Memoir from Malta's prison

Tuesday 12th January, 2021

I have been continuing to read Daniel Holmes's Memoir from Malta's Prison. I found initially the book riveting and was totally engrossed by and in it. Then suddenly I began to find it deeply disturbing. It was a story at first and then it became, somehow, very personal. I have written to Daniel off and on, I have enjoyed his poetry and known a few of his relatives and met his immediate family once or twice. I have heard the stories and happenings of his life in prison so why was I so unexpectedly finding it too painful to read. Instead of sailing through it I found myself hurt and pained and deeply upset and disturbed by it. The action of a cruel prison guard, the incompetence of a barrister, the indifference of a judge, the horror of a friend or his wife suddenly became almost alive to me.

I do not know why but I thought of the story of the great St Antony of Egypt, a hermit and mystic, an Abba to whom people would go for spiritual advice and insight. The story was of the man who went to see him and ask how could it be true that the bread given at Communion was the actual body and blood of Jesus when it was just a piece of unleavened bread, which did not change. It was merely symbolising the real body. Abba Antony sat in silence. As was the wont of such Mystics little was said and silence was often prolonged. After a few days Abba Antony invited the man to be with him as he said the Eucharist. Finally it came to the Communion and Abba Antony held out the wafer for the guest, the man who had questioned him. Abba Antony placed the wafer in his hand. As the man went to eat it he saw that it was indeed a piece of bleeding flesh. His reaction was horror, disgust and a throwing of it away. Abba Antony said no more but looked at the man.

So with Daniel's book. Suddenly it became so real to me that I felt the insults, the hurt, the fear and I had to put the book down.

I pondered my reaction as I walked. A lovely day and my trusty litter grabber was as active as ever. My mind was also active. I thought of the times I have seen appeals for Charities when they show a snippet of the hell people are suffering. I have felt myself crying as I see the emancipated body of a child or the mutilation of elderly bodies caused by war, famine or the effects of refugee poverty. It is empathy or compassion. One does not actually undergo the horror itself and one is not actually starving or mutilated so it is not real in that sense. Yet sometimes there is a true depth of fellow feeling. It reminded me of the stigmata when a person develops the wounds and bleeding and suppurations of the wounds Jesus suffered on his cross. I am not saying that is happening to me but I am feeling I need to read the book with care.

I also recalled visiting a friend in prison. He had been incarcerated for four years. I visited as often as I could perhaps once every two months, as the prison was over two hundred miles away. Daniel's book brought back the horror of those visits. My friend told me of the constant noise, smell, disturbance, the growing feeling of helplessness, of lack of control over life, of threats from other prisoners, from deprivations and a growing institutionalisation and boredom let alone the antics and habits and nastinesses of some wardens.

Truly I am ashamed of what man can do to man, of how society can act so cruelly and with such disdain and disrespect. The words of St Paul echo in my head ' we are all responsible to all for all' and I know I am responsible in some small way.

I will not stop reading, I will not stop going on the journey that so many have to endure...it is the least I can do to try to share and identify with the prisoner. I owe them that at least.