flowers. Their presence
made the cobbled yard and the precincts seem almost collegiate. In
neatly kept beds about the walls they lifted their heads with a happy
gaiety very strange to some of us who had known so human a touch
banished from buildings more appropriately given over to the possession
of flints and cinders. A few days after we were taken through the
work yard behind the main prison. Here in the work hall a canteen was
opened on three days in the week for the interned prisoners who now
occupied the prison, but here also was the large exercise yard, and it
was covered with an abundance of flowers. The familiar asphalt paths
could not be seen where they threaded their way amid blossoms. In beds
beneath the walls tall flowers lifted their heads, and even the graves
of hanged men could not be seen beneath the blooms that covered them.
It was an amazing sight. There were not merely flowers, a sight
astonishing enough in itself; there was a prodigality of flowers. Then
some of us remembered the cause. One of the graves unlocked the secret.
It was marked with the letters C. T. W., and the date, 1896, to whom
Oscar Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Jail” had been inscribed, and in
celebration of whose passing the poem had been penned.
But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison-air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man’s despair.
So never will wine-red rose or white
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
That God’s Son died for all.
So Wilde had sung, not in protest, but in bitter acceptance, never
dreaming that a poet’s song could change the flint, the pebble, and
the shard of the yard he trod. But for us who came after him with the
memory of his song in our minds, the miracle had been wrought. Miracle
it was, and it had been wrought in no common sort, for the great
yard was a lake of leaf and bloom, and the hideous prison wall was
transformed by gay figures decked in raiment that not Solomon in all
his glory could outvie.
Already in the pebbled entrance yard the hand of this “unacknowledged
legislator” was in evidence. We were first taken across to the office,
as we arrived in batches, and our money taken from us, and our kit
examined. Then we were led back through the door in the blind wall
into the female prison, that had been allocated to Irish Prisoners of
War. The main prison was occupied by the nations of Europe: Belgians,
Germans, French, Rumanians, Russians, and indeed every degree and
variety of European to the number of fourteen.
* * * * *
The prison actually held only twenty-two cells. There were in addition
a hospital, a maternity ward, and two padded cells, one permanent and
one temporary. The hospital and maternity ward consisted of two cells
each, with the intervening wall removed. In each of these three men
were placed (there being some little rivalry for the maternity ward),
which with the use of the temporary padded cell provided for all of us.
In addition to this, there was also an observation ward, on the ground
floor, similarly constructed of two cells converted into one, and this
was given to us as a recreation room. All these cells were on one side
of the building, the other side being a blank wall, and the only light
that came to the passage struggled down through skylights.
Such was the place that was to be our habitation for nearly six months,
and in which we erected the structure of our communal life.