Status Anxiety | 26 July 2008

Should I have forced myself to accept a diseased prisoner’s licked spoon?

Like most Englishman, how well mannered I am depends upon the social status of the person I am interacting with. If he is below me in the pecking order, I am unfailingly polite, bending over backwards to reassure him that I do not think of him as my inferior. If he is above me, by contrast, I am insolent and contemptuous, doing whatever I can to convey that I do not consider him my superior.

This code has served me pretty well over the years, but it was tested to breaking point on a recent visit to Westville Prison, one of the most infamous jails in South Africa. I was making a documentary for a forthcoming television series in which eight different ‘personalities’ experience life behind bars in eight of the world’s toughest prisons and I had drawn the short straw.