One Day in My Life (Paperback)

OT 02/25/02 05:30

Feb 25, 2002 (M2 Best Books via COMTEX) --

'One Day in My Life' documents a day in late winter, 1979, in which Irish
Republican activist Bobby Sands endures the horrors and humiliations of life in Long
Kesh prison. Bobby Sands was one of many Blanket Men - so- called because they
refused to succumb to being classed as criminals, and so wore blankets instead of
prison uniform - who embarked on numerous protests in an attempt to sway the
attitudes and practices of the British authorities in Ireland.

Every page of this book, from front to back cover, is instilled with
contentious political ire. As this reviewer is a British citizen, I am perhaps
not best placed to fully evaluate the motivations and morality of an Irish
Republican. From the foreword by Gerry Adams onwards, the question invoked in
my mind time and time again was whether the treatment of Bobby Sands and his
fellow Blanket Men was a crime against human decency committed in my name, or a
terrible means to a justifiable end - that is to protect British citizens against the
threat of domestic terrorism. As Bobby Sands and three other men shared a sentence of
eighty-four years for being found in possession of a solitary hand gun, it seems that
the punishment meted out to Bobby Sands was inordinately huge.

Better men than I have raged in blind conviction for both sides of that
argument, and the one thing I am certain of in regard to that issue is that it
will not be answered in the course of a book review. With that in mind I
believe the best way to approach this book is by viewing it as a personal
account of one man's struggle to survive in a hellish existence.

Bobby Sands, alike with the rest of the Blanket-Men, could have extricated
himself from much of the hardship he endured if he were to renounce his claims
that he was a political prisoner and allow himself to be criminalised. This, he and

many others refused to do, and the courage they had in their own convictions -
irrespective of what exactly those beliefs were - is a staggering example of the
strength of man's will.

This document was written on toilet paper using a biro pen refill, and was
concealed within Bobby Sands' own body. During the course of the book it is
revealed that there was but one pencil and one pen refill which was passed man
to man around the entire block. The scarcity of toilet paper is also recounted. These
two facts alone - probably the two tamest indications of the quality of life inside
the H-blocks that could be found in 'One Day in My Life', illustrate the fact that
this book is a labour. Yet no matter how difficult and harrowing it becomes to read
the reader feels duty bound to continue as the very process of recording this
information must have been infinitely more torturous for the author.

The day recounted in 'One Day in My Life' is a squalid microcosm of everything
we fear about being incarcerated. Men are starved, routinely beaten, verbally
and physically abused, and made to live in enforced conditions of filth - with
human waste, mouldy food and congealed rubbish lining the walls and floors of
their unheated cells. Surely even the staunchest advocate of the Thatcherite
British government of the late 1970's would have to concede that the treatment
of the men in the H-blocks - be they political prisoners of war or merely
criminals - was an offence against human decency, in fact an offence against
humanity itself. The Blanket Men were not merely robbed of their liberty, they
were there to be broken by the authorities who knew that to break the will of
the Blanket Men would crush the spirits of their countless supporters in both
Ireland and the United Kingdom. But they would not be broken.

In the introduction to this book a quote from the original edition is
reprinted. Sean MacBride - co-founder of Amnesty International and Nobel Peace
Prize winner - states that 'the majority of ordinary decent people in England
are not really interested in what happens in Ireland'. That was also true of
this reviewer until I read 'One Day in My Life'.

Perhaps the worst aspect of Bobby Sands' recounting of his prison day is that
there is no respite for either him or the reader. The realisation that the day
he has recorded is in fact a typical one for the inmates of the H-block is a
terrible moment and one which makes it hard for the reader to detach this story of
human courage and survival from its political roots. For all Bobby Sands is left with
at the end of the day is the hope - in fact the unwavering belief - that as he says
'our day will come'.

The events which are documented in this book seem like they occurred in some
strange land in a dim and distant uncivilised age. In fact they occurred just
over two decades ago, and no doubt there are people today who are living the
same nightmare that Bobby Sands endured. Read this book as a humanitarian
warning of what crimes were and - are still are - being perpetrated by the
governments of the world in the names of their citizens.

CONCLUSION: 'One Day in My Life' is a seemingly hopeless tale which manages to
leave its lone moment of respite to the very last moment - when we have nothing left
to us but our humanity, and when even that is stolen away our will still remains...