After the medical examination we were soon taken off, separately, to the changing room. Here my trinkets, money, watch, the combs in my hair, and everything in my pocket were taken from me and a list made, which I had to sign. I had a great longing to keep my handkerchiefs. A wardress sitting at a desk with a large book on it asked a further string of questions as to age, name, address, place of birth, previous convictions. As I gave “Vienna, Austria,” for the place of my birth, my father having been in the diplomatic service, I thought how impossible it would have seemed had some seer foretold, at the time of my birth in an official residence, that I was destined to be imprisoned in Holloway as a common criminal. A description of the prisoner’s personal appearance was also entered in the book. It was a comic moment when the wardress looked up with her head on one side, as any portrait painter might do, to investigate the colour of one’s hair and eyes. During all these processes I had a first opportunity of noticing the manner of the wardresses which so many Suffragette friends had described to me, but which had conveyed no clear impression to my mind. I noticed that there was no inflection in the voice when speaking to prisoners, nor did the wardresses look at them when addressing them. As a prisoner, it was almost impossible to look in the eyes of my keepers, they seemed to fear that direct means of communication; it was as if the wardresses wore a mask, and withdrew as much as possible all expression of their own personality or recognition of it in the prisoner. At first, the impression received was as of something farcical. I remember that it amused me immensely and absorbed my attention with a sort of fascinated curiosity. But this soon went off, and made way for a chilling, deadening impression. When later on I saw it applied to the ordinary prisoner, to my companions, to our leader, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, it aroused in me a feeling of indignation and strong resentment.
One corner of this room was divided off by a curtain. I was told to go behind it and take off my clothes. As I removed them one by one I wondered what would have been my experiences by the time I should see them again. I was handed a cotton chemise, woollen stockings and a petticoat. In this queer get-up I was taken to be weighed and then shown to a bath. The bath compartments were close together in a passage, like stalls in a stable, each one only just large enough to contain the bath and a few inches of standing room at one end. The door was of the cowshed order, about three feet deep, space above and below, and without a fastening. As I was ushered into one of these, an ordinary 3rd Division prisoner handed me a bundle of clothes and a pair of laced shoes. She had a charming, sympathetic face, and I never shall forget the look of deep kindness in her eyes and in her voice as she whispered to me, “If the shoes are too small, ask the officer and she’ll let you have a larger pair.” My tired body, my very soul, seemed to bask in comfort at her words. I looked and nodded my thanks to her, afraid to speak, for I had been warned how we might get the prisoners into trouble by breaking the silence rule with them.