It wasn’t until I went to prison that I realised how important reading was – it became a lifeline

World Book Day provides a great opportunity for kids of any age to dress up as their favourite literary characters. But it’s worth remembering the power and long-lasting impact books can have.  

Prison Reading Groups, part of the charity Give a Book, were first piloted in 1999 at HMP Coldingley in Woking and at HMP Bullingdon in Bicester. Today there are 108 groups in 78 prisons, supported by prison library staff and volunteers. 

David writes about how joining the group has helped him inside and out. 

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I was sent to prison in May 2021 during the pandemic. We were locked up 23 hours a day, which wasn’t fun. And prison’s not fun in general. 

I remember my first night, one of the officers gave me a book to pass the time. But I was in no fit state to read. 

Reading is something I always did when I was younger. I remember as a child, I was read stories at bedtime, but life gets in the way. Work and marriage and kids – books fell by the wayside. 

People think you pass your time in prison reading. But, you know, the first three weeks I was just kind of shell shocked, just couldn’t focus, couldn’t concentrate. 

That’s when I discovered the prison library and through them the Prison Reading Group (PRG). Prison is not an environment that lends itself to reading or quiet study. Everything is busy and chaotic and noisy. The PRG brought a sense of quiet – I think that’s the best way to put it – back into my life. 

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It wasn’t until November 2022 that I had a face-to-face PRG after the Covid rules had been relaxed. Each month, on a Wednesday afternoon, we would get given a book, and then the following meeting we would sit around, discuss it, and there’d be a selection of new books where we could decide what we wanted to read for the forthcoming month.  

There are two that stood out for me: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ve still got them now, battered to death because I keep rereading them. 

The Shadow of the Wind is a very interesting, quite beautiful story. Lyrical, poetic, it just flows very easily. Klara and the Sun is told from the point of view of an artificial intelligence, about a robot who’s bought as a friend for a sick girl. Again, another wonderful story. It’s quite emotional. 

It wasn’t until I went to prison that I had books brought back into my life and I realised how important reading was, how much I missed it. It was more than just a way of passing time. You fell in love with characters and you wanted to read the next book in the series to find out what was going to happen. 

In prison you’re spoken at, you’re spoken down to. The PRG was adult-to-adult conversation. As much as it’s a form of escapism, you’re still in prison. It’s still noisy, it’s still difficult to read. The prison library became a lifeline for me. Where prison kind of dehumanises you, the PRG wanted to hear my thoughts, wanted to hear my opinions and I felt valued and respected. All sorts of things that prison takes away from you, they gave back. 

One of the first things I did once I got released was go to the local library and get myself a library card. Reading is one of those things where, you know, ‘I don’t have the time.’ It’s not a question of having the time any more. I make the time to read now. 

A short film, created in conjunction with Media Trust and funded by The Crucible Foundation, showcases the work of PRG and is based on stories from real-life prisoners. Ralph Ineson, star of Nosferatu and about to become Galactus (see main pic), the next big baddie of the Marvel movies, plays Declan, an inmate who finds redemption through reading.Watch it now.

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