Question Time

Jake from Gordon's School in Woking wrote the following:

Coming in and telling your life story about your experiences touched me and made me think in many ways. It made me realise that life is more important than any other thing in the world no matter what comes in the way. After listening to your talk, I walked out the door and I was just hit with many thoughts rushing through my mind. I had images in my head what it was like and then I asked myself if I ever got put into that situation would I be able to cope. So when you were in the American prison what were you emotions like and how did you deal with them, without others around you noticing?

When I first went in, I was terrified and it showed. Prisoners would come up to me and say I needed to get the fear off my face or else I’d get preyed on. When you're in such an environment you adapt fast or else you perish. It's like being in a video game with danger all around you, but you just soldier on and get through it. You'd probably do the same. We all have an amazing ability to adapt that we don't know about until we get in situations. As you adapt you lose the look of fear. A year in I'd see the same look of fear I once had, only in the eyes of the new arrivals. I used yoga to get my stress level down.


Would you say covering up your emotions in prison was one of the hardest things that you've ever done in your life because of the consequences that were on the line?

Covering up emotions became routine for me, but it was hard at first. For the first few days, I couldn’t sleep, and my emotional state was obvious. I was emotionally immature before I went in, and prison made me grow up fast.


You may have said in the talk, but how long were you in prison for? And when coming out of the prison did you come straight back over to England?

I served almost 6 years. I was deported straight back to England, and I'm banned from America for life. You can read more info about this here at my biography.


Now you’re back in England do you regret trying to take the rave scene across to America? Or would you have still tried knowing the consequences?

My biggest regret is the hurt I caused my loved ones. If I had known all of the consequences, I would have modified my behaviour.


And finally, for your book, is there a set date in September for its release?

There is no set release date yet. The publisher said it is slated for September-October publication.

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Shaun Attwood