A charity which gets prisoners stitching is holding an event to continue its good work
I have, at times, though guilty of nothing more than an outr’ taste in clothes, thought that going to jail might not be such a bad thing. Think of all the books you could get through! I contemplate it for about three seconds before realising what a tool I’m being.
But it is true that prisoners do have plenty of time on their hands – sometimes up to 23 hours a day, for years at a stretch. The problem with British prisons today is that most prisoners spend that locked up in their cells, rather than with any kind of purposeful activity – the sort of thing that gives them skills and helps to fit them for life after prison.
That’s why Fine Cell Work is such a great charity: it gets prisoners embroidering and stitching, producing retail-worthy cushions and cars and fulfilling private commissions from celebrities and royalty. You’ll be able to read a lot more about them in the next issue of Spear’s, but for the moment I wanted to bring to your attention their charity evening on Thursday 20 November.
It’s being held in the grand surroundings of the Foreign Office’s Locarno Suite, with patrons Esther Freud and David Morrissey presiding. Freud and Morrissey will be doing the draw for a rather superb prize: for a ’50 raffle ticket, you stand a chance of winning an aquamarine stone worth over ’35,000, donated by ‘gem hunter’ Guy Clutterbluck. The prize also includes ’1,500 towards a setting by Georgina Skan, late of Garrard and Asprey. I hope to see you there.
Tickets for the champagne reception are ’75 from here.