I blame the movies, of course, for colouring my expectations. When I heard about Boris Becker\u2019s forthcoming prison memoir, Inside, and especially when the Daily Mail described it as \u201cgut-wrenching and utterly haunting\u201d, I couldn\u2019t help but imagine the toughest scenes from prison classics including Midnight Express, Papillon, Bronson, Escape from Alcatraz, and Brawl in Cell Block 99. That last movie is a truly terrifying litany of crushed skulls, broken necks, stabbings and even one full decapitation. The Becker book, it transpires, and based only on the huge chunks serialised so far, seems more, well, Paddington 2 dance finale.<\/p>\n
His incarceration story begins, eerily enough, with the screams of an inmate during Becker\u2019s first night in HM Prison Wandsworth, in April 2022. The Wimbledon tennis player had been sent there for offences committed under the Insolvency Act (including removing money from his bankruptcy estate without permission), which was the result, he says, with just a tiny hint of self-serving victimhood, \u201cof letting others run my finances\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Boris Becker: How I survived my 230 days in prison<\/a><\/p>\n His tone too for this Wandsworth section is oddly prim and unemotional, and hardly gut-wrenching. He talks about his incredible capacity to thrive under pressure and be resilient (of course he does!), and describes balking at a foul-mouthed female prison guard who uses \u201clanguage ripe for a Centre Court code violation\u201d. Yes, Boris, you\u2019re in prison, not Downton Abbey.<\/p>\n After six weeks in Wandsworth Becker is transferred to HM Prison Huntercombe in Oxfordshire, and this is where it gets really weird. His slammer experience slowly evolves into a feelgood melodrama with Becker at the mesmerising centre, acting as a lightning rod for the hopes and dreams of all the hardened drug dealers and murderers round him. There\u2019s a villain, of course, in the form of a nasty screw who doesn\u2019t actually crush Becker\u2019s skull like they do in the movies, but instead, well, messes with his dinner schedule so that Becker only has the less appetising meal options from which to choose. Again, not exactly Papillon, and not utterly haunting either.<\/p>\n Becker, thankfully, is made of stern stuff (of course he is!) and he\u2019s soon befriended by a giant Lithuanian drug dealer and paedophile-hater whom he nicknames, adorably, Baby Hulk. When Baby Hulk learnt that a paedophile had been transferred to Huntercombe he marched straight into the new arrival\u2019s cell and \u201cborderline killed him\u201d. Becker says that he doesn\u2019t approve of anyone being borderline killed, but he certainly seems to enjoy the protection he gets from this new association. \u201cNo one was ever going to touch Baby Hulk, or his friends,\u201d he writes, without a hint of irony.<\/p>\n \u2022 Tennis\u2019s most outspoken man on Serena, doping and the secrets of coaching<\/a><\/p>\n The Boris boy squad expands to include another couple of drug dealers and an Albanian double-murderer, all of whom are slowly infected with Becker\u2019s great guy energy and are hugely impressed when his wife, Lilian, features on the Wimbledon TV coverage. \u201cF***, you\u2019ve got a hot chick!\u201d they say. \u201cHow did you do it?\u201d Becker replies, \u201cHidden talents, my friends, hidden talents.\u201d Legend.<\/p>\n This section ends with a fantastical and hugely cinematic \u201cO captain my captain!\u201d moment, where the entire prison seems to be watching the 2022 Wimbledon finale and cheering on the victory of Becker\u2019s former charge Novak Djokovic. The prisoners bang their cells with \u201ccups, cutlery, chairs and belts\u201d in communal ecstasy, while Becker rises to his feet, personally victorious, weeping with delight and finally knowing that \u201cin my mind I was flying\u201d.<\/p>\n