Strangeways

Author/Guide: Neil Samworth

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2000s: Neil ‘Sam’ Samworth spent eleven years working as a prison officer in HMP Manchester, aka Strangeways.

ISBN: B07BDM5RR5
Genre: Non-Fiction

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What you need to know before your trail

Neil ‘Sam’ Samworth spent eleven years working as a prison officer in HMP Manchester, aka Strangeways. A tough Yorkshireman with a soft heart, Sam had to deal with it all – gangsters and gangbangers, terrorists and psychopaths, addicts and the mentally ill. Men who should not be locked up and men who should never be let out.

Strangeways by Neil Samworth is a shocking and at times darkly funny account of life in a high security prison. Sam tackles cell fires and self-harmers, and goes head to head with some of the most dangerous men in the country. He describes being attacked by prisoners, and reveals the problems caused by radicalization and the drugs flooding our prisons.

As staffing cuts saw Britain’s prison system descend into crisis, the stress of the job – the suicides, the inhumanity of the system, and one assault too many – left Sam suffering from PTSD. This raw, searingly honest memoir is a testament to the men and women of the prison service and the incredibly difficult job we ask them to do.

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Travel Guide

Strangeways prison, Manchester

HM Prison Manchester is a high-security men’s prison in Manchester – it’s more well-known as Strangeways, which was its former official name derived from the area where it’s located.It was rebuilt following a major riot in 1990.

Strangeways was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1868.

Originally, the prison contained an execution shed in B wing and after World War I a special execution room and cell for the condemned criminal was built. Strangeways was one of the few prisons to have permanent gallows.[2] The first execution at Strangeways was that of twenty-year-old murderer Michael Johnson, who was hanged by William Calcraft on 29 March 1869.[5]

There have been many executions at the prison over the years. 100. John Robson Walby (alias Gwynne Owen Evans), one of the last two people to be hanged in England, was executed here on 13 August 1964. The “quickest hanging” of James Inglis, in seven seconds, carried out by Albert Pierrepoint, took place here.