Inside Time Writing Competition 2026: the winners

In our annual competition, readers were set the task of writing a short story of no more than 500 words. Entries were judged by Andy West, prison tutor and author, whose memoir ‘The Life Inside’ inspired the BBC1 drama ‘Waiting for the Out’.

The competition is in memory of Erwin James (1957-2024), former Editor of Inside Time.

Judge’s report – by Andy West

It was my privilege to be the judge of the Inside Time Writing Competition this year. I know that my own writing about teaching philosophy in prisons and visiting family inside was a really important part of me surviving those realities and them even becoming a source of growth for me in the end. I saw that same pulse of emotional and spiritual resilience at work in the 10 shortlisted pieces of writing I read here.

The quality of the storytelling and depth of insight was strong in all the submissions. The first prize, of £50, goes to ‘The Betrayed Narrator’ for his distinct and beautiful turns of phrase – “the silence had begun to grow teeth”. Second place, with a £30 prize, is awarded to ‘The Great(est) Escape’ for capturing the absurd and darkly comic process that can happen when we try to get away.

If literature is about trying to see the world from new perspectives then our story that came in third place, with a £20 prize, certainly did that – Brian Carr’s piece about being born. In fourth place, ‘An Ongoing Journey, Via Meditation, to God’ tells the story of what it means to lose and then find yourself in beautiful, honest detail.

All of the people who submitted have grounds to believe in themselves as writers. They should carry on writing. My only regrets around writing are not writing. The longer you spend on the page, the more you realise the power of language and the depth and textures of your own emotional realities. I had no idea that my thoughts could be so insightful for others until I got deep into the process of writing. So my message to you is simple: write, write, write. You have no idea quite what you have to offer.

FIRST PLACE

A Room Where No One Visits

The Betrayed Narrator – HMP Addiewell

The salt-heavy wind rattled the high plexiglass of HMP Grampian, but inside the laundry room, the air was thick with the scent of industrial detergent and old secrets. 

“Seven years, Zach,” Brad said, snapping a damp sheet. “Seven years since that night in Dundee. I thought you were a ghost.” 

Zach smoothed a pillowcase, his knuckles scarred. “Ghosts don’t get ten years, Brad. I heard your name on the wing and thought the world had finally folded in on itself.” 

They became an island. In the yard, they walked in tight, rhythmic circles, shoulders brushing – a frantic shorthand of shared childhoods. They spoke of the Co-op rolls they’d stolen at twelve and the girls they’d loved at twenty. When the young teams looked their way, they saw a fortress of two. 

“When I’m out next month,” Zach whispered one evening, leaning against the cold stone of the cell block, “I’m going straight to your sister. “I’ll get the money from the crawlspace. I’ll get your appeal moving. Every visiting day, Brad. I’ll be the face you see through the glass.” 

“You promise?” Brad’s voice was uncharacteristically thin. 

“Blood oath,” Zach replied, pressing his thumb into Brad’s palm.  

Release day was a grey smear. Brad watched from the narrow slit of his window as Zach walked towards the perimeter gate. Zach paused, looked back, and raised a fist. Brad mirrored it, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Freedom is coming for both of us, he thought. 

The first week was a slow crawl of anticipation. Brad polished his shoes for a visit that didn’t happen. By the second week, the silence began to grow teeth. He spent his association time staring at the heavy steel door of the visiting hall, but his name was never called. 

He used his phone credit to call his sister.  

“Has he been?” Brad asked, his voice cracking. 

“Who, Brad? Zach? I haven’t heard a peep. And the money…the crawlspace is empty. Someone cleared it the day he got out.” 

The realisation didn’t hit like a blow; it was a slow, freezing tide. The “blood oath” was just ink on a page that Zach had burned for a fresh start. Every shared laugh, every “I’ve got your back” in the yard, had been a reconnaissance mission. Zach hadn’t reconnected; he had harvested. 

Now, the yard felt twice as large and ten times as cold. Brad sat on the bench where they’d planned their futures, feeling the hollow ache of a double sentence. The walls hadn’t changed, but the world had collapsed. He wasn’t just a prisoner of the state anymore; he was a prisoner of a ghost who had stolen the only light he had left. 

Betrayal, he realised, wasn’t a sudden scream. It was the quiet, rhythmic ticking of a clock in a room where no-one was ever coming to visit. 

SECOND PLACE

The Great(est) Escape

Spencer Pledge – HMP Rochester

Hank sat up in his cell. The guards had just done their check, so it was time to put his great plan into action. He was going to escape.

He got off his bed and flipped his mattress, allowing him to get access to underneath his bed. He had been preparing for this day for some time, so he had made a hole big enough to climb through and made himself a makeshift shovel out of matchsticks and papier-mâché. He was going to dig his way to freedom.

He started to dig, it was hard going at first, but soon enough he was through the tough top layer and well under way to digging his tunnel to the outside. Then he encountered an issue that he hadn’t planned for. He needed to hide all the dirt. The piles of mud spewing out from under his bed would be noticeable if anyone were to check on him. He had to think, and he had to think fast.

Fortunately for Hank, he was somewhat of a clever chap, clever and determined, very determined, and a determined man is able to achieve incredible feats. He thought for a moment and then formulated a new plan. He hurried into the toilet, and once there, he started to hurriedly dig another hole, bigger and deeper than the first one. Again, the top layers were hard to get through, but his workmanship on the shovel was top notch, so after a little sweat and tears he was through and onto the softer ground underneath. He dug and dug, deeper and deeper, wider and wider, until his new hole was big enough.

Quickly he started to take the dirt from his original hole and place it inside the new hole. Perfect! All the dirt from the original hole would fit inside his new hole, so nobody would be any wiser. He worked and worked, shifting dirt from the hole under the bed into the toilet and filling in the new hole until eventually all the dirt from the hole under his bed was gone.

Hank was very exhausted, but so proud of his efforts, but as he stepped back to take a breath and look at his great handiwork, he noticed that he had an even bigger problem. Now he had all the dirt from the second hole to hide!!

Hank sat and pondered for a while. What to do, what to do. He considered digging a third hole to put the dirt from the second hole in, but he realised that the flaw to his plan would be where to put the dirt from the third hole. He then decided that if he made a hole in the wall, he would be able to dig the third hole to put the dirt from the second hole into, and he would be able to put the dirt from the third hole outside. Legend has it the Hank is still digging!

THIRD PLACE

A Timely Arrival

Brian Carr – HMP Oakwood

8am / The time is now, the rotation of the Earth drives time. The sun appears and later disappears. When I can see the sun, it’s called daylight, but when there is no sun, it’s called dark. I know that now, I didn’t then.

9am / It was now. It was always now. How could it be anything else? If it was 9am it was ‘now’ to me. I was happy with that, I was warm, I was comfortable and I could move. It was dark. I hadn’t met a clock, a mobile phone, or even a sundial. ‘Now’ continued, just ‘now’, then more ‘now!’

Perhaps 8pm / I’m warm and comfortable still, but I felt something move. It wasn’t me, but it was very close, somewhere in the warm dark. A little disturbing perhaps, what was it? I didn’t care.

Perhaps 9pm / It happened again! It made me move. I didn’t do it, I was asleep. I don’t think I like it. I wake up when I want to, I don’t need disturbing. 

I don’t want to be moved; I like it here. 

Perhaps 10.30pm / What’s happening!! I’m being stirred and shoved. I can’t stay where I was. Even worse I’ve banged my head. Not hard, but into something nearly hard but still a bit squishy. Hope it stops… but it doesn’t. I’m being sucked, my head’s being sucked. It’s horrible but I can’t stop it, I’m trying to squirm like I usually do, but it’s not helping. I’m not just being sucked, I’m being sucked into something. It’s horrible, I’m being sucked and squashed. Not squashed flat, just squashed all the time, and moving quickly now. It’s not moving like I used to, gently and slowly, but quick enough to feel things sliding past me everywhere at once. 

Ah good, it’s stopped. But this is no better, I’m being squeezed harder and harder. I hate it and my head seems to be turned to one side and really squeezed. I’m frightened, HELP! Oh- hard squeezing again, and I’m moving a bit, but only a bit, and I’m stuck again, but my head’s twisted the other way. HELP! What time is it? What do I care! Its ‘now’ and ‘now’ is horrid. Do I really care if it’s perhaps 11pm. No, I don’t, shut up about time. It’s now- and I’m moving again. Much quicker, OH HELP! HELP! HELP!

11:40pm / I’m cold, I was at least warm, and now I’m really cold. Horrible! I hate it! I shout and shout. I feel I’m being lifted and think thank goodness I’m getting warm again. It’s quite nice but not as cosy as I used to be. It seems soft and squishy. Its ok, I heard a noise, what did someone say?……“It’s a boy!”

11:40pm 12th April 1944 / (Years later my mother told me she didn’t want me born on the 13th).

FOURTH PLACE

An Ongoing Journey, Via Meditation, to God

Matthew Hemmings – HMP Whatton

He stumbled through life oblivious. No religion, no belief, no support. Days, jobs, women all came and went. The only thing that stayed was the drugs. Whenever he had the spare money, they were always the first and only thing on his mind.

One day he made a mistake. A big mistake that snowballed completely out of his control. Of course he was on drugs at the time. He was always on drugs at that time. Five days later he was in prison, not entirely sure either that it was real, or how he had got there.

The judge gave him a lot of time to reflect, but he did not use that time wisely at first. He spent a long time, years, in the blackness of depression. Before he had stumbled through life obliviously, now he carried that direction- less momentum on, just in prison.

Then, little by little, something changed. It was small at first, very small: a shower here, a haircut there. He found out where the library was and bought a Bible and a Koran from the canteen. A few months later he started education. A few months after that he actually read his Bible and Koran; he preferred one to the other, but which was which did not matter.

After yet another few months, he tried to meditate. It wasn’t much fun at first, sitting in the storm. He could barely manage five minutes. But he stuck with it; it wasn’t like he was doing anything else he reasoned; the time would pass either way. But the storm didn’t lose its intensity, as those in the know had said it would. He wrote to a yoga, meditation and mindfulness charity; they wrote back surprisingly quickly to say that was perfectly normal, the storm of thoughts.

Relieved, comforted and reassured, he carried on. Slowly he was able to focus on the breath more, then one day he maybe (just maybe) thought he could feel the storm losing its intensity. This process took maybe six months.

Somewhere, a long time ago, he’d read that meditating was listening to God, prayer was talking to Him. So, he tried to listen twice a day, and to talk once daily. He didn’t always find the time, sometimes he was lazy or ill, but over time it got easier. Not perfection, but certainly progress.

He can’t say he’s had an epiphany. God hasn’t spoken to him (yet), and the Holy Spirit hasn’t moved him. But he does have a plan for the future, in here and out there. He has an understanding of just how bad drugs are for him and insight into his addictive personality. It’s a lesson that took a lot of learning; three hospitalisations weren’t enough to teach him. Perhaps most importantly, his belief in God has crystallised. The way he feels is that he’s made a new, important friend. One that loves him, doesn’t judge him and will always listen.