I was recently invited to a Zoom debate on HMP Shrewsbury opening up as a tourist attraction and I’m dying to have my say.
I politely declined at the same time, kicking myself for missing an opportunity. I’m a Keyboard Warrior with a fear of ‘peopling’, or to use the correct term I’ve got chronic agoraphobia and I haven’t left the house for more than a year. I’ve declined telephone calls, Zoom meetings, podcasts, videos and interviews because of my fear of peopling and fear of the unknown. I haven’t done anything about it or tried to control it or get over it. I simply re-branded myself as a Reclusive Writer under no pressure to leave the house. I am my diagnosis. I am my own enabler.
I have such a strong opinion that my need to contribute is greater than my fear of peopling. I’m not quite ready to put on my big girl pants and start peopling today, so here’s my contribution from behind the keyboard.
Making money from people who love fancy dress Escape Room games is not a problem in a decommissioned office or warehouse but a decommissioned prison is not the place for fun and games.
What next? Dressing up as Abba for a disco in a graveyard?
If a picture paints a thousand words – memes say thousands more! I’ve copied everything on offer on the HMP Shrewsbury website, pasted their words onto another Dark Tourism attraction and made a slide show.
Auschwitz is one of many dark tourism sites of mass trauma attracting tourists from all over the world. I’d love to do the Auschwitz Tour, it’s one of the last destinations to tick off on my bucket list. I studied it at school and have always been fascinated by the whole prisoner of war camps. I’ve read books and articles online, watched films, documentaries, YouTube videos and anything else that popped up on my radar. Prisons are my biggest passion, I’ve been fascinated by what goes on behind prison walls for as long as I remember.
The best of my knowledge of Auschwitz comes from the first hand accounts of people and their loved ones who lived it. I don’t want to visit for the bragging rights to say “I’ve been there” while watching Schindlers’ List or just to post my holiday pics on social media. I want to see if for myself.
Sites of mass trauma have been tourist attractions for decades. We’ve all learned so much from Dark Tourism; including school trips to museums, the Tower of London, London Dungeons, London Bridge Experience etc. I clearly remember seeing the biggest ever dinosaur for the first time at the National History Museum. Not a clue of my History (might have been Science) Teacher’s name or where I sat on the coach, but I’ll never never forget seeing how big dinosaurs are in real life. You just can’t get that from watching Jurassic Park.
I want to visit Auschwitz to learn and understand not have a jolly! I’m confident this will never happen at Auschwitz or any other Dark Tourism attractions. Yet the people exposed to trauma in our prisons aren’t afforded the same respect and dignity.
I’d love to join a tour at HMP Shrewsbury, led by an employee who’s been to prison. I can ask David as many questions as I like about life in prison. Most of the time I don’t even have to ask, it’s all he ever talks about! But I want to know what it sounds like, what it feels like. How narrow are the stairs and landings? How small and claustrophobic are the cells? What does it sound like when the cell door slams? How does it feel? Showers? Slop out? Association? So many questions, I’ll need another list before I visit.
More than anything, I’d love, love, love for anyone who makes the decision to send someone in prison to visit. Anyone who has a say in the lives of people in prison needs to see it for themselves.
The biggest attraction is for the children standing at the gates of the school to prison pipeline. They can read the books, watch the documentaries and The Shawshank Redemption as many times as they like , but they’ll learn a great deal more from people who’ve talked the talk and walked the walk and listening to the experts who’ve walked the landings for years. Seeing it for themselves might be enough for them to turn away from the gates.
To conclude my contribution to the debate I’ve made yet another list:
We can learn a lot from Auschwitz. Dark tourism done right is priceless. Have a look at the website, especially what the loved ones say about the importance of Auschwitz being a tourist attraction.
Let’s not close the books, the gates, or our eyes to the trauma and atrocities of our prisons, that’s been going on for centuries. Our prisoners deserved to be remembered too.
I will say one thing about agoraphobia, strip away all my fears and anxiety and all that’s left is the real me – a gobby, self-opinionated, foul-mouthed old bag!
Coming to a screen near you sooner or later.
Best wishes
Keef xx
Don’t wanna be a Keyboard Warrior any more!
Journey of a reformed man 
Thank you so much for posting this fabulously heartfelt and comprehensive blog post.
This is such a helpful contribution to the discussion.
If I may be so bold, here is the recording of the meeting you were invited to and probably were there ‘in spirit’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxLqEkNSv0c
Very best wishes to you and David x
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A few bits on this Kelly. First I fully agree. And having watched the video of the meeting that you could not attend I feel even more strongly, though the owner did argue articulately I have to say. But here is my tuppence worth. First I have visited Auschwitz and it is a heart wrenching experience as far from entertainment as you can get but such an education. The place reeks of death and the inhumanity that can occur. It lives with you for ever. Shrewsbury is clearly not that. It seems to want to be lots of things to lots of people and is not appropriate. Second, I have done the London bits such as Ripper Walk (as friends from overseas wanted to go on it) and the original Clink in Southwark, plus the Kray tour with a couple of mates out of curiosity. These three were frankly a little educational but mainly just fun and pastiche history. Nothing wrong with that in those settings, though celebrating a serial killer of women might be considered inappropriate now and i do wonder if it is a good thing.to continue. Clink is fine, the Krays was so exaggerated that it was almost a spoof! Shrewsbury is none of them. It is too modern, too linked to the present day.
It is a modern prison albeit with a long past. It will not give the experience of being in prison, just a mock up of it. I also am not sure about taking youths on the edge of crime there, better to show them working prisons and to talk to those who have been inside, and officers, to explain the reality rather than see empty cells and earn about “celebrities” who have been in there. That is not a good thing in my view if you want to deter people from crime and ending up in those cold cells. And some of the fun activities I fear take away from any serious attempts. Escape room ffs.
But above all the woman who went in and secretly left a flower and card in the cell where her son killed himself is exactly why this should not be happening. It is too recent. Too many families are in that position it had a record of suicides. And maybe people who were inside there do take their families to have a look but really, that does not make this right. It makes me very uncomfortable. So I agree with you completely Kelly, it would add nothing to anyone and would not “explain” what is wrong with the system because the system is still going in the same way an it tends to actually sanitise it because all these visitors walk into an empty place with none of the noise or the prison smells and atmosphere, and walk out again, any more than TV presenters spending a night in a cell a la Ross Kemp at Belmarsh did. If you know you are able to walk out at will you are not getting any sense of anything at all, and you will not understand at all. Listen to those with lived experience explain why they will make sure they will never go back. That is it.
Do it for fun, distasteful, but do not think you are adding to people’s knowledge. That is a false claim.
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