Up early, into the office, and a quick visit to have a couple of stitches out, before heading back to Portland to visit HMYOI. I first met up with POA Branch Chairman Tony Walker, a former Royal Marine, who I have got to know well. There were three other prison officers present and we spent an hour together chewing the cud. I have always said that I sympathize and agree with many of their concerns, not least over numbers. And, like them, I am not happy that officers are now expected to work through until they are 66. A lot of their work is arduous, requiring them at times to restrain prisoners, or deal with assaults of one kind or another. It's a matter I have already raised with the Government and will continue to do so. Then it was across to the main prison and up into the Governor's office for a catch-up with Steve Hodson. Steve is a charming and able Governor, but, like so many of them, he is having to cope with a severe pinch on resources. At the end of our meeting, Steve took me over to a garden at the back of the prison to meet horticulturist Wendy Grayson. What a lovely lady, who has spent the last 13 years devoting her life to communicating with prisoners via her love of flowers, plants, trees and shrubs. She and the prisoners have created an Armistice Garden to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1. It has been done very imaginatively and I asked if I could return on another occasion and meet the prisoners themselves. That will now be arranged. Then back to the office where I worked through to 2000.