These days, Durham Prison is a category B local prison, and John McVicar is a journalist; but back in the 1960s, John McVicar was an armed robber who acquired the title of Public Enemy Number 1 (it was a slow year, he says now) and Durham was the high security jail where he was imprisoned.

His book, McVicar by Himself, recounts how he escaped from Durham prison. It's an exciting story, and fascinating if you know Durham, because he describes his route in some detail, out over the roof of the prison and down the road, across a humped-backed bridge (which doesn't exist) and down to the river. So here's another day in the life of the Necklace Park:

I went straight ahead towards the sanctuary of the trees; the sheer physical power of my running conquered my fears. This is what fitness is all about; when what is at stake is not medals or prizes but your life. I felt unbeatable.

I reached the trees and their protection closed around me, a guarantee of safety, but suddenly I was treading on air and I fell; I had overrun a steep fall in the ground. You mug! I thought, as I dropped and hit the ground and started to roll over. I knew I'd injured my wrist. There was no pain, but I just felt certain of it as I slithered to a halt among some bushes and saplings. I cursed myself. I still felt no pain, but sometimes that's delayed when you injure yourself and break something in this kind of situation. I moved my body; nothing seemed to be wrong.

Then I realized that I'd lost a shoe. I could only see for a radius of about four inches, but I swept the ground above and to the side of me; no luck. I heard the river lapping softly below me, so I kicked off the other shoe, gingerly made my way down the bank, and swam across with a gentle breast stroke. The river was about twenty yards wide, and in the middle I felt very open and exposed, but I made it to the other side without attracting attention. I crawled about ten yards up the bank, then froze into immobility and listened. Everything was deceptively quiet. But my wet clothes and shoeless feet had changed the whole balance of the situation to my dis­advantage; I couldn't pass unnoticed any more.

After a few minutes I heard shouts and the voices of a
search party and the occasional bark of a dog. I waited, and then I heard them wading up the river, and saw the odd flash of a torch. A duck whirred up in protest, and I thought that if the dogs weren't already distracted by all the blundering rozzers they would be by that. I went up the rest of the bank by kind permission of the duck.

There was a path running along the top but I wanted a hidey hole. I crossed the path and came into some gardens, criss­crossed by all kinds of paths leading in and out; later on I realized they were communal collegiate gardens. I walked along the backs of the houses that adjoined them, but they were terraced, with no gaps between them, so I found a friendly bush to crawl under. It began to rain, and I heard groups of students returning to their houses; I stayed there for about an hour, when I heard the sounds of a search party combing the gardens. I got out of the hedge and went round to the backyard door of what I now realized was a university house. I went into the yard and shut the door. The yard was very small, perhaps fifteen feet long by twenty feet wide, and was illumi­nated by the light from a number of upstairs windows. Young men were moving about up there, preparing to go to bed.

I found a corner to hide in and shelter from the rain; I wasn't worred because I had dark clothes on and couldn't easily be seen. After about an hour an old man came out and emptied something into a dustbin. He was only a few yards away from me, but I didn't move and he didn't notice me. Then some kids came in and I decided it was time I found another hiding place.

I went back into the gardens and turned to the left and con­tinued until I found another sheltered place. I lay on the ground, and could hear the murmur of young people talking in one of the rooms of a big semicircular building near by. It had stopped raining; I felt very lonely. I waited until about one o'clock and came out into the quietness and emptiness of the graveyard hours. But once you're on the move your mind picks up a charge of energy; you feel you're making progress; in a way you're trying to create some kind of freedom. I went
back to the path along the river and walked rapidly along it in the direction I'd taken before I'd swum the river.

The river banks were beautifully landscaped on both sides with grass and trees, and for about half a mile I was able to go forward freely and easily, but then the river entered a factory area. Rather than run the risk of taking to the streets, I decided to swim out of the town; Durham isn't a large place and the current of the river was running my way. I got into the water and the cold hit me like a hammer blow, but I told myself I would get used to it. I swam past a half-submerged pipe on which stood a big long-tailed rat, its fur spiked by the water. It watched me with interest, turning its head as I swam past; I smiled at its acknowledgement that I represented no threat to its environment.

But I didn't get used to the cold, which pierced me to the marrow, and I felt my strength waning. At the most I could have swum only a few hundred yards. I got out of the water by a stretch of derelict ground which looked as if it couldn't be reached except from the river. I don't know why I made things hard for myself by swimming; the only explanation I've ever thought of is that the swimming in the recent Olympic Games had gone to my head.

Quite apart from the cold, no-one who'd seen a map of Durham would think that taking to the river was the easy way out of town!