Former inmates return to Alcatraz

Fifty years ago they wanted to escape, but yesterday some former inmates of Alcatraz went back for a reunion at the island prison.

"The longer you are away from a place the softer the memories become," said John Banner, an 80-year-old former bank robber who served four years in the prison known as "The Rock" in San Francisco Bay in the 1950s.

But Banner said time could not erase all the unpleasant memories, such as the monotonous days, the ice-cold showers and the razors that were so sharp they "cut your face up terribly whenever you tried to shave".

Former guard George DeVincenzi said he had never forgotten those razors. In 1950 he witnessed one inmate snatch a razor in the prison barber area and slash a fellow inmate across the throat, killing him.

Before it was romanticised by Hollywood in the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz and opened as a federal park, Alcatraz was home to hundreds of hardened criminals, including mobster Al Capone.