LETTER FROM AN ENGLISH PRISON four stories by Carol Tarlen

From 1987-1989, I corresponded with a young Welsh miner imprisoned for his activities in support of the British Miners Strike of 1984-1985. This small book is dedicated, in solidarity, to him and others who dream of justice and a better life.

For Russell Shankland

Author’s note: These stories, though based on historical events, are, with the exception of the last piece, the products of my imagination. However, the incidents described in “Blood on the Carpet” are fact, and I make no apology for my life.

Carol Tarlen

The question is very simple. Shall people…be allowed to live the decent, fully human life which is now technically achievable, or shan’t they? Shall the common man be pushed back into the mud, or shall he not? I myself believe, perhaps on insufficient grounds, that the common man will win his fight sooner or later, but I want it to be sooner and not later—
Some time within the next hundred years, say, and not some time within the next ten thousand years.

George Orwell
“Looking Back On Spain,” 1943