Until now, however, the prison service has devoted little or no thought to how to handle older inmates. It is also the only prison in Britain that takes only lifers, meaning that at least three-quarters of its inmates are murderers. The idea behind H wing was to give older lifers some protection from the rest of the population, says McLean. Its inmates can circulate in the prison but other prisoners cannot pass through the two heavy gates that separate it from the rest of the jail. Its rooms, each shared by four inmates, are bright and comparatively airy and there are several spartan communal rooms that could easily be mistaken for doctors' waiting rooms.
Staff appear to be patient and courteous.
About a third of them work and the rest of them don't want to move away from their TVs. It's easy to see why. In one room I meet Boom Boom, a man who looks to be in his 70s leaning awkwardly on a three-legged walking stick. Like many of the inmates on E wing, he is dressed in tracksuit bottoms, T-shirt and slippers. I ask him how old he is and he holds up one hand to show five fingers, while making a series of incomprehensible sounds.