October 15 Jeffrey Archer is definitely being moved to the prison. And if I'm honest, the prospect makes me nervous. My status in prison is built on the books I've written and the few times I've been on telly. Many in here use their muscle to impress; in my case, it's been the pen. It helps me sit comfortably on top of the pile. Jeffrey's arrival means my eclipse.

His presence has been confirmed by the moving of a young man on Wilford wing out of his room. His isolated room is more suitable for His Lordship. It also offers a sea view.

October 17 The discontent about Jeffrey's special treatment has reached the governor, so now he's been placed on my wing. I knocked on his door and found him sheltering behind the cover of a book. I told him we were in the same business. "Oh, you're a writer?" he asked. His response was tinged with scepticism. I suppose HMP Hollesley Bay is not the place you'd expect to bump into Harold Robbins. If he needed to talk or was in any difficulty, I said he should let me know. "I'm fine," he said dismissively. "I've coped with far worse situations." I felt awkward, even embarrassed, like a hospital visitor who has outstayed his welcome, so I shook hands and left.

October 18 The paparazzi have been parked outside all day. Jeffrey could oblige them with a photo-call by taking a stroll round the grounds but, like a true pro, he's keeping them waiting.

October 19 As a politician practised at kissing babies, handling prisoners is child's play for Jeffrey. His first political gesture was to toss his dinner - sausage roll and baked potato - into the dustbin. "Is that it?" he asked. "Where's the bin?" The cons loved this: had they been able to vote, they would definitely have backed him for mayor of London.

October 20 Someone has supplied the waiting paparazzi with photographs of Jeffrey's cell: one of the junkies looking to finance his habit. I'm off to Brighton on home leave.

Brighton, October 24 The news shows Lincoln prison in flames. Jeffrey must regret the drama he's missed in his old nick by only a week. The material he could have wrung from being at the epicentre of a prison riot: another chapter to the prison journals now gracing the nation's bookshops. On my return, I should reassure him that the fire was not a spontaneous burning of his book - he did drop a lot of cons in the shit after his revelations of drug-taking and other illicit activities.

October 25 In Brighton, I get hold of a copy of Michael Crick's book on Jeffrey, who is quoted on the cover: "I hated this book."

Our paths crossed on an outside path this evening. "Getting a bit of fresh air, then?" I asked. "Yes, got to look after the constitution," he replied. Stiff upper lip and all that. For a change, he was on his own, without the entourage of sycophants who have circled, hoping to profit. Not for the first time I feel sympathy towards a man putting on a brave face.

October 26 Jeffrey was standing behind me in today's lunch queue. He affected a grand confusion over the choice of cow pie or turkey stew. The queue was put on hold as various attendants offered different advice. The prison officer, fancying himself a wit, chipped in: "It's a choice, Mr Archer, take it or leave it." Jeffrey either didn't, or pretended not to hear the remark, but instead turned to a giant lout with a spoon, and as if addressing a waiter at the Caprice, enquired: "And what do you recommend, Simon?"

October 27 You glean much of a person's character by the company he keeps, so who would Jeffrey admit into his circle? I might have guessed. The Bruiser. From his first day on the wing, I'd placed him in a box labelled "Manipulative". I recognised the type: bulky, intimidating, out to get what he could. His main focus was the community service volunteer scheme (CSV), which allows inmates to leave jail every day to do voluntary work. In his last nick he recorded a CD for charity. He's already wangled the only available double room on the groundfloor and converted it into a kind of recording studio. I don't know who spotted who first, but within a couple of days The Bruiser was Jeffrey's minder and confidante.

October 29 I came across Jeffrey sitting alone in the dining hall, spooning up what was possibly soup. The spoon noisily chipped and clattered on the sides of the bowl, indicating a great hunger and emptiness. I wanted to say something kind, but that would have meant I knew how he felt.

October 30 Jeffrey looked quite magnificently mad. He was standing behind the prison library counter surveying his new kingdom. I'd never seen so many customers in the place. I wondered which of the throng would prise one of Jeffrey's books off the shelf and ask him not only to stamp it but sign it as well. In a closed prison, the librarian's job is considered plum. In open conditions, it's not. In fact, the last library orderly was confined to a wheelchair.

October 31 At the health centre an inmate was bursting to talk about Jeffrey: "That fucking arsehole Archer. He's a right wanker. He told me to get out of his library last night. Said I'd been in there too long and it wasn't a bus stop. I told him: 'Who do you think you are, mate? And by the way, I'm not your mate.'

"Do you know what he said then? 'Get out. These are my books. This is my library and one swear word a sentence is more than I have to listen to.' Tosser. Who the fuck does he think he is?"

November 2 I can hear him now. The screw is at Jeffrey's door. It's one of the friendly ones. "How are you settling in?" he asks, to which Jeffrey replies: "I've no intention of settling in."

I shouldn't have done it, but I wanted to nose round his room. I thought it might look different. It's easy for a prisoner stripped of his past and dressed in a drab uniform to lose touch with whom he once was. There are always photographs of family and friends to remind you. But Jeffrey's cell was spartan, a copy of the Times lying open on the green prison blanket on his bed, a Robert Ludlum on the windowsill. The only luxury a small, battery-operated colour TV, which explained why I'd never seen him in the communal television room.

November 3 This evening I spotted Jeffrey with a visitor from another wing. This inmate leaves the prison every day to work for a charity. How long will it be until Jeffrey's back in the outside world on a daily basis? Another con said that Jeffrey had been told by a screw that he wouldn't be working outside because of the regulations he'd broken at his last open nick. Jeffrey put this officer in his place. Don't mess with me unless you want your name in headlines, he is supposed to have told him.

November 4 One of the neanderthals is grumbling. "Why's that fucking Archer treated different to us? He doesn't have to hang his key on the board but has it locked in the screw's drawer when he goes out?" The answer is simple. Shortly after Jeffrey's arrival, two junkies borrowed his room key, slipped inside and snapped pictures of his living quarters. Their reward from the paparazzi was £250, but they didn't spend much of it here. They were handcuffed and "ghosted" to a prison up north.

November 5 Jeffrey looks worried and the sycophants swoop in to help. I didn't realise we had so many electrical wizards. The cricket is on but the battery pack for his TV isn't working. Jeffrey had stuck something in the wrong hole.

November 6 Iain Duncan Smith is in trouble. And for once Jeffrey has joined me to watch his performance at Prime Minister's Question Time. "How's he doing?" he asks like a latecomer at a title fight, adding: "Every one of those people just love to be seen on TV." A question is put as to whether David Shayler, the M15 whistleblower, should have been prosecuted for breaking the Official Secrets Act. Jeffrey rises from his seat, "Six months he got!" and with added indignation repeats, "Six months!", then marches back out into his own four-year stretch.

There's some banter between Jeffrey and an inmate who was a prison officer in a former life. Perhaps it's the mutual fall from grace which attracts. The fallen screw is leaving the canteen counter with a week's supply of goodies, which prompts Jeffrey further back in the queue to quip: "I'll be over a bit later for dinner."

"I'll wait for you then to buy the ingredients," comes the quick riposte.

"You should know better than that," Jeffrey replies. "I'm a Conservative!"

Jeffrey later confides that in six weeks he'll be working out. But the high spirits don't last the day. The telly in his room isn't his and he's been ordered to give it back. Jeffrey and his benefactor could have been in front of the governor on a charge. Why hadn't he shelled out for one of his own? "There's a rat on the wing!" declares Jeffrey.

November 11 Dred's not happy. The Bruiser and Jeffrey have hijacked the induction video he's making to show to new inmates. He'd been loaned a camera and left to get on with it. And now Jeffrey's doing the voiceover.

"Surely you don't want Jeffrey's voice on it?" I said. "The last thing you want is some lecturing twat turning it into a school lesson."

November 19 There is usually a queue for the one working telephone on the wing. Anyone waiting sits on the chairs a good 15ft away. Newcomers unaware of the system are pretty smartly put in their place. Tonight, mid-conversation, I felt someone peering over my shoulder. He was trying to read the digital readout on the phone to see how many credits I had left. Cheeky bugger. A moment later the same thing happened again. In some nicks this would earn an instant smack in the gob.

Sitting patiently in line must be an alien concept to Jeffrey, but I too do rudeness and hung around to listen in on him.

"I'm having second thoughts," said Jeffrey, "about the Genesis project for Mencap."

Is he offering - or looking - for help?

November 22 Every time I spot Jeffrey he's busy cultivating a screw. It seems to be working. The Bruiser has tutored him well and in a few days he's to start on the CSV scheme in an Ipswich charity shop. The prize is waving goodbye to the prison every morning and not returning till night. In effect, just an overnight and weekend boarder for the rest of his sentence.

The Bruiser, too, has moved up in the world. Sacked as the van driver delivering meals from the kitchen, now he's the inmate employment adviser. A disgruntled screw tells me the staff are unhappy - The Bruiser now has his own office next to theirs. Something is to be done about it.

November 26 Jeffrey is pictured in a national newspaper leaving the prison with his son on his first privileged "town visit". It also reports inmate anger. They are right. It's only been six weeks since he arrived; any other con would have had to wait at least double the time.

November 28 Passing Jeffrey on the landing, he shot me a glance of such withering contempt it felt like a punch in the stomach. Does he think I'm responsible for the newspaper story? He knows I'm a writer, but I wouldn't do that. The publicity seems to have sabotaged his job at the charity shop. It's been vetoed by the governor.

December 6 Unlike the old days, prisoners can now wear their own clothes and keep the footwear they arrive in. For those unfortunates unable to replace worn-out shoes, the prison supplies a pair of nasty imitation trainers. Jeffrey, for some reason, seems quite happy to be shod by the prison. Should I tell him no self-respecting con would advertise such poverty?

December 10 Amazing how quickly the novelty of having Jeffrey round has worn off. Apart from The Bruiser for company, he cuts a lonely figure. I don't hear his voice so often bouncing off the landing walls. And in a funny way, I miss it. So many times before I've seen inmates sliding towards depression and Jeffrey is no exception. At a new prison there are fresh faces and routines to stimulate but as the days roll by it's the repetition that kills; nothing ever takes you by surprise.

Jeffrey seems resigned about not going on to the CSV scheme. With public buses running through the middle of the prison, the outside world is tantalisingly close. He's here until at least next July. There's no guarantee of release then. The parole board likes to hear expressions of remorse to whet their juices. Feeling sorry for yourself is not quite the same thing.

December 19 Quite a few of the lads are eligible for home leave over Christmas. The wing feels rather empty. This time of year it hits home that you're in jail. An old timer like me is well used to the glum desperation on the inmates' faces. Jeffrey's air of detachment doesn't fool me either. Like most with a home and a life away from this place, I sense the unhappiness he'd rather not show. I saw this when he spotted the forlorn Christmas tree in the dining hall.

Christmas Eve It's way past midnight. There's a thunderous banging a little way down the landing. The young prisoners have already started their Christmas celebrations. Instinct alerts me that the interruption can only have come from Jeffrey hammering on their door. All he's got on are his prison-issue jeans, his inexperience in jail confrontations obvious. You don't present yourself for battle half-naked and barefoot. The door opens and Jeffrey lets rip at the kids inside.

"If you don't keep the noise down, I'll be forced to report you," he shouts.

There's a momentary silence. Shock at his blatant threat to grass. Amazingly, an apology is offered. This is dismissed with contempt. "Don't say you're sorry, because you're not." An older prisoner, angered by Jeffrey's threat, intervenes. "If you want to pick on anyone, try me. You're in prison now. You don't get your own way here."

Christmas Day There seemed to be plenty of food, but in The Bruiser's room the mood was subdued. Promises had been broken. Expectations extinguished. Nothing was being said, but The Bruiser was well pissed off, and with every mini-Swiss roll disappearing down Jeffrey's neck his mood was getting uglier. A man of Jeffrey's means could have put much more in the pot - £12 a week he's earning in the library.

"They can't stand the sight of each other. It's grim in there," said Moley.

"Are you going back down?" I asked.

"Am I fuck, I've got a party to go to."

I wondered how long it would take. I've seen similar relationships founder a thousand times in prison. Such friendships rarely last beyond the recognition they've been hustling each other. In many ways their bash had been a wake.

January 10 I've been away on home leave. When I get back I discover Jeffrey's room is empty. He's gone to Bosmere. It's not as rough as this wing. He'll be a lot happier there. When Jeffrey first arrived I saw him as a threat. But my feelings have shifted. He needs looking after.

He might have made prime minister. But in here he's a beginner at the game.

· The writer is the author of Silver Threads and Wings and Landings, both serialised on Radio 4. © John Williams.