Prison Governor

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30745, 8 May 1965, Page 4

Prison Governor

If Freedom Fail. By John Vidler and Michael Wolff. Macmillan. 162 pp.

The story is told of the prison visitor who went to see Horatio Bottomley who was sewing mail-bags in his cell. “Sewing?” he said. “No,” Bottomley replied, "reaping.” Unlike Bottomley in this apocryphal story, John Vidler’s 30 years in the Prison Service was devoted to sowing and the creation of conditions in which the ideas about training and the reforms of the prison administrators could flourish and prove themselves.

Mr Vidler was an enthusiastic sportsman and an unconventional but successful businessman until a friend of the family, Sir Alexander Patterson, who was also a prison commissioner, inveigled him into taking up the position of deputy governor of Feltham Borstal. In 1936, John Vidler became deputy governor of Portland Borstal and in 1944, the governor of Maidstone Prison. Mr Vidler’s methods of running a prison were as unconventional as his methods of tea planting. When it came to the unpleasant task of awarding regular punishment, he tried as often as possible to surprise the prisoner with the punishment least ex-

pected and least liked. “You will write out ‘I must count my blessings’ in 20 different languages 10 times each,” was the direction to one longtermer. This man was a warcasualty and should not have been in prison at all. Unable to sleep and irritated by the presence of his fellowprisoners, he moaned and grumbled perpetually. It was the Governor’s hope that this exercise would keep the prisoner from thinking of himself and would appeal to a keen sense of humour. The prisoner successfully completed the assignment with the aid of his own linguistic gifts, the knowledge of the chaplain, and some ingenuity. At the end of the task the prisoner reported that he was still unable to count his blessings. Mr Vidler was a rebel. He had no patience with those parts of the accepted prison procedure which appeared irrational or self-defeating. In his 10 years as Governor of Maidstone he did much to reform the English prison system. His comments on prison administration, prisoners, chaplains, after-care, homosexuals and sport are provocative and worth careful consideration. These memoirs of a retired and rebellious prison governor are always interesting and often entertaining.