One of our Residents offered to give a talk, this week, on Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. He is a retired senior prison officer and, in his time, (excuse the pun) had visited the prison a number of times. It had interested him; the history and stories that he heard about them. He was reminded of this by another resident so offered to do the talk, which entailed lots of research on his behalf.

Originally, he wanted to be anonymous, so as to not feel any pressure about doing it, so we put up posters advertising the talk saying, ‘by a guest speaker’. But as time drew nearer, he felt more and more confident, so started telling other residents that it was he who was doing the talk. Soon word spread around and people got intrigued and excited to hear what he had to say.

We decided to host it in the Activity Room, as we could shut the doors, so making it quieter thus easier for Residents to hear him. People started arriving early and the room filled up to capacity extremely quickly.

The talk went on for well over an hour and everyone found it fascinating to hear a lot of things first-hand; real insights to the prison. The talk was a great success with many residents going up to him afterwards to congratulate him. We now wait to hear what his next topic will be on!