Allerton / Parker The Courage of His Convictions

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-30425-7
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 194 Seiten

'I first met Robert Allerton in prison, where he was captive and I was not... He was a powerful broad-shouldered Cockney [who] had spent his childhood in poverty and much of his manhood in prison; and he had a long record of violent crime.' Tony Parker, from his Introduction Tony Parker's first book The Courage of His Convictions (1962), constructed out of his candid and illuminating dialogues with career criminal Robert Allerton (credited as co-author), is a stunning work that displays all the skills and virtues Parker would bring to his subsequent career as an 'oral historian' of the lives of society's marginal figures. 'This intimate autobiography is a revelation - it provides the first psychological insight into the mentality of that frightening, mysterious and pathetic product of our society, the professional criminal.' Arthur Koestler

Tony Parker was born in Stockport on June 25 1923, the son of a bookseller. His mother died when he was 4. He began to write poems and plays in his late teens. Called up to military service early in the Second World War he declared himself a conscientious objector and, in lieu, was sent to work at a coal-mine in the North East, where he observed conditions and met people who influenced him hugely. After the war he began to work as a publisher's representative and, voluntarily, as a prison visitor - the latter another important stimulus to his subsequent writings. After Parker happened to make the acquaintance of a BBC radio producer and imparted his growing interest in the lives, opinions and self-perceptions of the prisoners he had met, he was given the opportunity to record an interview with a particular convict for broadcast on the BBC. The text of the interview was printed in the Listener, and spotted by the publishers Hutchinson as promising material for a book. This duly emerged as The Courage of His Convictions (1962), for which Parker and the career criminal 'Robert Allerton' (a pseudonym) were jointly credited as authors. Over the next 30 years Parker would publish 18 discrete works, most of them 'oral histories' based on discreetly edited but essentially verbatim interview transcripts. He died in 1996 (though one further work, a study of his great American counterpart Studs Terkel, appeared posthumously.)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Allerton, Robert

Parker, Tony

Leseproben

Introduction

I FIRST met Robert Allerton in prison, where he was captive and I was not. The only thing we appeared to have in common was our age, both of us being in our early thirties.

He was a powerful broad-shouldered Cockney: he had been educated in the streets of the East End and approved school, and had spent his childhood in poverty and much of his manhood in prison; and he had a long record of violent crime. I was a small Mancunian from a middle-class background, with a steady job and a wife and three children.

We were both nervous, and conversation was not easy. Knowing he had a record of violence, I expected some show of toughness: there was none. As I had neither authority nor power over him, there was no reason I could think of for his being apprehensive. But he plainly was, and continued to be for a long time. It was only gradually that I came to understand why.

In prison there are no half-measures: one is either in or out. There are only two categories—prisoners and ‘Them’. The second includes not only the Governor and staff, but all others—doctors, chaplains, social workers, instructors, clerks, visitors, teachers—who do not wear the prison blue. The gulf between is wide and deep. Anyone who tries to cross it from the prisoners’ side, by becoming a Redband or trusted prisoner for instance, is regarded as a weakling and a sycophant. In a recidivist prison like the one Bob was in, they usually are.

And within the ‘in’ group of prisoners there is another smaller and exclusive one, a Cliveden Set of hard cases who keep away from ‘Them’ and also sharply separate themselves from the other inmates. They consider themselves the élite.

Acceptance into this group is not earned easily, and depends not only on a man’s behaviour inside prison but on his reputation out of it—which is not judged on his own assessment. If he tries too hard to establish himself as tough by describing the violence he has used in committing crime or avoiding arrest, he will be avoided because he talks too much, even if most of what he says is true. Nor does violence itself necessarily bring respect: if he has used it too often, or with too slight provocation, he will be considered a nut-case who brings trouble to his associates. A professional criminal looks upon himself as someone who uses violence only when necessary, not for self-indulgence. The other criterion—behaviour inside prison—is measured by how a man currently behaves and, more importantly, how he behaved during previous sentences. If he has been known to take any step towards the side of authority, however small, he will be ‘unreliable’. And to be this means complete proscription.

Bob belonged to this clique, and had always done since he first went into prison. Association with me was not only a betrayal of principle, but threatened his social standing and would bring immediate rejection if it was known. Yet it might in fact have been this which made him determined to continue the acquaintance, at least until he could decide for himself whether it was worth while. As his life story shows, pressure from one direction provokes reaction towards another, and the stronger it is the more obstinate he becomes. But whatever the reason he continued to see me. I think if the situation had been reversed, and I had been the one trying to turn away from my own group, I should have given up, because the effort must have been great and there was no prospect of reward.

There were three striking things about him. One was his fundamental lack of desire to go straight, another his refusal to attribute his criminality to outside causes, and the third his critical awareness of his own character. They added up to something I was reluctant to acknowledge because it sounded paradoxical—a well-integrated criminal personality.

Gradually he began to express himself more freely. His views were unfailingly contemptuous of everything and everybody. The Prime Minister, Terence Rattigan, Sir Stanley Unwin, even Manchester United—they were all found wanting and tossed aside. Between, he told stories about himself designed to illustrate serious moral deficiencies, ranging wider and more wildly all the time. In return I presented an assiduously cultivated non-committal attitude which can only have seemed disagreeably condescending.

Then fortunately one evening the barriers collapsed. We were talking about poncing, and he said he thought it was disgusting and reprehensible. I replied stiffly that it might be looked upon in some ways as a form of social service, whereupon he launched into a violent attack on the hypocrisy of this studied liberalism with all the fervour of a fundamentalist. The resulting poses of outraged morality were so unfitting to both of us that we laughed—and after that it was no longer necessary ever again for him to attempt to shock, or for me to be so determinedly detached. We relaxed, were able to be ourselves, and began gradually to discover an empathy which has remained and grown.

It was clearly understood by both of us when he came out of prison that there was no question of his going straight. He brusquely refused my tentative offer to help him find a job, and would not even let me meet him at the gate on the morning of his release. He explained politely that this would embarrass him because some of his friends would be there. We made an imprecise arrangement to meet a few days afterwards, which did not mature. I didn’t expect to see him again.

But a few weeks later we walked into each other in the street; we made another arrangement for a meeting, and this time it succeeded. We have met many times since and have now after two years formed a friendship which will continue, I think, whatever direction either of us takes in the future.

In all that time he has consistently refused to accept anything from me in the way of help or assistance of any kind, even when he has needed it. Yet this, after all, is only a superficial mark of integrity, and much more important are his honesty and directness, his frankness and lack of pretence. In these respects he is outstanding among people I know, and friendship with him has been a rich and enlightening experience.

He has taught me a great deal—and most clearly of all that ‘a criminal’ is neither a type nor even a category. He has peculiarities, but he is not peculiar. To meet, talk to, and be with him is the same as doing these things with any other man, except possibly that Bob is more straightforward about himself than many. His lack of ambition to reform, at first puzzling, now seems natural; his rejection of the idea for himself no more surprising than a surgeon’s if someone suggested he should take up the fish-and-chip trade. He does not even pause to reflect. Some months ago he had the opportunity of learning a business and being paid while he did it: his refusal was immediate and automatic. He thinks of himself as a criminal by vocation, as others follow a calling for teaching or go on the stage.

His moral principles are high. He admires Danilo Dolci and Albert Schweitzer. He opposes the H-bomb, apartheid, anti-semitism and capital punishment. There is nothing insincere about these attitudes—other men, better and worse than him, hold them genuinely too. And perhaps it is no more surprising to find a criminal against hanging on moral grounds than it is to find a bishop condoning it on Christian ones.

This code of values is of course not flawless, and to attack and point out inconsistencies is easy. But the only acknowledgement will be a shrug. He has reached his views after thought and experience like anyone else; and they satisfy him.

Meeting him, it is necessary to remind oneself constantly that he has done, and will still do, acts of violence which are primitive and inexcusable, that there are aspects of his character as dark as the far side of the moon. He has been described at different times by upholders of law and order as ‘a hooligan’, ‘a thug’, and ‘a man devoid of all decency’. He is all these—at some times, and in some ways. But he is also sensitive, generous, humane. The condemnations no more sum up his whole nature than the praise. Like any other man he is a diamond of different facets which, as it is turned, alternately catch the light. Which do, depend much upon the observer’s point of view and even more on the diamond’s movements.

It might be tempting to dismiss him into some easily assumed psychiatric category such as ‘psychopath’. But to do this, accurately or not, contributes nothing and discards too lightly the positive characteristics. His achievements in widening his own knowledge, in sustaining his mental capacities through frequent imprisonments; his searching for other values; his avoidance of self-pity; even some aspects of his aggressive individualism—these are all worth emphasizing because they contradict the idea of his being irredeemable.

How the vitality of his spirit could find expression in society instead of against it, how it could be harnessed into less socially objectionable channels, is not something which I am qualified or able to answer. I still hope, perhaps unreasonably, for better things—not from him but for him: for escape from the pitiful certainty of crime, conviction, and imprisonment.

Next time the punishment will be severe. At his age and with his record he will be liable for preventive detention, a sentence of anything between five and fourteen years. By current fashion it will probably be seven...