New Hope for Britain:

Saturday 14 May 1983 -

D-26 .

Fog and sleet from Wakefield to here:

Park Lane Special Hospital, Merseyside -

A rotten, un-fresh place.

You switch off the radio and the election debate and wind down your window.

‘I’m here to see Michael Myshkin,’ you say to the guard at the gate.

‘And you are?’

‘John Piggott.’

The guard looks down at the clipboard in his hands, tilting it towards him to keep the rain off: ‘John Winston Piggott?’

You nod.

‘His solicitor?’

You nod again, even less sure.

He hands you a plastic visitor’s tag: ‘Follow the road round to the main building and the car park. Report to reception inside. They’ll take you from there.’

‘Thank you.’

You drive up the black wet road to a low grey building, modern and barred. You park and get out into the dismal cold light, the sleet and the rain. You push a buzzer and wait outside the metal door to the main building. There is a loud click then the sound of an alarm. You pull open the door and step inside a steel cage. You show the plastic visitor’s tag to the guard on the other side of the bars and tell him your name. He bangs twice on one of the bars with a black and shining truncheon. Another set of locks moves back. Another alarm sounds and you are through to the reception area. Another guard gives you a slip of paper with a number. He nods at a bench. You walk over and sit down between a couple of old people and a woman with a crying child.

You sit and you wait in the grey and damp room, grey and damp