Hey everyone in lock down
As you can see by my handle I used to be in Fairlea many moons ago, must of been awhile coz Fairlea is no more (boo hoo yeah right!!!) Think I spent about 4 yrs in and out of Pen and Fairlea. I left Melb in about 87 then to Qld where I spent about 4 mths in sunny Bogga Rd. Got out and lived in Nth Q for awhile then came to NZ.
Note how I seem to stay away from Melb (tee hee couldn't catch me eh!!:p )
Anyway now I live in NZ which is kinda cool.
I have been searching the web lately trying to find some sort of ex prisoners forum or ex women's prisoner forum and there are none that I can find. Can't even bget a link through to the any of the women's prisons. Don't they have webpages???
I'm keen to catch up with anyone still kicking around who was in around 84 to 87 or jsut anyone who wants a chat.
Also interested to find out about parole etc.
All for now and hope someone is keen to have a gas bag. The funniest and scariest thing I've heard lately is that Pentridge is now apartments. Well my address was Cell 1 B Annex, beat that, and I got paid to live there HA HA HA !!!!!!
CU

I did time 69 to 80. 83 to 85. 91. And 96 to 2000. I know a lot of female prisoners and ex-prisoners from those eras but mostly in NSW. I ran a half-way house in Glebe from 86 to 91 and met a young lady named Nikki who ran a newspaper inside Fairlea. It was called Behind Closed Doors. I ran a prison newspaper inside Parramatta Jail during 1978-79 called Contact. I still have a collection of both prison newspapers. I also have contacts with Sisters Inside - a Queensland's women's organisation for prisoners and ex-prisoners. Also Jusrice Action in NSW also has contacts with women prisoners. A friend of mine did time in Boggo Road during the 80s her name is Julie Cashman/Wright. did you know her? She was well known in that era. Julie unfortunately died last year. If I can be of any help just reply and I will start to ferret out some ccontacts for you. cheers bernie matthews (oz ex-prisoner):)

Hey Bernie how's it going. Sorry I haven't checked the site for a few weeks. Oh yeah, Behind Closed Doors, that was the name of the mag, I think you may be referring to Nicky R, I was in Fairlea and Pentridge with Nicky. I think both of us passed alot of time in the education centre. We had a fantastic teacher Marg Gow, (very inspirational) and it is probably her I thank for finally getting out of the place (Melb) over the scag and into a better head space. Well you've done your fair share on HMS pleasure, hope all is good for you now. I was checking out the Australian Bushrangers website coz I was looking up some stuff about Jika and the fire and mentioned that I'd written a poem that was published in "Behing Closed Doors" at the time. Would you have any back copies from around the time of the Jika fire? If so I'd love to get a copy. Nicky was a pretty good poet also if I remember and both of us contributed alot of poetry to the mag over the years. I was one of the editors at one stage, Nicky myself and Marg Gow (teacher) used to do the design etc. IN fact I remember receiving Contact I think.
Not too sure if I knew Julie from Bogga, I was only there for 4 months but happened to be in there with some pretty notorious women, Wendy (black widow), Missy (spiderwoman) and also my 'girl' for awhile, Valma Beck (dirty rock spider/murderer)
Unfortunately despite my best intentions to keep in touch and visit 'Missy' I didn't and moved to Nth Qld and lost contact. I did find out some time later from some Melb girls (who I did time with in Melb) in Bogga that she'd been charged with murder (inside Bogga) along with one of my Melb mates. So I guess she did many more years in that hellhole, being aboriginal would of made her sentence twice as long as her white counterpart.
I emailed sistersinside, thanks for that, not too sure what I want, if anything. In some ways I guess it sometimes feels like it hasn't happened, like I didn't go to jail. I am so far removed from all that now that sometimes I feel like I need validation that it did happen and helped to shape the person I am now. Sometimes you get these flashbacks or feelings that don't seem normal and you don't think you can explain them to anyone who hasn't been there done that. I'm not sure about you but people actually don't want to know, there may be some initial fascination with jail but when you actually start to tell them something they are that uncomfortable the subject quickly changes. It's like watching a scary movie with a cushion to shield yourself from the scary bits, except they do it with polite smiles and knowing nods.
On a lighter note, I'm at work at present, I work at a community law centre in NZ, pretty ironic eh! Oh well Bernie, better get back to reality and sign off for now
Thanks for the email, reply or thread, whatever you call it and hope to hear form you again. Jeanie Richards, auck nz (for now)