Lessons in rehabilitation

In September Lady Dalton completed a wing walk on a 1940s biplane as part of the Jersey International Air Display to raise thousands of pounds for Beresford Street Kitchen and the Royal Air Forces Association. 

And earlier this month, Lady Dalton was presented with a wooden biplane handcrafted by one of the prisoners when she visited the States of Jersey Prison Service at HMP La Moye.

Lady Dalton was at the prison to view the education work undertaken to prepare prisoners to rejoin the Island community after serving their sentences. 

Lady Dalton saw an art class in action and viewed work to be showcased in the 2020 Inside Out exhibition – a display of prisoners’ works of art and craft. The show in March 2020 will mark the exhibition’s 12th year. As well as seeing preparations for the event, Lady Dalton spoke to prisoners in the art class who were studying for Open University degrees while in prison.

During her visit, Lady Dalton saw the vocational training painting and decorating course in progress as well as the vocational training workshops and horticultural area, where she saw the work and training prisoners were undertaking. Lady Dalton presented two prisoners with City and Guilds Certificates marking their horticultural achievements, and she also viewed the poinsettias being grown to supply the Co-op stores in the Island.

Lady Dalton also saw products being made in the workshops, including reindeer made using recycled wood from pallets. It was then that vocational training instructor Stuart Luce surprised Lady Dalton with the presentation of a wooden biplane made from recycled wood. 

The Governor and Head of SoJPS Nick Cameron said: “We really admired Lady Dalton’s courage to do the wing walk to raise money for Beresford Street Kitchen and the Royal Air Forces Association during the air show, and I challenged our vocational training team to see if they could make a model biplane to mark this feat. Needless to say they rose to the challenge and one of our prisoners did a fantastic job. Luckily Lady Dalton has a good sense of humour and appreciated the gift and recalled the experience of seeing Elizabeth Castle from a rather unique perspective. It was also a novel way for the prison service to demonstrate the skills of prisoners, as well as a token of our thanks to Lady Dalton and His Excellency for their interest in and support of the work we do to rehabilitate prisoners.”

Lady Dalton’s recent visit follows a behind-the-scenes tour of the prison in July, when she and her husband looked around various areas, including a prison wing, the visiting area and the Reintegration Unit.

Photo captions: vocational training manager Steve De Carteret shows Lady Dalton the poinsettias, which will soon be sold in all Co-op stores across the Island; vocational training instructor Stuart Luce presents Lady Dalton with a model of biplane to remember her recent wing waking for charity.