Veronica Bird: Hear remarkable story of prisoner officer who met notorious criminals Myra Hindley and Charles Bronson
She was one of the first women in Britain to achieve the rank of governor in a men’s jail – and now Veronica Bird is set to speak about her “triumph against a staggering series of setbacks” with a talk in the Yorkshire town where she now lives.
Bird, who was awarded an OBE in 2000, is to share her experiences in Harrogate later this month, also shedding light on a life of prisoner escapes, riots and hostage taking with her event, From Prison to Palace.
Bird was born in the 1940s into a family of nine children and lived in a tiny house in Barnsley. She joined the police in the 1950s.
After four years as an officer on the beat, she decided to join the prison service and became the fastest promoted prison officer in the country.
Bird trained in Holloway Women’s Prison before serving in several other women’s institutions around the country and then becoming governor at Leeds Armley Men’s Prison.
Bird’s prison career mirrored that of moors murderer Myra Hindley: they ‘entered’ the prison service from very different places on the same day, and they both ‘left’ on November 15, 2002 with Hindley’s death and Victoria’s retirement.
“There weren’t many women working in prisons back (when I started), but it never struck me that it wasn’t a job for me,” she previously told The Yorkshire Post. “When I told my boss that I was leaving the force to train as a prison officer, his first reaction was, ‘you’ll be back’.
“I could see why. After four years in the police I thought I had seen and experienced life in the raw, but when I was sent to Holloway Prison early on in my training, inside those four walls opened my eyes to a much darker world.”
Bird’s talk is taking place at the Police Treatment Centre in Harrogate on May 29 as part of Harrogate’s Women Winning project. A local partnership between Harrogate Film Society, Harrogate Town AFC and Soroptimist International of Harrogate and District, Women Winning will this year host a series of events which aim to bring past and present Harrogate women out of the shadows and into the limelight to new audiences.
Paula Stott, one of the Women Winning lead coordinators, says: “This is a deeply poignant story of eventual triumph against a staggering series of setbacks. Veronica has many highlights in a career spanning 40 years but when prison staff nominate their governor for a Butler Trust Award you can tell how highly she was regarded.
“She won that award because against all expectations she turned around ‘basket case’ men’s prison HMP Brockhill and what’s more she did it within 12 months.”
In her extraordinary life, Bird has met many Home Secretaries, was honoured by the late Queen and was asked to help improve conditions in Russian prisons. Thousands of prisoners have come under her ‘watch’, including notorious criminals such as Charles Bronson and Peter Sutcliffe.
To book, visit harrogatefilmsociety.org/event-details/from-prison-to-palace.