Maitland Gaol after dark tours 2017

But the residents were far from bog standard, and certainly a long way from school students.

No, these were murderers, rapists, armed robbers, hitmen, conmen ... even women called it home. 

All were given the usual welcome, a strip search in the hospital area. Bend over, cheeks apart, glove on ... relax, this won’t hurt a bit ...

Welcome to Maitland Gaol which for 150 years - 1848 to 1998 - was one of the state’s toughest maximum security jails. Seriously hard time.

Backpack murderer Ivan Milat was there, as was rapist and murderer Kevin Crump whose crimes were so heinous that after 42 years in prison he was still denied parole.

Chow Hayes, said to be Australia’s first gangster, called it home along with drug trafficker, murderer and rapist Arthur ‘Neddy’ Smith.

Raymond Denning, murderer, armed robber and escapee from Goulburn’s maximum security prison, was there too. And let’s not forget Darcy Dugan, bank robber and prison escape artist extraordinaire.

These guys were as hard nosed as you’d find anywhere.

In the early days behind these walls a death sentence was not out of the question - 16 inmates were executed in Maitland, 13 for murder and three for rape. Public hangings, no less ... you can’t beat a good spectator sport.

So step inside the two-and- a-half foot thick brown sandstone walls, still lined with razor wire and topped with looped barbed wire. Overlooking that were the watchtowers in each corner and walkways where warders would patrol - for 24 hours a day in those early days, rifles in hand. Eventually video surveillance cameras would be used to help ease their workload.

I’d always wondered what life would be like inside those towering walls so when Maitland Gaol’s after dark tours were advertised, I jumped at the chance.

There are two main tours - the general prison tour, and another that features the famous escapes, and failed escapes. Each tour takes about 90 minutes, with a headset explaining what life was like, with first hand reports and anecdotes from prisoners and warders alike.

And whatever pre-conceived ideas you have of prison life, after a tour of Maitland Gaol you realise it’s worse. Much, much worse.

Locked gates essentially break the prison into compartments - easier to contain in times of trouble - cement everywhere except for a small green area at the back known, somewhat optimistically, as the exercise field.

Even out in the yard where the prisoners could get some sunshine there were holding pens where certain prisoners would be placed for their own protection - a disgraced magistrate, for example, a paedophile or a snitch. Essentially, out of one cell and into another.

I head into Block A - this is where the younger prisoners came, and the homosexuals ..the prisoners they wanted to keep away from the more brutal B-Block where the hardest of the inmates went.

Maitland Gaol had women prisoners too, until 1951, and they were housed on the top floor of A Block, away from the men. And consider this: many of the women had young children. Back then it was deemed better to keep the kids with their mums - even in prison - rather than put them into the foster care system.

“Go outside and play,” has never sounded more chilling.

It’s also worth noting that there was no running water to the cells until 1979 - before that it was a jug of water each per day despite the fact the thick walls meant the cells were very cold in winter and hot and muggy in summer.

The cells themselves were thick walled, dank and dark. And tiny. The single, open toilet squeezed in right alongside the bunks.

B-Block was no different to A Block, except for the residents, of course. The hardest men had the top floor - known as “the heavies”.

Morning would start at 6.30am - outside for a head count, a procedure that would be repeated several times throughout the day. In the last 100 years of its working life, no-one successfully escaped Maitland Gaol. The only successful escapes - five in all - came in the first 50 years.

The tour explains how the best gig in the house was working in the kitchen. These, after all, were the men who had to be trusted with knives. Their rewards was the biggest, roomiest cells of all - and views over the exercise field. Compared to what the other prisoners had, it was akin to sweeping ocean views. They could also wander in and out of their cells at will - an unheard of privilege.

At the end of the exercise field is the shower area, the most dangerous spot of all - stalls of showers down each side, a bath in one corner, toilet at the other. Privacy laws meant that cameras were not allowed in here, so inmates with a score to settle would turn up the heat and take their revenge.

No one ever saw anything ... not with all that steam. If they spoke up their life wouldn’t be worth living.

Through the headphones one prisoner tells the story of his first visit to the shower. The heavy, the kingpin of the inmates, was in the bath in the corner, sharing it with his “bitch” - scrubbing his back for him.

For them, life had its little luxuries - and you grabbed what you could ... lollies, cigarettes.

Like today, drugs were a fact of everyday life.

The most common way to get them in was over the wall. Stuff the drugs in a tennis ball, or a dead bird and throw it over while the prisoners were in the exercise yard. Manna from heaven, prison style.

A warder tells how sometimes they would be stuffed in thongs when loved ones made a visit. Prisoner and loved one would wear identical thongs and swap them over during the visit.

Home brew was also highly prized. It could be made of any kitchen vegetable scraps and sugar. It would be hidden of course - sometimes in a plastic bad stuffed down the toilet.

Whatever it took.

What was life like in Maitland Gaol? It was hell.

But it makes a helluva good tour.