Nicole (she/her) introduces the Prisoner’s Herbal book and her story of how she learnt about plant medicines in prison.

Links & resources from this episode

• Prisoner’s Herbal Book
• Ukraine Herbal Solidarity
• Campaign to stop sending pregnant people to prison
• Prison Island publication

Find them all at solidarityapothecary.org/podcast/

Support the show

Music from Sole & DJ Pain – Battle of Humans | Plant illustrations by @amani_writes | In solidarity, please subscribe, rate & review this podcast wherever you listen.

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast have with your host, Nicole

Rose from the Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things, plants and liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello, welcome back.

If you're here again, then I really hope that maybe you've listened to

the first episode of the frontline herbalism podcast and you are back

for more, which is really exciting.

The focus of this episode is gonna be introducing the prisoner's herbal book.

I'm gonna be reading the introduction and the kind of section about my story of

going to prison and learning about plants.

The reason I wanted to kind of like start the podcast off with this is

mainly because it's like one of the biggest parts of my work in terms

of supporting people, experiencing state violence with herbal medicine.

But also because if you didn't know, there's a war happening right

now the invasion of Ukraine is.

Horrific and affecting lots of people I love.

And I've been very active, starting a project called Ukraine herbal solidarity.

And I'm gonna do a standalone, like episode about the project, but

the, the short version is we have a clinic site in Poland at a gas

station where coaches come from.

People like across the different borders, like the different kind of

like border point, like border crossings with between Ukraine and Poland.

And the coaches kind of go on their way to other places like Warsaw or Berlin.

And they stop at this gas station and people get off and

they have a 10 minute breather.

They get a cup of tea.

They, you know, maybe they get some toys for their children.

And we have a little space where we have herbal medicine available for people.

So Ukraine has like a really, really, really vibrant, incredible

tradition of herbal medicine and yeah, valerian sold out, for example,

on like day three of the invasion.

So we have different tinctures, like valerian and skull cap and rose and

Hawthorn and different things for like immune support, stress support,

sleep, muscle pain Yeah, I'm already going into too many details, but

basically I'm gonna do a separate podcast about it really, really soon.

But at the moment, like while I'm doing that project, it's just taking

like my absolute, like body and soul right now, we are trying to

fundraise like thousands of pounds.

We're making thousands of medicines.

Everything is on a scale.

You know, an absolutely huge scale.

Like I'm kind of used to like broader scale medicine making,

especially through the pandemic and working in Calais with the clinic.

But yeah, this is just like unrelenting, huge workload.

Which I'm a bit of a magnet towards people that know me listening to this

will chuckle, but yeah, it's been a really incredible project, like, and.

Yeah, I'm gonna be going to Poland super soon, but doing the kind of like series

about the prisoner's herbal, it just gives me a bit of breathing space to then have

time to do kind of like batch interviews.

So meet with different people around the world.

Like I've got a whole spreadsheet of people I'm gonna contact

and just like fingers crossed that up for being interviewed.

So yeah, the podcast will hopefully become kind of interesting and collective

and engaging, like as time goes on.

But right now I just really wanted to get it just to get it live.

And I think the prisoners herbal is like a very special project and, you know,

right now is like really herbal season.

Right.

We're in the summer.

And all of the plants in the book are in flower.

It's like peak time to harvest them.

So I think to make it useful for people on the outside, they can hear about the

book and hopefully that can encourage them to order copies for their loved

ones in prison or for themselves.

Yeah.

So that's the plan.

So I'm just gonna be kind of like reading the book.

And then at the beginning of each episode, I'm gonna have some like

shoutouts for different solidarity things.

Okay.

All right, here we go.

Hello.

The book actually starts with a dedication to my best friend,

Sam who is still in prison.

Okay.

So it says for Sam to my best friend who is still in prison, you brought me

joy every day in the prison gardens.

One day you'll be free and we will, we will gather plants

together on the outside.

This book is dedicated to you, and I'll probably talk about Sam

sometimes soon on the podcast.

It's having a really hard time again now with her cancer.

But yeah, that's in the introduction of the book, which I'm gonna read now.

Okay.

So welcome to the prisoners herbal.

This book has been put together to create a resource for prisoners who would like to

learn more about plants growing in prison.

Courtyards.

It will be distributed to prisoners around the world via supportive

individuals and solidarity projects.

Contains detailed descriptions of plants, the medicinal and edible

uses how to use them and what health challenges they can support.

There is also a section on how to use items that can be brought on

canteen for health uses such as salt, pepper, tea powder, and more.

So this is like the, the prison-y bit.

When I was 21 years old, I entered one of Britain's highest security

prisons for women and began a three and a half year prison sentence.

This book shares stories of the relationships I built with plants

in the prison gardens the profiles in this book highlight their edible

medicinal and other traditional uses.

And most importantly, how to use them in a prison context with limited access

to resources or common medicine, making ingredients such as alcohol or oil.

The prison where I did my sentence was a privatized prison, meaning I

wasn't able to access the spices and the vegetables available in some UK

prisons, but certainly not all, you know, like not all prisons have.

This stuff, if that makes sense.

However, I have asked friends inside to send me copies of their canteen

sheets, and I have created a section of the book with remedies from these

ingredients that are available.

I also did some research into what is available in prisons in the United

States, which seems even more limited than what I call prison island, UK.

I.

Just a side note, prison island UK is like a name of a report about

prison expansion in England Wales.

So if you didn't know, the state wanna build like 18,000 new prison

places here because you know, prison's very effective, you know, it's like

all, all profit driven of course.

But anyway, I'm gonna hopefully have like a episode about prison expansion soon.

All right.

Back to the book.

This is really important.

I'm painfully aware that prisoners will all have different access to plants.

A minority may work in the prison gardens and may even grow many more plants than

those that are, are detailed in this book.

However, the majority will only see a prison courtyard once a day, or even once

a week, if they're lucky, many others still will not see the outside at all.

Contesting with years and years of solitary confinement, for those

that can access our courtyard and may have some grass, but more

likely it will just be concrete.

Hopefully with some defiant plants growing through the cracks.

In some prisons, they actively poison all plants with the chemical spray Roundup

to maintain a sterile environment, to further dehumanize prisoners.

If you are a prisoner reading this, then I hope at whatever level of access you

have, this book is interesting and useful.

And it's really important to emphasize about the access, cuz like COVID

has been like such a game changer.

You know, prisoners like across England, Wales, and Scotland, I

mean, across the world, right have been doing really extreme lengths

of bang up, you know, look, you're looking at like 23 hours a day.

Sometimes people don't get unlocked at all.

If they're like short of staff, I think my friend Sam had like three or four days

where she didn't get unlocked at all.

And it's just absolutely horrific cuz they had, you know, the whole

wing was shut down from COVID.

So like slowly things are kind of like changing, but like the prison officers

are like very happy with this new model of like constant bang up, cuz it's

just like less work for them, even though it really harms prisoners like

increases self harm in prisoner suicides.

Okay.

I have also organized information in an index so that you can see

a list of common health issues and which plants are recommended.

I thought for many people who are new to her and this can

often be an easier way to start.

You will also find a gloss of terms.

I have tried to limit botanical and medical jargon as much as possible,

but certain words are very specific in understanding actions of plants.

So please just look up any that are not clear.

The final pages offer a resource section with recommended books and

herbal schools that offer distance learning programs, including one that

Sam's course materials completely free to prisoners in solidarity.

Nicole.

So that program is actually with the Commonwealth herb school in Boston,

in the so called United States.

And they are absolutely amazing.

They've like transcribed hundreds of hours of courses so that

people in prison can read them.

I think it's like not ideal in the sense that like, because

prisoners can't watch the videos.

It's kind of like less of, it's like not ideal as a learning experience

to just read text and lots of people like me are dyslexic inside or have

challenges of reading and writing.

So we'd really like to update materials with like more photographs

and send more like books to prisoners with textbooks, stuff like this.

Okay.

So this is like the, the next level of introduction.

If that makes sense.

This is, this is actually my story.

So this is like a little bit, a little bit harder to read, but whatever,

hopefully this is the only time I'm gonna have to read this on a mic.

Okay.

Here we go.

When I was 21 years old, I entered one of Britain's highest security prisons for

women called HMP Bronzefield and began a three and a half year prison sentence.

I was sent down for conspiracy to blackmail after a 2.1 million police

operation to repress and criminalize the grassroots campaign I was part of

to close Europe's largest animal testing company who killed more than a hundred

thousand animals every single day after raiding and arresting more than 32 people.

The operation eventually put 12 of us through the courts

and people were sentenced from between a few months to 11 years.

I was no stranger to prison.

However, my first boyfriend got sent down when I was just 16 years old.

And so I had regularly visited prisons across England.

By the time it was my turn to go through the.

All in all.

I just spent under two years in the prison itself and the rest under

strict probation outside for many, this could seem like a long sentence.

However, for many loved ones that I know inside that are serving long sentences,

it really is not friends and comrades are serving life sentences or contemporary

versions of them and are literally losing their whole lives to prison.

Many do not know when or if they will ever be free.

since getting out of prison, I have done my best to support my

close friends that remain inside.

And you know, like this was published in 2019, but they're still there.

And I will put like call outs or solidarity and stuff on the podcast.

Okay.

Over many years I have witnessed their mental and physical health decline.

As a brutality of the prison system has taken its toll from increasingly

horrifying self harm to frequent suicide.

Nine years into her sentence.

My best friend Sam was diagnosed with cancer, her literal battle

between life and death escalated due to serious medical neglect by

the private prison that she was.

They failed to take her to hospital appointments, failed, to communicate

test results and completely failed with post-surgery after care,

where she contracted infection.

After infection, the doctors in the specialist hospital who had operated on

her, told me that the prison had failed to bring her to over nine appointments.

Each time they had assembled a surgical team to remove the cancerous tissues from

her and the prison didn't even call to say that they would not bring her in.

And you know, like just a little ad lib here, but that's like huge amount of

pressure on the NHS, you know, like that's not just affecting Sam but that's also

affecting other people that are waiting for like life, life saving surgery.

And Sam actually has anal cancer.

So it's like a very specific, rare form of cancer.

Where they, they don't operate on it everywhere.

So yeah, the kind of repercussions of this private prison doing that was like

very significant for all sorts of people.

It is an absolute miracle that she is still alive after two major operations,

multiple MRA infection, and years of hell stress fighting for her life.

The consultant told me if the cancer had grown by even four millimeters.

It would've been game over.

Yeah.

And just to highlight, she's actually had a third third lot of surgery now

and we're kind of waiting on her results.

The cancer unfortunately has come back again.

She has like a yearly checkup now.

And yeah, it's very likely that she'll need radiotherapy soon.

Anyway, but again, this is like another really important point now.

So for people reading this in prison, you will not be surprised you'll

have witnessed and most likely experienced medical neglect yourself.

You all have been in pain and been unable to access painkillers or seen

people begging for medical attention, completely ignored by prison officers.

When I was in prison, a girl even miscarried and was left alone to bleed

out in her cell before being unlocked the next day, it is in part because of

this intense medical neglect that I feel motivated to put together this book.

Herbalism is incredibly empowering because plants give us the opportunity

to actively care for our own health.

Without fighting an authority.

We all know that everything is a fight in prison.

Likewise prison food is awful and wild plants can supplement industrial

diets, bringing desperately needed vitamin and minerals to our bodies.

More than anything.

Learning about plants is fun.

They become familiar friends and help counter the loneliness of imprison.

When I got sent down, I was expecting to be totally removed from nature.

But I remember when I entered the prison and first got processed, that's kind

of like when they like book you in, in reception and counting your belongings and

make you an ID card and stuff like this.

But yeah, I remember that first night where I was taken across

the main courtyard to the house block where the newcomers go.

And I looked down and I could see dandelions pushing through the concrete.

I could see mag pies and crows on the prison, walls and fences.

I knew that I would find comfort in witnessing this world resistance.

And this book captures these memories and experiences after several

months of bang up and working in the gym, waiting to get my security

clearance for a job in the gardens.

I finally got the slip under my door that I'd been assigned

to work in the garden party.

It's not actually a party.

It's just like it's just like the team of people that work in the garden.

I dunno why they call it party.

Okay.

This meant I could work outside with a small crew of other girls.

Most of the labor dare I say, all of it was completely monotonous removing the

weeds that I'd love from beds or paths or in my case, pretending to weed them and

always leaving the roots in the ground.

So they regrow literally did that every time move lines or mowing the grass.

Occasionally, we would do more interesting tasks, like finally planting up a

vegetable garden in the main courtyard, as well as building a veg patch and

herb garden in the new garden of the mother and baby unit of the prison.

That's right.

They literally lock up mothers and their babies and then they take their

babies off them and keep them in prison.

And it is absolutely awful.

And actually there's been a campaign because I don't

know if it's one or two, but.

Yeah, I think maybe two babies have like died in that prison since I've left.

And yeah, it was absolutely horrific.

Okay.

The courtyards were mostly small triangular concrete yards with a triangle

of grass in the middle, but amidst the grass were some of my favorite plants

such as yarrow and Daisy in the main courtyard, there were ornamental roses.

So many that when we had to prune them all in the winter, I got really bad RSI

in my wrist from working in the cold and cutting them back in these roses.

I found mineral rich plants like chickweed and dandelion too.

Another job we had was clearing areas near the inside perimeter fences,

this mostly involved strimming curbs or pulling plants out of the gravel.

It was here that I encountered plants like mallow and plantain

who loved the sandy to soil.

Of course, I was not allowed to take plants back to my room.

So began a daily adventure of how, how the hell to smuggle things back.

We were searched after every shift on the gardens party, which

involved a packed down by an.

I learned all manner of tricks of putting leaves in my bra or underwear, carrying

them in my gloves or doing a bit of a slight of hand before being searched.

If I had a library appointment after being in the garden, it would

mean I could even smuggle plants around, press someone into my books.

Fortunately, I think officers suspected I wasn't a drug user because

of what I'd been sent down for.

So they didn't search me as vigilantly as folks they suspected were trading

or passing drugs around the prison.

Little, did they know that I'd often take herbs back from my friends on

the wing or make them cups of tea when they had period pains or tummy cramps.

Other than bringing things back to my room.

I'd also just eat plants there.

And then when I was weed, my pallet became adapted to the

more bitter taste of wild plants.

When we built the vegetable gardens in the main courtyard, I asked the prison

officer in charge of the garden party.

If we could grow some rocket, this plant is so nutritious, full of

vitamin and minerals, including zinc and vitamins, a B six C and K it's.

It is also super easy to germinate.

It spreads everywhere.

I soon did some guerilla planting where I would take the seeds and spread them

the various courtyards of the prison to maintain my supply of fresh greens.

And so that others could access them too.

If only more of the prisoners knew what they were and that you can eat them.

In addition to working in the prison gardens, I was also incredibly lucky

to access some financial support from a charity to undertake a distance

learning course in horticulture and permaculture design, as well as a short

distance learning course in herbalism.

It sounds so cheesy to write this, but these courses really did change my life.

On release.

I learned to grow on a bigger scale and have now taught hundreds of other low

income families to learn how to grow food.

The workers cooperative that I started has multiple community gardens, a mushroom

farm wildflower park, forest garden, more as well as a four and a half acre

permaculture project where I now live.

I'm sadly not involved in the workers' co-op anymore.

Which is called feed Avalon, but yeah, it was definitely life changing

experience to be involved in it.

And it's like amazing that they're still going strong.

Okay.

My passion for herbal medicine has only grown over time.

And in 2018, I decided to apply to train as a clinical herbalist, scared

that my conviction would be a barrier.

I finally found a school that that did not discriminate.

And so I am now halfway through a four year training.

Meaning that soon I will be able to soon, I will be able to more

proactively help people with their health by accessing herbal medicines.

I also started the solidarity apothecary project, which you can read more about

at the back of the book, the herbal medicine course that I studied in prison

as incredibly inspiring and interesting as it was made herbalism feel abstract

for me in the context I was in, I could never make any of the things that the

assignment suggested, whether it was tin teachers or salves or ointment.

likewise, most or nearly all the plants they included were

unavailable to me at the time.

Therefore, I wanted to write this herbal book as a way of bringing

herbalism alive to people in prison.

I know that many people will still read these pages and feel an intense heartache

because of these plants are still out of reach to them like the ingredients in the

canteen section, which I would've killed to have access to when I was in prison.

But I hope for everyone that there is at least one plant there that

calls to them, which they can find.

Connecting with plants in prison is not just about making medicine is about

friendship is about contending with the isolation, despair, trauma, and violence

is something alive and beautiful.

A part of, one of the tattoo sleeves on my arm reads never alone.

I got it before I got sent down because I wanted to remind

myself that I am not alone.

During years of state repression, I felt isolated and betrayed by the movement.

I grew up in.

I felt like any grassroots or revolutionary struggle to change

things was ultimately weaker than those in power and control.

I felt small and vulnerable, but plants reminded me every

day that they're on our side.

All the plants, animals, and ecosystems in the world want recovery.

They want freedom.

They want health.

And with them as allies, we are never alone.

I would therefore encourage people, not just to make things with the

plants they find or use them for health ailments, but to try and make friends

with plants in the herbal world.

They're commonly called plant allies.

I've written a whole section about this.

What about what this means in practice?

The short version is that we can build friendships with plants by simply

hanging out with them, sitting with them and drawing them and tasting them.

I know so many of my friends like rinse me for stuff like this.

Like laughing at me for talking to plants and stuff.

But yeah, like, you know, it was just like how you got roll, right.

Anyway.

Okay.

In prison, I used to sleep with a dandelion under my pillow.

It made me feel safer.

It literally made me feel grounded before I had many herbal books or

what worked through my coursework.

I would have vivid dreams about plants.

I dreamed once about plantain talking to me and telling me it was

useful for woundage before looking up in a book that it was one of

the best plants to apply to wounds.

I would make a mini Altar under my bed with dry plants from the garden

and bring it out after bangup as something that made me feel comforted.

As we all know in prison, it only lasted as long as the next cell

search, but the process of creating that sacred space was so valuable to

me, the relationships with plants that we build, they stay with us for life.

Every time I'm driving to a prison visit stressed about being late or anxious

about the intensity of what might happen.

I pull up at a motorway services and see a patch of dandelions.

I feel strengthened when I get bitten by a spider at a gig.

I know which plants to look for in the city streets, outside the venue.

Each time I see yarrow now, I feel like I've bumped into an old friend.

This stuff probably sounds mega hippyish, but is the truth.

Once you become familiar with different plants, the familiarity

and comfort never goes.

I hope that this book can be the start of a journey that you can continue

and deepen for the rest of your life.

Creating a relationship with the world inside and out can sustain

us in live in the darkest moments.

All right.

So that's, that's the first chapter.

Next I'm gonna talk about like actually preparing plant medicines in prison and

a little bit about kind of herbal actions and how the plant profiles are structured.

And then, yeah, we're just gonna do like a big, deep dive into, into all

of the, all of the herbs from the book.

So, yeah, it's gonna be really exciting and yeah, once again,

like, please just contact me for stuff you wanna plug on the podcast.

I mean, I can't imagine I have many listeners listeners right now.

Like I said, it is probably me and like six queers of Instagram,

but yeah, if you can share it and support the show in some way, I would

like really appreciate it and yeah.

Okay.

Take care of everyone.

Thanks so much for listening to the frontline herbalism podcast, you

can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the show at