H M GAOL – COOMA
The Mr Mortlock Saga
A young Frank Hutchen became a Probationary Prison Officer in 1958 and had been posted to HM Gaol Cooma. He had been brought up at Narrabri in NSW, a rich farming area in the north of the state. He had left school early and tried his hand at everything from driving trucks to shearing sheep, whatever he put his hands to he excelled at, “If it was worth doing, it was worth doing well” he would often say. Mr Hutchen and his lovely wife Rose moved kit and caboodle to Cooma to take up this new challenge of becoming a prison officer.
Regardless of who you are, or how good you are, it takes a year or two before you can call yourself a prison officer. Like most trades or jobs, there are plenty of tricks and intricacies to learn.
It was 1960 and Mr Hutchen was on a set of “B” watches, (midnight until 08.00 hours). From midnight until about 07.00 hours on the “B” watch at Cooma, only one officer worked in the gaol, completely on his own, as was the case on this particular night. The Superintendent lived only metres from the front gate and would on occasions check on the officer on duty at irregular hours.
It was about 03.00 hours when Mr Hutchen heard the clang of the steel handle of the bolt to the front gate fall heavily on the steel grill bars. It was an old trick he had learnt, if the handle was left up, when anyone came through the gate, the clang of metal hitting metal could be heard all over the gaol in the still of the night.
Part of his duties was to check the fire in the boiler house and to stoke the cook’s stoves in the kitchen. Naturally he would pause there on a cold night to try to put some warmth back into his body.
Mr Hutchen ran to the corner of the wing and saw Mr Mortlock, the Superintendent, coming through the gate. He probably got up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night as most older men do and thought to himself, ‘I might go and check on the officer on duty’. Mr Mortlock locked the gate behind him and headed straight for boiler house, hoping to find Mr Hutchen there, if not, perhaps asleep. If he thought that, he was barking up the wrong tree, in fact he was barking up the wrong forest as Mr Hutchen had never, and would never sleep in a gaol on night work, to do so would be almost suicidal and very fool hardy.
Having not found Mr Hutchen in the normal places he would find lesser men, Mr Mortlock headed for the cookhouse. All the time Mr Hutchen had him under surveillance. Mr Hutchen told me, “I ran back around the wall coming up on the eastern wall where the stairs lead to the kitchen. “I watched him go up the stairs looking in the kitchen”, but it was all to no avail as Mr Hutchen was not there. Mr Hutchen continued, “I stood up close to the corner of the wing where the opening came out under the stairs to the eastern wall. “Mr Mortlock came down the stairs, around under the stairs walking straight out the opening where I was standing. “As he passed the corner of the wing I stepped out and shoved my gun in his ribs and said, ‘Holt! ‘Who goes there’? “Mr Mortlock threw his hands in the air, staggered and began to stumble, at the same time chewing on his cigarette holder”. Mr Hutchen had to take hold of him by the arm to prevent him from falling over.
To read more about this classic Prison tale, read my short story eBook, Cutting the Bars – Volume 2, available on Amazon.
