WE R ALL DOING TIME! by Hal Wright

In 1980, when I was sixteen years of age – with all the earnestness and empathy at my then command, I gave an old homeless man a pound. Then, I asked him where he was living. He replied, ‘I am living next to you, or else, I would be dead!’ Back then, both his sarcasm and realism were lost on me.

However a few years on and far more aware, I overheard a prison guard say to an inmate, ‘You are doing time’ to which the prisoner replies ‘so are you, as we are all doing time’. Instantly, I understood fully the prisoner’s words – although evidently they were lost on the guard.