A window into LandWorks

It wasn’t until I was doing some groups in jail and this is pretty much my only real jail sentence… I was doing a group, we used to do a group every two-weeks together, like a ‘smart’ group and it wasn’t until we were picking holes in my sort of life, that I realised the two times I’ve really gone off the rails is when my father died and then again when my mother died. That sort of put the pieces together. I don’t think I do grief well, that’s what it boils down to. It’s not an excuse. I never was an angel before that. When I was younger, I used to come off from sea and I was drinking and fighting, grew out of that. Tried to do the family thing. Don’t know, here I am…

What happened was, I came home from sea, beginning of 2014, because my mother was dying of cancer, so we were taking it in turns looking after her and stuff and then when she died I kind of went off the rails a bit. Got involved in drugs. Both times I got involved with drugs, done exactly the same thing when my father died. Drugs have never been a big thing for me, and I don’t even want to think about it, but the two times I’ve done it, I’ve gone from dabbling to full-on in no time at all. So, I think ending up in jail, really, I mean I wasn’t stopping until I got … so, it done me a favour, really, if you want to look at it like that…

No-one visited me. My closest sister and my nephews, they were all up for coming up, but I thought … I can’t think of anything to say on the phone for more than two minutes, so I don’t want to sit there for two hours, do you know what I mean? I just want to get my head down and get on with it. I didn’t want a visit. I’m sure if my mother was alive, she’d have been up every … I was definitely mummy’s little soldier. A lot of people used to say, she’s only small, my mother, people used to say she put the fear of god into them and scared them. I could never see it, my lovely little mum. My sister used to laugh and say “of course you don’t see it”.

Like I say, on my mother’s side, we’re all quite close, we’re all Devon people. When my grandad died, I think that wiped me out as well. I can be quite hard-faced or stubborn or whatever in other factors of life, but just them big things happening, it just kind of whips the rug from under me, you know… What is was, my nan died as well, recently, after my mum. They couldn’t find me when my nan died. I was homeless in Exeter…

Been coming here for a couple of weeks. I’ve planted some seeds with Monica, started some little seedlings off in the propagator. Done a bit of weeding out in the garden. (Been) building a pond and putting up the surrounding area, putting the batons up and all that. Make it all nice. Bit of woodwork. Made a clay pot, top potter, fluked it. I don’t know how it ended up like that, I just took my hands off it before it all went wobbly. Made a nice little chopping-board. So, just getting stuck in with it. I’m enjoying the woodwork. I’ve made a tile, don’t know if it’s been fired yet. I put a little fishing boat on it. I haven’t seen it yet. I cooked the first day I was here, made a soup. Done a bit of cooking on the boats and that. I’m keeping myself occupied…

I don’t want to go back. I hated every minute of it. I would be mortified if I got recalled. You see the amount of people that get recalled. Nine times out of ten they say they it was a miscarriage of justice, but obviously, they must’ve done something. You see how many of them get recalled and I think “no way”. Two years is bad enough. There’s no way I’m going to go out for a week and then go back and start the whole two years again…”