The Laundry Man

When at Pentonville, Barry was soon known as the Laundry Man. He'd been offered the job of doing inmates' laundry. When he took it on, his predecessor managed some 15 or so loads per week. When Barry left, his 'personal best' was 62 loads per week. He established a system that didn't rely on favours being traded, but that tried to be fair: first come, first served. Along the way, he looked into why some inmates never handed laundry in and in one case, worked out that this person had problems with the unstructured setting of this aspect of his life inside. Being somewhere on the autistic spectrum, he needed to be given simple instructions: Hand in your laundry on Wednesday. Have a shower on the same day. It may not seem all that important, but it is. Barry made a real difference to that man, as well as providing an example for many others (some very young still) that shouting and violence isn't the only way to get things done. Barry excels at creating such nurturing bubbles in the most unlikely of climates, replacing antagonism with collaboration. They were lucky to have him at P-ville. Now Littlehey has that privilege.