How storytelling helps parents in prison stay connected to their kids Alan Crickmore
It’s story time.
Settle back, and I’ll begin.
Once upon a time, a mother duck
sat patiently on her nest of eggs,
waiting for them to hatch.
And then one day, she felt
something move beneath her.
Crack, crack!
Filled with happiness, she watched
as her eggs hatched one by one.
I don’t know about you,
but when I was little,
story time was always
one of my favorite parts of the day.
And I loved reading to my two sons
when they were small, too.
It’s that special time
when a parent and child
can be totally absorbed together
in mystical kingdoms, fantastical beasties
or scruffy little ducks
that turn out to be swans.
Well, that’s how it is for some children,
but for other children,
there isn’t a parent around
to read to them.
I’d like to tell you about Sophie.
Sophie’s five years old
and lives with her parents.
One day, there’s a bang at the door.
Sophie hears lots of shouting;
her mum’s crying.
She sees the police
dragging her father away.
Sophie’s afraid. She starts crying, too.
Weeks go by.
Sophie doesn’t know
what’s happened to her dad.
When she asks her mum, her mum gets upset.
So she stops asking.
Sophie waits.
She really misses her dad.
Every day, she hurries home from school,
in case he’s come back.
On many nights,
she cries herself to sleep.
Children at school start to tease her.
They call her names.
Somebody’s mum has heard
that Sophie’s dad is in prison.
Sophie pretends to be ill
so she doesn’t have to go to school.
And her teacher can’t understand
why she’s so far behind
with her schoolwork.
After what seems
a long, long time to Sophie,
a letter arrives.
It’s from her dad.
The writing is very messy.
The letter makes her mum cry,
but she reads a little out to Sophie.
He says that he’s OK
and that he’s missing them.
It’s a short letter.
Sophie says she’d like to go
and see her dad, wherever he is.
But her mum says it’s too far away,
and they can’t afford the journey.
Then one day the phone rings.
“Sophie, come speak to daddy.”
Dad sounds different, far away.
He says he can’t talk for very long,
and anyway, it’s very noisy
wherever he is.
And Sophie doesn’t know
what to say to him.
Well, as stories go,
that’s not a very nice one.
In the United Kingdom, 200,000 children
experience the shame and isolation
of a parent in prison.
Two hundred thousand.
That’s more than the number
of children each year
who are affected
by their parents divorcing.
And it can affect the children
of prisoners very deeply.
There can be problems at school,
and they’re three times more likely
to suffer from mental health issues.
In so many ways,
children are the unintended victims
of their parents' crimes.
In so many ways,
children are the overlooked victims
of their parents' crimes.
Until last November,
I was a serving prisoner,
imprisoned for fraud.
I was dishonest, and I paid the penalty.
Before that, I’d been
a practicing solicitor for 30 years.
I’d had a happy and stable upbringing,
a good education,
a happy marriage, which,
I’m pleased to say, continues.
I have two adult sons.
When they were growing up,
I did my best to be around for them
as much as I could.
And I took a careful interest
in what they did.
I read to my boys every night,
and ironically, our favorite story
was “Burglar Bill.”
(Laughter)
But when I got to prison,
it soon became apparent
that my background was very different
to that of most of the prisoners.
Few of the men that I met
had had a decent education.
Indeed, many associated education
with humiliation and failure.
I can tell you firsthand
that prison is dehumanizing.
Prisoners harden up,
they shut down, they close in …
just to survive.
And this can be devastating for families.
In fact, maintaining contact
with your family from prison
can be very difficult indeed.
And if a child does get to see
their parent in prison,
they have to go through
the same pat-down searches as the adults.
They walk through
the same detector frames,
they’re sniffed by the same sniffer dogs,
and all because some children
have been the unwitting carriers
of drugs and mobile phones.
And when they get through
to see their parent,
they may be tired from a long journey,
shy, tongue-tied, even upset.
And it isn’t easy for the parents,
who may not be getting along.
For many reasons, not just these,
over half of prisoners lose contact
with their children and families.
How can we help prisoners
to stay in contact with their families?
When I was a prisoner
at Channings Wood Prison,
I began working for a charity
called Storybook Dads.
Storybook Dads began in 2003,
when Sharon Berry, a civilian worker
in a prison, realized just how much
many prisoners wanted to stay
in contact with their children.
And so, armed with a few storybooks,
she began to help prisoners
to read and record stories
to send home to their children.
It wasn’t a new idea.
Few ideas like this are new.
They’re great ideas.
But it was an instant success.
You may wonder: How does the recording
of the stories work in prison?
Is it difficult for prisoners?
Can it be challenging?
Well, the process of choosing,
reading and recording a story
can be very challenging for prisoners.
Prison is tough,
and prisoners can’t afford to show
any signs of weakness or vulnerability.
But this, this recording process,
this can be uncomfortable, upsetting,
sometimes all just a bit too much.
And prisoners often cry.
They cry because they regret
missing out on their children’s lives.
They cry because they’re ashamed
that they’ve let their families down.
They cry because they don’t know
how to go about reading to their children.
But because when they come to us
we offer a private space, one-to-one,
prisoners don’t need to be tough anymore,
and they can use
their vulnerability as a strength
when contacting with their children.
I remember one prisoner
who came to record.
He was a big, hard man
with a reputation for being tough.
He came along as implacable as ever.
But when the door of the recording
room closed behind him,
that facade began to crumble.
From his pocket, he took
a screwed-up piece of paper
and quietly began to read the words
which he’d written as a message
for his two little ones.
His hands were shaking.
And then, in a surprisingly quiet voice,
he began to sing their favorite lullaby.
You see, there wasn’t much
that he could do from behind bars
to show his children
that he missed and loved them.
But he could do this.
Once the recording is made,
it’s sent to the Storybook Dads
production unit
at Channings Wood Prison in Devon.
And that’s where I worked.
I was trained, along with other prisoners,
to edit and produce recordings sent in
from prisons all over the United Kingdom.
Using audio and video software,
the recordings have the mistakes taken out
and sound effects and music added in.
And the experience and skill
which the prison editors gain
helps them in their future employment.
Once the recording is finalized,
it’s transferred to a CD or a DVD
and sent out to the families
so that the children can watch them
whenever they feel the need.
And they listen to these recordings
and watch them a lot –
at bedtime, in the car …
Some even take them to school
to show their friends.
These recordings,
they show the children
that they’re loved and missed.
And they show the prisoner
that they can do something
for their child, as a parent.
Do you remember Sophie?
Well, one day, just
before Christmas, a parcel arrived,
and this is what was in it.
Let’s listen to a little of it together.
(Video) Santa: On, Comet!
On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen!
Charlie: That’s his reindeer, isn’t it?
Santa: It is his reindeer, yeah.
Up, up, higher and higher they flew,
across land, across oceans they sped.
Through the magical
northern lights they passed –
I’d love to see the northern
lights, wouldn’t you?
Charlie: I figure they’d probably look
a bit like that snowman’s belly.
Santa: They probably would, yeah.
That’s a cool snowman, isn’t it?
Charlie: It’s very cool indeed, I love it.
Santa: They visited
all the children in the world
and left presents for each and every one.
In the blink of an eye,
they were back in Frogsbottom Field.
(Charlie Laughs)
Santa: You think that’s well funny?
Charlie: I want to live
in Frogsbottom Field!
Santa: Where do you live,
in Frogsbottom Tree?
Charlie: I don’t, I live in this tree.
I’ve made it all Christmasy-look.
Santa: It’s nice, that.
You’ve done a good job, good job.
Charlie: Thank you very much!
(Laughter)
Alan Crickmore: Sophie and her mum
listened to that three times,
and they haven’t laughed
so much in a long time.
They can see that he’s all right,
they can see that he loves them,
and the next time he rings,
Sophie’s got plenty to talk about:
“What does Charlie the Chimp eat?
Will daddy do another story very soon?”
Since it began in 2003,
Storybook Dads has grown and grown.
It now operates as Storybook Dads
and Storybook Mums
in more than 100 prisons
in the United Kingdom.
Ninety-eight percent
of the prisoners who take part
say that it’s improved
their relationship with their child.
And since 2003,
over 60,000 DVDs and CDs
have been sent out
to the children of prisoners.
For Sophie’s family and for thousands
of families like them,
Storybook Dads has been a lifeline.
Some prisoners say
that it’s the first time
that they’ve begun to build
a relationship with their child.
And some poor readers
have been so inspired
by what they’ve been able to achieve
that they’ve gone to education classes
to improve their own reading skills.
Let’s go back to the story
of “The Ugly Duckling.”
But this time, I’d like to play you
a recording made by a prisoner,
because it encapsulates
the power of what we do.
The prisoner was an Irish Traveller
who couldn’t read.
And he wanted to send a story home
to his daughter for her birthday.
With the help of a mentor
and some clever editing,
something magical happened.
This is an extract from the raw recording,
where the prisoner is reading the story
by repeating it, phrase at a time.
(Audio) Mentor: He had nowhere to hide.
Owen: He had nowhere to hide.
Mentor: So one day, he ran away.
Owen: Then one day, he ran away.
Mentor: He ran until he came
to the great marsh.
Owen: He run until he come
to the great marsh.
Mentor: Where the wild ducks lived.
Owen: Where the wild ducks lived.
AC: And this is a recording –
an excerpt of the recording
with the mentor’s voice taken out
and sound effects and music added in.
(Audio) Owen: He had nowhere to hide.
Then one day, he run away.
He run until he come to the great marsh
where the wild ducks lived,
and he laid in the rushes for two weeks.
(Music) (Ducks quack)
Some wild ducks and geese
come to look at him.
“You’re very ugly,” they said,
and they laughed at him.
(Ducks quack)
The ugly duckling ran away
from the great marsh.
(Duck quacks)
AC: And this is how he finished the story:
(Audio) Owen: He wasn’t
an ugly duckling at all.
During the winter, he had grown
into a beautiful white swan.
The other swans looked at him
and thought how beautiful he was.
“Come with us,” they said.
And he did.
(Bird sounds)
Well, Tiara, I hope you
have enjoyed this story
as much as I enjoyed
reading this story to you.
I cannot wait to be with you again
and hold you in my arms.
All my love, your daddy, Owen.
Lots of love, I miss you
with all my heart.
Goodbye for now, my love. Bye bye.
(Music)
(Music ends)
AC: When he listened
to that recording in his cell
before it was sent out to his daughter,
he cried.
And that’s a pretty common
reaction from prisoners,
as they realize for the first time
they’ve been able
to do something for their child
which they never thought they could.
They’ve connected
in the most fundamental way,
through the medium of storytelling.
And as for Sophie,
she wants “The Gruffalo” next time.
(Laughter)
(Applause)