A Sense of Freedom

by Jimmy Boyle

Book Overview

Foreword by Irvine Welsh 'My life sentence had actually started the day I left my mother's womb...' Jimmy Boyle grew up in Glasgow's Gorbals. All around him the world was drinking, fighting and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0330253034
• ISBN13: 9780330253031
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Pan Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.

Customer Reviews

what a good read, very eye opening

who would have thought, I've just read "a sense of freedom" and I have to say that I found this book is very eye opening, in terms of what used to(and probably still does) go on in prisons today. Jimmy Boyle's account of his life in the penal system is very frightning to the average person who hasn't had any contact with this sort of environment, yet it also show's hope towards the future, and also he exposes prisoners as "humans" and not just people who have done wrong and desirve nothing in life. Good luck Jimmy and I hope your still doing well, you come across as a "sound geezer"!!

The long dark tea-time of the soul

A brutally honest, fascinating insight into the world of Glasgow's Jimmy Boyle... hard man and career criminal. Sent to the notorious Barlinie jail after a life of crime he gradually begins the slow process of recognising the futility of his life - but not before taking on the prison system and authorities just as he has taken on every authority figure in his life. Made into a successful TV movie, this book is shocking, riveting and true. It's also tight and concise.

An amazing, vivid and evocotive account of gang life.

I first read A Sense of Freedom in the 1970s when I was a lonely teenager with a very unhappy homelife. The book vividly describes gang life in Glasgow in the 60s and 70s and it made a deep impression on me. Not least because Jimmy, even though imprisoned in Barlinnie, had managed to find for himself 'a sense of freedom'. I felt I could understand a little of that desire for, and strugge towards freedom, because although I was, in comparsion to Jimmy, in a much more fortunate situation, I was still imprisoned by my own unhappiness and that of my parents. I found it difficult to talk about my situation at home, because like a lot of unhappy young people I couldn't see where the problems came from, and so had no words to explain this unhappiness to my parents or to anyone else. One day I decided to write to Jimmy (who was still in Barlinnie) and to my astonishment he wrote back to me! I treasured his letter and even took it with me to hospital one night when I had cut my arm in a self harming incident. I told the duty nurse about him and showed her my letter. My parents came to see me, but they were drunk and it was not the same. Although I did not know Jimmy I felt that he would understand in some way how I was feeling. I wrote again, and he wrote back again. I wrote once more and then the letters stopped. I don't know whether he got tired of me! Or whether he was told to stop writing. A year ago in the final year of my BA I read Jimmy's prison diaries and realised that he had received many letters around the time that I wrote to him. He had a lot to deal with. I have though about him sometimes over the years, and thought about the strange connections we make with strangers and how they affect our lives. The last time I heard anything about him was over 8 years ago when I saw a documentary programme about him and his sculpting. He changed his life very dramatically in a way that I wanted to change mine. I wrote to him twenty years ago, and if he ever reads this, I have changed my life too. I have just finished a BA degree and I write about self harm. Like him I have used what life taught me and made some good out of it. Mine isn't a very dramatic story, and there is no happy ending yet. But now I don't necessarily expect one. I am still looking for a sense of freedom because I know that ultimately it is within all of us, and not something out there. If you read this Jimmy I hope all is well, and thanks for bothering. Not many people did at the time. Julie Farrand (Kedge) julie.farrand@man.ac.uk