The Inside Stories From A Man Who Should Know . . .
The Age
Thursday August 1, 2002
Colin Nash did 22 years at Pentridge _ with no remission for good behaviour, as he's quick to tell you. You get less for murder, he'll say, poker-faced.
Mr Nash does a nice line in prison jokes. Which is handy, because he is preparing to turn from turnkey to tour guide, and needs his prison patter off pat.
He and several other retired prison officers will be showing curious members of the public around the forbidding bluestone buildings that, as he says proudly, were ``the flagship of the prison system" in Victoria for 140 years.
After spending most of their working lives inside ``the joint", as prisoners called it, Mr Nash and Co. can't quite get the bluestone out of their veins.
Retired officers are so keen to be back inside that they have agreed to guide tours free, showing off historic buildings inside the original 1850s stone walls.
Modern buildings on a larger site next door, such as the notorious Jika Jika high-security unit, have already been demolished for new houses as part of a separate development.
The developers of the old bluestone precinct plan a piazza on the old parade ground. If all goes to plan, 1000 units will be built in multi-storey blocks that blend in with the historic surrounds, they say, yet offer views over the walls so that residents don't feel, er, locked in.
It will not, contrary to appearances, be a gated community. But, just in case any former guests of Her Majesty try to re-visit old haunts, security will be tight.
That's the theory, anyway. The reality, if it goes ahead, is at least 18 months away. Meanwhile, Mr Nash and his mates are boning up on stories that are fit to repeat.
Yesterday he darted into the old boiler house to show where two prisoners hid themselves up the huge chimney in the late 1970s. They came down, blackfaced and chastened, after officers lit a fire to smoke them out.
Then there was the time Mr Nash decided to look inside a secondhand television set donated for one of the dormitories. He found 10 plastic cigarette lighters taped to the transformer so that when it heated it would explode and start a fire.
In the exercise yard next to B Division there is a huge X painted on the wall where Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker escaped just before Christmas, 1965, shooting dead officer George Hodson.
There are other stories. Such as the time (the singer) Eartha Kitt gave a concert and used the B Division lavatory. But to hear that one, you'll have to take the tour.
© 2002 The Age
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