Prison visiting…

As part of our training we have to complete a Social Context Placement, (SCP for short). The aim of these is to gain experience of chaplaincy work in various secular environments. My college offers a huge range of opportunities for placements in various healthcare settings, bereavement counselling, schools and universities, the armed forces, prisons and even Waitrose (sadly no discount card available with the placement :o( so the choice was tough. In the end I managed to get my choice down to either the armed forces or prison chaplaincy, with prison as my first choice. I assume you can guess from the title which I got assigned to! I am in equal parts excited and terrified but fortunately the time we spend in the prison won’t be until next year so I have time to get used to the idea. In the meantime we will be having a series of seminars on justice issues and a visit to the local courts to see the process that leads up to sentencing. So all in all it should be an amazing learning opportunity.

An unexpected consequence of this placement was having to send my passport for renewal this morning. (Because I need to show the passport I will use to access the prison at a seminar in 2 weeks and my current passport will run out before the placement takes place in case you were wondering…) So I have had to face the trauma of getting the passport photo this morning. Now photo booth photos are dire at the best of times but even more so when you know you are going to have to live with the results for the next 10 years! My usual trick of scanning them my computer and digitally “tidying them up” ie removing the dark circles under the eyes, removing one or two of the chins that sort of the thing! was not an option because of time and so I found one of those booths where you can have 3 attempts at the shot and uttering a short prayer sat down to try and make sense of the new instructions for passport photos. I have now realised why people look like startled rabbits on their passport photos, it’s the combinations of making sure you are the correct height and distance from the camera, don’t have hair over your ears, mouth closed, eyes open, sitting straight etc etc… that means your brain is fully occupied on anything but looking relaxed :O)

Well my first attempt flashed up with a large red warning saying not passport compliant, I had obviously transgressed one of the above rules but who the heck knows which one. The second shot was ok-ish but a bit lopsided and the third, well the less said about that the better – but think lunatic escaped from an asylum and you wouldn’t be far off… So after three attempts you see all the shots and are politely invited to choose one for printing or insert another £4 to try again. I have to say I do love English politeness… in reality the message should say something along the lines of “OK, this is what your face looks like. This is a photo booth not a plastic surgery clinic you are never going to look like Claudia Schiffer, get over it already and pick a photo!”

So hopefully in 2 weeks time I should be in possession of a new passport with a somewhat lopsided picture in it, what joy!