One man's porridge is another man's gruel

Slop out at 6.15, work from 8 till 12, lunch locked in your cell, more work, dinner, banged up again at 9.15pm. In prison, every day is the same. Bruce Jones hears how two lifers cope

It's 9.15pm in Saughton Prison, Edinburgh, and the cons are getting banged up. Across the jail, televisions are switched off, flasks are filled with tea or coffee, and prisoners are locked behind their thick steel doors for the night.

In a single cell or "twoed up", the lights go out and you go to sleep in a concrete box 12ft by 8ft until 6.15 the next morning when you slop out and get breakfast. Saughton Prison in Edinburgh is a series of of grey concrete boxes and red-brick buildings that squat in the west of the city.

If you're one of the 550 men doing time in here, each day is much the same. Someone tells you when to get up and then puts you to work at 8am. You get lunch at 12, get locked in your cell until 1.30 to eat it, then it's work again from 2.00 to 4.30. You're back in your cell by 4.45, get dinner at 6.30, association till 9.15, then you get banged up again and someone else turns the light out.

It doesn't matter if you're halfway through a game of pool or you want to watch the end of something on the box. These are the rules and you don't have any choice.

This is what prison is like. Your life gets taken away and replaced by a routine. The atmosphere in Saughton is pretty relaxed compared with some other prisons, but it's still a place where you don't do what you want, you do what you're allowed to.

Pentland Hall is on the east side of the jail. It's the section of the prison that contains lifers who have earned extra privileges. The basic regime is the same but cells here are more like study bedrooms. There's carpet on the floor, and a kitchen and showers they can use any time of day.

Despite the extra comfort, some of these Scottish lifers are probably worse off than their English and Welsh counterparts. Someone given a mandatory life sentence south of the border also has to be given a tariff - the minimum term he or she is likely to serve. The system is different in Scotland. Lifers don't get a tariff, so you can do 10 years or more and still have no idea of a possible release date.

Some of these men know more about doing time than anyone else in the country. They've all done long stretches, and the longest-serving prisoner in Scotland is housed here. They all learnt long ago that you have to learn to do your time - or it ends up doing you.

'It's only on the outside that you really live. On the inside, you just exist'

Sandy (not his real name), 46, is serving a life sentence for murder

"When I came inside 15 years ago, I cut myself off from my family to protect them. Families can go through the highs and lows, the emotional rollercoaster of the person inside. Prisoners tend to dump. That means that whatever you're feeling, the people closest to you are often hit with it.

It didn't take me long to realise I was taking them through my time with me. I don't intend to have any further contact with them. It's a very traumatic thing to have taken a life, and I wanted to hide. That could be construed as cowardly, but the only way I could cope was by cutting myself off.

I turned in on myself completely, I tried to protect everyone from me. I tried to commit suicide, and it very nearly worked. It was a complete surprise to everyone, including the doctors, that I actually survived, given the amount of damage I did to myself.

When you've taken a life, I don't think you ever have happiness again. You may get moments of contentment at times, but you never have that euphoric feeling that you used to get, that buzz for life, that zest. It seems like a distant memory. The sparkle of life has just gone.

Yes, I suppose I am punishing myself. I used to do it regularly, all the time. Even simple things like when the sun was shining, and I thought what a nice day it was, I used to think to myself, you've got a cheek. There's other people that should be here that don't have that magic.

You've got to come to terms with the havoc that you've created, and then you've got to try and survive it. If you don't, you're not going to be any good to yourself or anyone else. You've got to try and get a bit of your self-esteem redeemed.

It's only over the last five years or so that I psychologically tried to survive, that I stopped the idea of instant annulment being at hand. It's like that cliche: one day at a time. I lived my day by thinking, well I've got the means to end it. If the next day is bad, I've got the choice. Although it sounds destructive, in effect it was a survival course.

I'm going out into the community to work now, and it's only on the outside that you really live. On the inside, you just exist. Reality is out there; the only chance for me to survive is out there. When I'm outside, that's when I do my best. If I stand up on a bus to give an old lady a seat, pick up a child that's fallen, those things are decent actions to my mind. They may be small things, but they're good.

I try to make as much use of my time as I can. For my own peace of mind, I've got to get it right before I take my last breath. I'll never have true peace, but I would like to think I got it right, that I achieved some kind of balance. I'd like to contribute to the happiness of people around me. It's the only way I can appease the kind of pain I feel about the massive destruction that my actions have caused.

The idea of death doesn't hold any fear; it's just a chance of calmness, serenity. I'm not suicidal any more; it is just like I'm an old man who's had a run at life. Now I'm tired."

'Doing Time', presented by Bruce Jones, will be broadcast on Radio 5 Live tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday at 9.35pm.

'Prison can be very funny. It's quite a happy place, believe it or not'

Dixie, 47, is serving a life sentence for domestic murder

"I knew I was going to get a life sentence. It was Christmas Day, and within five minutes of my crime, I was round the corner and into the police station with my hands up. So when I came inside, I was positive from day one.

There's a lot of positive things you can do in prison. You can come in illiterate and leave with a higher education. Before I came in, I was a manual worker. Now I'm at college one day a week doing a librarian information science course. That's a talent I never knew I had. I'm in charge of the library here, and I've got a budget of about pounds 5,000 to spend.

When I was in Shotts prison, where I was first sent, we started a charity concert party. It was like we were saying, we know we're a black mark, but this is a positive thing we can do. It was a mixture of songs and comedy. I used to write the comedy sketches. We did Rab C. Nesbitt and Inspector Clouseau, things like that.

We put on 23 concerts at Shotts, all open to the public. We weren't allowed to charge entrance, but we did raffles and auctions and people could give donations when they left. The first one raised pounds 2,000, and we raised about pounds 25,000 altogether.

Prison can actually be very funny. It's quite a happy place, believe it or not. There's a lot of laughing and joking. Some of us were out last week doing a book sale for Christian Aid, and that's what people noticed about us - they couldn't believe how happy we were.

Of course, it can be pretty daunting when you come in. You see a hell of a lot of young kids in here now, and they're just lost. I've been here seven and a half years, but I still know what it's like.

I'm part of the Listening scheme. That's a whole bunch of lads trained by the Samaritans. We go and speak to other prisoners who are depressed or suicidal. Listeners have all been through the depression stages, so now we use that experience to help other people. It puts your own problems into perspective.

I've got married since I've been inside. A woman read about the Listeners course and she was thinking about doing a counselling course. She wondered how we did it here, because we take a different angle. She wrote to me, and I gave her a visit, and she brought her sister along. Her sister kept on coming, and eventually she asked me to marry her.

That sounds like an odd thing, getting married in prison. I thought it wouldn't make much difference to me to get married, but it has. It's an added positive, somewhere to go when I get out - it's a marvellous feeling.

I do think about it, how my family must have thought when they woke up on Christmas Day and their son, their father, had committed a murder. But even if the grief of the crime is always with you, the guilt can fade with time.

My time in prison has been valuable. It's given me a great opportunity for an analysis of myself. Sometimes I actually think, 'Where's the punishment?' I've been very lucky in here."