What do prisoners eat on Christmas Day? Some tabloid reports might lead you to think ‘lags’ are ‘gorging’ themselves on turkey with all the trimmings. Even the official prison menus from the Ministry of Justice make lunch on 25 December sound appetising: inmates at HMP Manchester, a high-security jail, get ‘Traditional Turkey Dinner with stuffing, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, vegetables (and) sausage wrapped in bacon & gravy’ served up with ‘Christmas pudding & white sauce and Christmas cake’. As you would imagine the reality is very different.

In a typical British prison this afternoon, inmates will be carrying flimsy blue plastic plates down to the servery to receive a slice of dry turkey cooked hours before, a single stuffing ball, and a solitary pig in a blanket even more meagre than those the prison provide for sleeping under. They will carry this feast back to their cells before the door is slammed and locked behind them. They’ll tuck into lunch perched on the edge of the bed, in a room the size of a car parking space, with the toilet only a few feet away. Unless an inmate has procured some contraband ‘hooch’, there’s no wine, and no chance of second helpings. If a prisoner is lucky enough to have a phone in their cell they might call home after lunch. But even this break in monotony can be painful: the jollity in their families’ voices make the gulf between the inmate and their loved ones stretch even wider.

As in the world outside, for many inmates, the festive period can be difficult. ‘Every December, there was a big rise in the number of men wanting to talk. Self-harm and suicides went up,’ says Nick, a prisoner at HMP Belmarsh, who worked as a ‘listener’, the name given by the Samaritans to prisoners trained to provide confidential support to other inmates who are struggling. ‘At Christmas, the absence and sense of loss bite harder. It can be bittersweet though; Christmas means another year has passed and so each prisoner’s release date is nearer, but so is the sense of time lost behind bars’.

Nick can easily relate to those prisoners who are struggling: the first Christmas inside was the hardest part of his sentence, he says. Until he was locked up, he’d never spent Christmas day apart from his family. Without the routine of family, friends, games and arguments, he felt lost. He stared at the ceiling of his cell, imagining his home.

During my time in prison, I felt this sense of loss too. One of the worst things about prison is the feeling of being buried and forgotten. The thought of family Christmas happening without me made that fear swell in me. Nick did his best not to think about it. So did I. So did most men in prison.

Inmates will be carrying flimsy blue plastic plates down to the servery

Those in prison do their best to make Christmas as joyful as possible. On prison wings across the country, inmates and officers try to lighten the mood. Quizzes and activity sheets are pushed under doors. In some prisons they put up Christmas trees on the wings. Prison is such an austere, monotonous environment that a little colour and variety goes a long way. For some men though the visible reminder of Christmas makes it impossible to ignore their pain and loss and they want the decorations taken down. My own efforts to start a carolling group at HMP Hollesley Bay in December 2020 met such resistance.

Some prison officers do far more than the minimum required at Christmas time. Octavia Cobb worked at HMP Wandsworth for several years. On Christmas Day 2018, she dressed as a turkey and played Christmas carols on her bagpipes while lunch was served. Amidst the bleakness, these moments provide a taste of what Christmas is about for inmates. Even the most hardened criminals can also surprise: at Christmas, I saw prisoners sharing packets of chocolate and mince pies with those who had nothing. When you see men who had lost almost everything giving scarce riches to those less fortunate, it’s hard not to think of God’s grace, and the true meaning of Christmas.