Only a prisoner (and possibly a prison officer) can truly understand the sheer tedium of prison life. Without considerable effort, the fact is every day is Groundhog Day – depressingly identical to the last and the next. The majority of each day is spent in what is, to all intents and purposes, a large toilet – which is often without a lid so life is lived, and meals consumed, next to an open sewer. Being trans I’m lucky in that I never have to share my cell/toilet with another prisoner but even so the uniformity of the environment is bleak, with any attempt to personalise your living space frowned upon and treated as a disciplinary offence.

It was to puncture this tedium that I decided to provide a more varied structure to my time by studying with The Open University. My subject choice was based on reviewing a selection of module materials kept in the prison library (from previous students and transferred from regional centres when these were closed by the OU) which convinced me that while level 1 modules would be useful for those with little experience of study and essay writing, they would be insufficiently challenging for me. Fortunately, the PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) degree allowed me to study a single level 1 module followed by three level 2 modules and two level 3 modules. If the OU needs to make any changes, then this is the one I would encourage, a greater variety of subjects available with only a single level 1 module.

While prison management is almost universally abysmal, I have been in the fortunate position of studying at three prisons with well-managed distance learning functions. This is particularly the case with my current prison where the level of support and commitment to OU students from the education department is outstanding – unfortunately it has to be because the general management is even worse than most prisons. For example, it took over ten months to obtain the pen and cartridges I wanted to write my exam. (I prefer using a ‘proper’ ink pen to biros and am a tiny bit OCD about this) and that only happened after I threatened legal action.