My third time in gaol  happened in my final year of Teachers college.

I was part of the College Review, a satirical group who staged a huge concert each year. In my final year we were invited to put our show on in the gaol, in the same hall I attended mass the previous Christmas Eve.

Our troupe was a mixture of boys and girls with a director, a wonderful man who taught me the one thing I have hung on to all these years in regard to performance. “If you are going to do anything, do it well, or as best you can.”

So on a Sunday afternoon we all rolled up to the gates of the gaol, and created chaos as the gaol, being a maximum security prison was not used to allowing so many in at once and certainly not allowing young girls in at all.

Apparently our visit was the first time for a while women had been allowed in to visit with the inmates as they were considered a security risk.

They set it up so that we were taken to the hall out of sight of the inmates and we made to get ready as soon as we could.

We were very nervous as you could imagine, though the thought of a captive audience was soon a joke amongst us all.

At an appointed moment the room filled with men in green shirts, shorts and or trousers. So much green in this dark old hall.

All seats were filled except for the front row and we all knew who those seats were for. When everyone was seated, a procession occurred of a group of men in blue blazers, white shirts and ties and white slacks. This was the gaol ‘debating team’ led by the notorious Darcy Dugan*. Darcy was what we might consider a career criminal and in the gaol he was king of the cons. Beside him sat two of the biggest guys I had ever seen, his minders, as Darcy was a little weed of a man.

The concert went ahead and I don’t really remember much about it. However at the end of the concert we were invited to stay for afternoon tea hosted by Darcy and his ‘debating team’.

It was during this time that we all got to meet Darcy, shake his hand and say hello to one of the most notorious men in the state of not Australia. He was the perfect gentleman.

The one comment he made which I still remember clearly was his statement to us that it was really good to see so many young people in the gaol as some of the guys in there had not seen a woman in years. That statement didn’t make the girls feel any safer I can assure you.

So we spent some time chatting to the other guys and asking them dumb questions like have you ever tried to escape?

They were very gentle in their responses, as one guy said, ‘not unless you can get out of the country.’

And so my final visit to the gaol was concluded with not only a show in the gaol but that I can also say I met Darcy Dugan.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darcy_Dugan

Since those times the Gaol has been refurbished and in 1998 it closed as a gaol and now it is a tourist centre, a location for film making and you can even go on a midnight ghost walk inside the gaol.