DI BARKER

Age: 32 In Service: 8 YEARS Grade: Officer Previous Occupation: Job Centre Clerk Personal Background: Di is single and lives with her invalid widowed mother, Dorothy, in a terraced house in Tooting.

On the surface, Di is a jolly person who enjoys the camaraderie of her colleagues and genuinely feels for the inmates. Di likes to think her sunny nature bathes G-Wing in a warm, friendly glow. She wants everyone in the prison to be part of a happy family-with her wrapped in its bosom.                  The truth is that Di is seriously screwed up. After years of dutiful self-sacrifice looking after her mother, Di is desperate to find a man who will help her escape to a new and fulfilled life. She blames her mother for spoiling her chances, and her mother suffers for it.                  The tedious drudgery of Di's life infects her whole outlook. The bright smile is a front for a deep-rooted hysteria, which leaks out from time to time when things go wrong on the Wing. Di has no social, sex or love life. Her home is her personal prison; Larkhall is her only place of freedom. The demands made upon her by her dependant mother eat away at her, until she's verging on a serious nervous breakdown. All this she keeps hidden from the world.                 It's not just that Di pretends to others that things are all sweetness and light; she pretends to herself as well. She doesn't know that she's actually full of self-loathing. She sees her obsessions with individual men as adult, reciprocated relationships. She sees potential rivals for her men's affections as two-headed monsters. Her desperate need for love makes her a ruthless enemy if anyone gets in her way.                  Despite her mental-health prolems, Di is a survivor. Her mind becomes calculating when she's cornered and she can speak for herself if she doesn't get her own way. Di works hard at her job, she loves it and she's good at it. If she could only be free of her burdens, she might grow into a normal human being.