Well, sadly, we start breakfast
time today with the news that
early this morning a major
b*mb expl*si*n rocked the
Brighton Hotel, where Mrs.
Thatcher and other Conservative
leaders are staying.
The IRA b*mb k*lled five,
injured 33, and all but k*lled Mrs.
Thatcher and senior members
of her government.
Over the last 12 years, the
IRA's attacks on mainland Britain
have claimed over 80 lives
and caused more than 1,000 injuries.
Targets have been chosen to
cause maximum psychological
damage, hitting favourite shopping
haunts or military
and political figures.
It was the perfect target,
absolutely the perfect target.
We were always thinking in
terms of how we would hit the
British establishment.
We were talking about
those in government or their
financiers,
supporters, administrators,
all of that.
As legitimate targets.
I knew when the b*mb was going off,
but I had no means of knowing
that it had gone off
until the next morning.
- Did you manage to sleep that night?
- Fitfully, not really, no.
- Why?
- Well, in anticipation
that it would be discovered
at the last minute or, you
know, it wouldn't go off.
Worse still, it wouldn't go off.
You know, that you'd messed up
and the connection
wouldn't have been made.
- And that'd be your fault?
- It'd be completely my fault.
We'd never get another
opportunity like that again.
When it's all over, you
really begin to realize the
enormity of what happened.
In church on Sunday morning,
the sun was just coming through
the stained glass windows and
falling on some flowers
right across the church and it
just occurred to me that
this was the day I
was meant not to see.
Is this the right way around?
Yes, you'll be on the left.
See if this takes you back into
the spirit of Brighton.
Could you tap the space bar?
Oh God, I reckon this is the
finest, in my opinion, this is the
finest nine-mile promenade
in Europe.
This is in Europe.
Does this look familiar?
Yes it is, false teeth.
My father was a
clergyman in Brighton, so I knew
the town quite well.
But of course, when you're
small, you love the whole concept of
rock and the rest of it.
Well, the Conservative
Party conference opens in
Brighton later this morning.
Our papers reviewer is
Conservative Party Chairman
John Gummer, who joins us in
Brighton. Is it fine weather with you
today?
Well, I don't think I've
looked at the weather
terribly much so far this
morning, but I can hear it outside.
It doesn't sound terribly fine.
Now, can I warn you? I cry all
the time. I am pathetic,
so if I do, please stop. Of
- Of course, of course, of course.
- Where's my...
Darling, where's this
popping up and down?
There's always so much going on.
- See, I was going to
say, we've grown pictures,
but without the teapot.
- That's right.
- How long ago did you meet?
- We've been married for 47 years,
so it must be 50 years ago.
- It's 50 years ago
now, later this year.
Walk about, please. Just look up.
Can we have you both looking that way?
We both thought it was so silly.
I always choose this day when
the sun's setting to take a
prost*tute from by the sea at best.
Everybody had their wives or
husbands there, and they all
knew each other too.
As we would rush from one party to
the next, we'd cross and recross.
Everybody trying to get to everything.
We'd say, "Oh, hi. See
you in a minute." And it
was all just jovial.
It gives me great pleasure
to introduce our principal
guest of this evening, the Prime
Minister, the Right
Honourable Margaret Thatcher.
The conference was one in which
no one ever had said that this
was a moment in which we
had to be particularly careful. We
always were careful, that
was part of what you did.
But I can't say that there
was any circumstance in which
police had said, "This is a very
special occasion, we've had warnings
and such like. Looking
back, perhaps we should have.
In the last year, and especially
in the last few weeks, there's
been a very dramatic and very real
revival in the IRA's savage role in
Irish politics. b*mb
explosions have been shattering
property and lives.
I was living in Unity Flats
which was a very small Catholic
enclave right at the start
of the entrance to Loyalist
West Belfast, Shankill Road.
But really did feel like we
were occupied and we were
having to defend ourselves.
Things that were happening
that the British Army were doing
in our district, people I
I knew, and those
people had been k*lled.
And then you were a witness
to the incidents, you know?
My understanding of it was that we
were in a real w*r
situation, not in the fight
against the British Army.
We knew who our enemy was, you know,
because they were pointing g*ns at us.
And they were sent over by politicians
to point those g*ns at us.
The argument that t*rrorists
always have is that they are
forced to do what they're doing
because of the incipient violence
which has been played
on them for generations
or for previous times.
I don't think that justifies
doing what the IRA was doing.
I mean, it is wicked to k*ll people.
It is wicked to blow people up.
It is wicked to leave bombs so
that they could k*ll anybody
without any kind of, that's wicked.
- The turning point for me
was being arrested in 1972.
They were scooping every
young male nationalist
at some point and
bringing in questions
and building up a
dossier of information,
an overview of the district.
They used to call it
going for your tea.
You're coming with us for your tea.
That meant you were going there.
It suddenly became my turn.
They had something
called the Black Room.
Funny enough, it's similar to this,
except a lot shorter.
And it had no roof on it.
It was like a port-a
-cabin without a roof.
But when I was there, I
would have been manhandled,
you know, like, you know, beaten up.
You know, it shocked
me. It scared me, I think.
I said, "No, I've got to
do something about this.
I'm not going to let
them get away with this.
You know, I'm not just
going to be a victim here.
And so I did make an
approach and join the IRA.
I never for a moment thought,
though, that I'd be in the IRA
decades later, you know.
This man has an insight into
the IRA's military thinking.
He's Danny Morrison of the IRA's
political wing, Provisional Sinn Fein.
It's dead simple.
People complicate it.
Britain's too great to
be here. End of story.
But they must know that when
they were here and when they
were acting aggressively
and sh**ting us down in the
streets, there was going to
be a price to be paid.
Why b*mb England?
Well, obviously, there's no
saying that one b*mb in England
is worth 100 in Ireland.
And that is true, because
we've seen that whenever people
are k*lled in Ireland,
it gets minimal
coverage on British news.
But a small b*mb in
London gets coverage all over.
I've seen this sort of thing so
many times before in Northern
Ireland that it doesn't
amaze me.
But perhaps I think the people
in Great Britain, that's to say
Scotland and Wales and England,
will now understand what they
see here, what's been happening
all these years in Northern Ireland.
Now take us into the perspective
of a young man like Patrick McGee
who decided to join the IRA.
I can't remember what year
he began working for me.
He worked on the Fublock, the
Public and News. I was the editor.
Pat was brilliant at graphic
design and brilliant at crosswords.
But a very quiet,
intense, you know, deep thinker.
I mean, a true asset to
the Republican struggle.
You know, before you
joined, do you sort of have an
internal thought process
which asks questions
about what you'll be willing
and not willing to do?
Well, I can't remember a
time when everything was sort
of pre-figured out.
You know there's a constant turnover
of personnel people being arrested or
having to go on their
own or being k*lled
There was a high
Turnover in
Engineers as we would call them
you know people who were handy with
expl*sives and suddenly I
mean it was down to me to fill
in the to fill the gap
This was engineers are
people that make bombs
Mm-hmm. I
Was good at making them I
I guess you'd say I became proficient.
It's an attitude, I think,
more than anything else.
It's about being
grounded, being careful,
thinking things through.
The circuitry involved is very basic.
It's so basic, it
has to be very simple.
You're talking about
rigging an alarm clock up,
you know, with a wire and
a battery attached to it,
and then to a detonator,
and the arm comes round,
makes contact, the b*mb goes off.
You know, a great circuit has created.
That was put into a bag and,
You or somebody else would be
carrying that into a building.
Reserve police officers
from the Metropolitan Force
have been drafted
into Brighton this week
to help the Sussex police cope
with the Tory party conference.
So how tight is the security
surrounding the conference?
I would defend anybody's
right to have republican views.
They can have whatever views
they want, it's a democracy.
But when the k*lling starts,
that's where you draw the line.
Because I was Northern Irish, I
was always sent into the Irish pubs.
When you go into a pub, you
walk in with your head down,
your eyes towards the floor,
you go straight to the bar,
and you have a pint.
Preferably Guinness.
Our job was to build up intelligence,
which then led to evidence,
which then led to convictions.
So you were fishing.
Anything, any intelligence,
huge pressure on the police.
Margaret Thatcher was surrounded
by a protection team at all times.
There would have been sniffer
dogs, there would have been
a search of the hotel.
So it would have been declared safe.
They would have spoken to
the anti -t*rror1st squad, "Do
you know of anything?"
They would have spoken with a
special branch in London, who
would have liaised with the
Garda and the RUC, and if there
was any whispers, they would say,
"Oh, we think there's a threat
"to Thatcher, but
there were no whispers."
- There is a special atmosphere
to the conference hotel
at a Tory conference.
It's part c*ck
party, part sounding board
for gossip, rumor, flattery,
even character assassination.
What will Mrs.
Thatcher say on the subject
when tomorrow she makes
her 10th conference speech
as party leader?
She's come a long way in that time.
To see, it's duller, it's duller,
but it's much better, not too close.
Yes, that's marvellous,
it's different altogether.
It's fairly safe to say that
you were quite close to Mrs.
Thatcher at the time.
Yes, of course. The great
thing was that once Mrs. Thatcher
knew you were loyal, she enjoyed
a good argument, and we used to
have very good arguments late
into the night. It's just
nerves. You either sniff or you
swallow or you gulp. At that time,
the Tory party was in the doldrums,
The government wasn't very
good, and there was a sogginess
about politics which she was
determined to put right.
I think we all know in our
hearts, it's time for a change.
There was no mistaking the
feeling that election fever is
definitely in the air.
At precisely the time the
expl*si*n occurred, Mrs. Thatcher
was seven miles away in North
of London, she'd just made a speech
about courage and compassion.
When Mrs. Thatcher was given the news,
nobody knew that the victim
was one of her closest friends.
- How did the
assassination of Airey Neave
affect Mrs. Thatcher, do you think?
- Oh, she was devastated, of course.
Devastated not only because
of her friendship with him,
but because of the
nearness that this brought
the whole thing.
She had total commitment
to destroying this evil.
And historically for
Britain, Mrs Thatcher is now set to
become Britain's first woman
Prime Minister as well as the
first in the Western world.
In the words of Airey Neave,
whom we had hoped to bring here
with us, "There is
now work to be done."
Well, the real powerhouse of
the place is the secretary's
room under the leadership
of Robin Butler, who's my
principal private secretary.
They're absolutely marvelous.
Goodness me, when did she say that?
Absolutely marvellous.
Yes, sir. Glad she thought so.
My name is Robin Butler. I was a
career civil servant and I
was head of Margaret Thatcher's
office in 10 Downing Street. Margaret
Thatcher was physically
demanding and one didn't get
a lot of rest or sleep.
Yes, OK.
So, Margot, the PM's got a few
minutes between meetings now.
So if you could take some
work up to her in the red box.
I can't say that I
found her easy personally.
She was not the sort of person I would
have wanted to go on holiday with.
I believe that social
security payments to strikers'
families should be abolished.
And that unions should pay the cost
of policing their own picket lines.
I thought the debate on law
and order was just a little
too vague for my taste.
I'd like something a
little more stronger.
Did you foresee the strength of
character that Mrs. Thatcher had?
Oh, she was obviously remarkable.
I mean, let's be
absolutely clear about that.
She had to do a whole
series of very tough things.
And she had to show
people that she was not,
as you know, the
lady's not for turning.
On the Falklands, she was not
gonna be turned on the IRA.
She had a real understanding
that once you'd set your hand to it,
you had to stick with it.
- Do you remember
Thatcher getting elected?
- I do, yeah.
I suppose, believe it or not,
there was even part of the
thought, well, it's a woman.
You know, not necessarily politics,
but in itself, it's
innovative, you know?
It's progress at a
certain level, you know?
Might make a difference.
- Margaret Thatcher
was rather like a boxer
who gets hit and gets
knocked back onto the ropes.
But their reaction is not
to lean against the ropes,
but immediately to
come out and hit back.
- Their demand is
for political status,
which means that they
expect the government
to treat them
differently from other prisons
because they allege a
political motive for their crime.
Faced now with the failure
of their discredited cause,
the men of violence have
chosen in recent months
to play what may well
be their last card.
Above his hands, the Hunger
Striker, a newly elected MP,
is thought to have no more
than a few days to live.
The three Irish MPs
who saw him yesterday
have said he's determined to die
unless the demands of the
Mayor's prisoners are met.
Well now, Danny Morrison, you
are Bobby Sands' own nominated
spokesman up there in Belfast.
Does this now, do you think, mean
that Mr. Sands will either have to
give in or to go ahead and die?
I would say, I probably think
about the hunger strikers every day.
And it's, what, 42
years now? 43 years.
My son has offered his life for
better conditions in prison but not
to cause further death outside.
That's all I can say.
How is he today?
He's died.
The hunger strike
lasted for seven months.
Seven months.
For those seven months, our
office was open 24 hours a day.
We slept on the floor.
This is an H-block collection.
We ask you to give
us candy as you come.
Thatcher, in
particular, was so intransigent.
She had opportunities after
opportunities to resolve it.
I asked the Prime Minister
whether the government's policy
of no concessions to
the H-block campaigners
meant she was prepared
to see an endless stream
of hunger strikers die.
That is a matter for
those who go on hunger strike
and those who are
encouraging them to do so.
I will not give political
status or special category status
to people who are in fact
criminals and who are
the enemies of society.
She was winning and
she was determined.
She knew that the one thing she
had to deal with was the terrorism.
They saw her as intolerably
tough, and therefore as somebody who
really didn't understand.
But of course, there was
nothing to understand.
She k*lled people.
She k*lled people.
We were on our way up to Ustum,
and we got word that he had died.
Yeah.
What was the last
communication that you had from your
brother, the last message?
I talked to him yesterday. He said he
would end his hunger strike,
that the British government
would grant the five demands. Failing
that, he says, "I believe I will die."
We knew the prisoners. Joe Macdonald,
who died, Joe
Macdonald's wife's mother delivered
me. I was born at home in Corby Ways,
he delivered me. Joe and I
were interned together in the
1970s. Ciaran Docherty, who died on
hunger strike. Ciaran
was in the class below me
in Glendale CBS, his brother
Michael sat behind me in class in
that school. So we were all
very, very, very close. And when a
hunger striker died, it
was your brother who died.
It was awful.
Sorry.
There was a definite concentration
of thought after the hunger strike.
Visceral need felt by many
to you know respond to the
trauma we've all come
through during that period.
If you just twist your body
for a fraction towards the
camera. Okay. Thank you.
I wasn't at all political you
know I was a little bit kind
of oh we just need to
to love, you know, like, meditate.
And I didn't tackle, like, the
real issues around that time.
I do remember the hunger-striking time
and being horrified that
Maggie Thatcher refused
to listen to them.
That really shook me.
Around that time, my cousin Diana
would have got engaged
and married Prince Charles.
And I didn't even go to the wedding
'cause the life I was
having felt more real.
I spent a couple of
years in the Himalayas.
I lived without running water,
without electric, very simply.
- And you've seen that
one a million times,
I'm sure, have you?
- Oh, that's how I lived.
- Look how happy.
I thought change
happened through inner change.
I lived in peacetime, and I was
safe, and it never occurred to
me that I'd be affected
by a b*mb.
You're looking straight
into that one, aren't you?
Yes.
Yes.
It says that at my age,
your neck shows your age.
Yes.
Heavens.
Someone once said to
me, I had my face lifted.
I said, it hadn't dropped
yet, but the next time...
[LAUGHTER]
Margaret Thatcher was well
in our sights at that stage.
We were looking for
where she was available.
And the conferences
were a natural one.
So can you walk me
through how you did it?
No, I won't talk at all about
any of the operational detail
of the Brayton operation.
What can you say?
Can you tell me that you
put the b*mb three weeks
beforehand in the room?
I'm not too sure how long it
was before, but certainly more
than two weeks, I think two
and a half weeks.
It might have been three weeks,
but I don't want to say any more.
But the idea was that you
could plant the b*mb and leave.
Exactly.
You know, the thing was secreted
and you're away from the scene.
I ended up down in the county cork.
My concern would have
been just to keep offside.
I couldn't afford to be arrested.
I was under no illusion.
Even if I get caught, I'm
going down for 20 years.
And as he gets nearer
and nearer, the time...
- Is ticking down, yeah.
My name's Leslie Brett, I was working
as a sales manager in the Pink Coconut
Nightclub and discotheque in Brighton.
Brighton was like a huge fun palace,
there was nothing bad, might have been
lots of things naughty about Brighton.
The most scary thing we had
was the ghost train on the pier,
that wasn't very scary.
We would have extended a
welcome to any politicians that were
attending the conference.
It was a busy night this night.
Oh, it was busy. It was
let your hair down night.
The dance floor was packed, I
remember that, because we were
standing up at the top gallery,
leaning over, sort of
trying to pick out if there was
anybody that we recognised.
But I do remember a lot of tuxedos and
I do remember a lot of lovely dresses
and ladies made up with their jewels
that were obviously not
normal pink coconut clients.
They were there to enjoy
themselves in the evening
after putting in, I presume,
quite a hard day at the
political conference.
- It needs to be turned on.
Let's see if it's turned on.
My name is Edward Berry.
My father was Anthony Berry.
My father was at the conference.
He was deputy chief whip, so
he would have been there in a
professional capacity.
Would your father have
considered himself a
target for the IRA?
No, my father would not have
considered himself a target.
I think a lot of these politicians of
that era came in wanting to do good.
I'm under no illusion.
Plenty of them like the idea
of becoming powerful, and my
father wasn't one of those.
So this is a photograph
taken, I think, from 1964.
This is my father's
campaign to be elected Member of
Parliament for Southgate.
What he did was arrive with
these four kids with little badges
that said, "Vote for Daddy."
Well, why would you not?
You have me at the front.
We have my elder sister, Alexandra.
We have Anja and Joe.
I remember just being very
proud that I was asking people to
vote for my daddy who was
so special to me.
The night before the b*mb went
off, my father invited me to dinner.
He was enthusiastic.
He was positive.
We obviously had
conversations about my life.
I was very excited about the
new job that I was starting and
he was very proud of that.
We then walked back to the
hotel, to the Grand Hotel.
I said goodnight to him.
My last memory of my father is a
man walking away from me, full
height, he was a tall man,
foot four in a, you know, a happy man.
Everyone is a friend here. You can
recognize an enemy, said
one MP, by the warmth of their
greetings. The insincerity of that
kind is very calculated.
But there's a further element
to the atmosphere, for at this
very moment, Mrs. Thatcher and
her closest advisors are
closeted upstairs working on
her conference speech tomorrow.
What were you doing on
the night of the 11th?
Well, we went off to all the
things together, as one did, and
then I went to bed and John
went to the Prime Minister's
suite to put the finishing
touches to her speech.
For Margaret Thatcher, the
whole week had been taken up with
preparing this speech.
I was sitting in this chair
in Margaret Thatcher's suite,
hoping that the evening
would end as soon as possible.
We were finishing off the speech,
doing the odd bits and pieces.
There wasn't much more to do.
And so it was at that
point that I left her room
to the room opposite.
- Pink Coconut closed at two o'clock.
Of course, there would
be a kind of 10 minutes
shuffling the last people out
onto the street for their cabs.
And I suppose by the
time we left there,
It must have been about 10 to three.
- There was a
document on which the office
wanted a decision
from the Prime Minister
by first thing next morning.
And she said, "If you don't mind,
"I'd like to look at it
and deal with it now."
- I was sort of just
dozing off to sleep, I think,
or had just gone to sleep.
We were probably about 20 yards shy
of the corner of West Street.
We crossed at the traffic lights.
I was tired, almost sleepy.
Everybody else had
left her sitting room
and she was going
through this document.
I've never heard such a
loud expl*si*n in my life.
The ground trembled the
way it would do with an
earthquake, I presume.
My immediate thought was
gas expl*si*n, I thought a
gas boiler had gone up.
I heard this humongous
noise, dreadful, dreadful noise.
And I somehow knew it must be a b*mb.
There was a second bang which
we thought was another b*mb.
Actually evidently it was that
the roof had been lifted off
and it came down again and
therefore made this second bang.
And then there was silence.
I thought that John and Mrs
Thatcher and Robin Butler were
all lying in a sticky mess.
I thought to myself, "That's a b*mb.
What should I do? Here I
am alone with the Prime
Minister, and it's no
doubt aimed at her."
I said, "Get down on the floor." So we
all got down on the
floor. I don't know quite
what we were supposed to be
doing in that, but it seemed to
be the sensible thing to
do, so we all fell onto the floor. I
was on my knees, opened the
door like this, and looked
round the corner and on the
other side I saw Mrs Thatcher's
head come round the corner
looking at me. By this time a
policeman appeared and we moved
them into a room at the end of
the corridor. Margaret Thatcher broke
away and went to the
reception desk and she said
was everybody accounted for. And then
we went, were taken out of
the back of the hotel where
there was a car waiting.
I then got on with my own
business, which was, what on
earth had happened to Penny?
The b*mb was over there, I
was sure that she must be dead,
because that was where the sound
came from.
The whole thing was just enveloped
in this huge thick cloud of dust.
I could hear masonry falling,
I could hear metal scraping,
and people screaming which
was the most dreadful, dreadful thing
to, I mean it was just such a shock.
I saw out the corner of my eye
blue and white lights, just like
angels, there was no noise,
No noise of engines, heavy
roads, trucks, no sirens.
Just blue and white lights
flashing like little angels
coming along.
And that was the fire service.
Bless their hearts,
they... and from then on,
it was just total misery.
I ran out of our room, and
there was dust coming everywhere.
It was a very big stairwell
at the Grand Hotel, and I
suddenly saw this figure.
I was covered in this white
stuff that had all come down from
the plaster, and so the
very first thing I heard
was, "Have you seen John?"
And he said, "It's me."
So that was all right then.
And how did you feel?
- Well, I just hugged her, that's all.
I didn't feel it was
the most amazing moment.
And then, of course,
you came back to reality.
- For Christ's sake, go away!
- As dawn broke,
firemen were still searching
what was left of
Brighton's once grand hotel.
The firemen are now
getting close to Mr. Tebbett.
He's in a crouching position
with the rubble of his room
more or less on his back.
I remember the extraordinary feeling
of being bundled hurly-burly in
the midst of a mass of debris
until one came to a rest.
You were trapped for
four hours, weren't you?
Yes.
But you were able to reach
over to your wife's hand?
- Yes, that's right.
The weight of the
debris had doubled her over
and we think
probably it was not so much
that the spine was damaged as
the blood supply was cut off.
- Right way please, right way.
- Prime Minister, can you
tell us how you are please?
- Very well, thank you very much.
Our worry is whether
there's anyone under that rubble,
because I don't know
whether you've seen it,
but it's pretty awful.
You hear about these
atrocities, these bombs,
you don't expect
them to happen to you.
But life must go on as usual.
- And your conference will go on.
- Thank you very much.
- The conference will go on.
The conference, all right.
All right, John, the
conference will go on as usual.
- Thank you, Prime Minister.
- Right, thank you.
- A very good morning to you.
It's now 6.30 on
Friday, October the 12th.
Well, sadly, we start breakfast
time today with the news that
early this morning a major
b*mb expl*si*n rocked the
Brighton Hotel, where Mrs
Thatcher and other Conservative
leaders are staying. The Prime
Minister escaped unhurt, but
tragically, two people were k*lled
and 27 were injured.
Tell me, tell me about
hearing the morning news bulletin.
Well, I think the first report
was that a b*mb had gone off
and that two people had
been k*lled. And that's all I needed
to know, that it had
gone off. I know this will
and crusts and all of that,
then I slept, then I slept.
On the 12th of October,
the phone rang at probably
about 6 in the morning
and it was my sister, Jo.
And she said, "Is Dad okay?"
So I said, "I don't
know what you mean."
She said, "Well, there's
been a b*mb at the Grand."
I walked along, and the
first thing I encountered
was the Metropole Hotel.
I went into a room full
of people covered in dust,
a lot of people still
in nightwear, pajamas,
dressing gowns.
I found myself looking for my father.
At about half past seven in the
morning, Margaret Thatcher appeared.
I said to her, "Prime
Minister, I'm afraid it's much worse
than we first thought."
And she didn't hesitate for a
moment, and she said, "Well,
the conference is due to
begin again at 9.30, and
at 9.30 we must start."
And I was incredulous.
I said, "This
terrible thing has happened.
Some of your closest colleagues have
been k*lled, others seriously injured.
The rescue's still going on.
You can't mean to go on
with a party political
conference, can you?
- Maggie's actually
started the conference.
And I remember we were
looking to see if Dad was there,
if somehow maybe he'd got
in without us noticing.
I mean, we were glued to the
TV to see what was happening.
But unlike everyone else, we
weren't watching unemotionally.
We were...
That was our dad we were looking for.
That waiting is probably
the hardest waiting ever.
This is not good news.
This is all wrong.
I've not heard anything.
When we arrived, it was utter chaos.
Ambulances, fire brigade turning up,
more police officers, screaming.
All b*mb scenes have this
expectation of picking up body parts,
being faced with very gruesome scenes.
But at the time, you're
not affected as such.
It's something that hits later.
To pick up a body part,
put it, it's an exhibit.
It's part of the crime scene.
It was a stage where everyone
had been accounted for except one
particular individual who had
been on the sixth floor.
We went to that area, it was in
a wardrobe, buried under rubble,
and that's where we recovered
the last body.
And I would say that
I've held the anger and the
anguish of that ever since.
I remember going to a
pub in Cork City itself.
The TV would have had
huge coverage of the b*mb.
And I just tried to pick up the
mood around the bar, you know.
There was a lot of giggling
and you know it was it went
down well and that sounds
terrible but it did. I mean it was
popular. For a lot
of the people it was
revenge. It was felt as revenge, just
getting one back. In
Belfast it would have
been jubilation in our areas, absolute
jubilation. That raised people's hope
that we would prevail. Are you also
feeling sh*t I did that, I caused that
No. Or I should be a hypocrite,
we were there to do that, you
know, the five people k*lled
and those injured, I think it
was about 30-odd people injured.
I wouldn't have felt beyond
the label I'd apply to them,
you know, we were Tories in
conference. That was good enough,
that justified it.
What was your personal reaction to
the b*mb having gone off in Brighton?
Well, now that I am old, I
find the tragedy of death to be
terrible, worse looking back.
But at the time, to be
honest, I probably regret that
the IRA didn't k*ll her.
The b*mb attack on the Grand
Hotel early this morning was
first and foremost an inhuman,
undiscriminating attempt to
m*ssacre innocent, unsuspecting men
and women staying in Brighton
for our conservative conference.
And the fact that we
are gathered here now,
shocked, but composed, and determined,
is a sign not only that
this attack has failed,
but that all attempts
to destroy democracy
by terrorism will fail.
- She showed no weakness at all.
These were her friends.
These were people she'd worked with.
These were people
whom she cared about.
And yet she knew she
had to be above that.
- She put on a brave face, as
you would expect afterwards.
But there's no doubt in
my mind that she knew
that the hunger strikers,
the comrades of the hunger
strikers could reach her.
- This government will not weaken.
This nation will meet that challenge.
Democracy will prevail.
- They cheered and stamped their feet
for more than seven
and a half minutes.
And that's the shattered hulk
of the Grand Hotel Brighton
until early this morning, the
most stylish of settings for a
party in power at its conference.
Now it's evidence of the
most murderous attempt on the
lives of an entire British cabinet
there's ever been.
It didn't take long today for
someone to take responsibility,
and that was the Provisional
IRA.
A statement from Dublin this
morning had a chill ring to it.
Today we were unlucky,
but remember, we only
have to be lucky once.
You will have to be lucky always.
Give Ireland peace
and there'll be no w*r.
The first victim of that b*mb
to be named this evening was
Anthony Berry, MP for Enfield
Southgate.
As it happens, my
father wore a signet ring.
And he gave me the same ring which I
wear, he gave it to me when I was 21.
And someone said, well,
perhaps we can use this to identify.
So they took my ring away.
My brother rings from a court box.
They found his body, and
he'd identified the body
with his own signet ring.
This is the moment we all had
sort of been dreading, but there
was a certain inevitability
that we knew that my father had died.
- I just had to get out of the house.
So I'm walking down the road
with my hand going up and down
and I didn't care what
people were thinking of me.
I was just going,
"Dad's dead, Dad's dead.
"We've just got to
realize his dad's dead.
"My dad's dead, he's
been k*lled, he's dead."
I remember a builder
high up on a building
looking down at me and going,
"Come on, love, give us a
smile, it can't be that bad."
And I looked up and I said,
"It is, my dad's been k*lled."
A memorial service was held in
London for Sir Anthony Berry,
the Conservative MP who was
k*lled in the Brighton bombing.
The pain was like nothing
I'd ever experienced before.
I was wailing, I was
screaming, and I was like,
"How am I going to recover?"
And I thought I was going to die
in the depth of the
emotions that I had.
It was too much, the
pain was too much.
The me that I've talked about, the
free spirit believed in meditation,
also died in that b*mb.
Like, she did not exist anymore.
Because now I'm in a w*r.
The five who died
were Sir Anthony Berry,
the Conservative MP for Southgate,
Eric Taylor, chairman of the
Northwest Area Conservatives,
Roberta Wakeham, wife of
the government chief whip,
Mrs. Jean Shattuck, the wife of
the Western Counties chairman,
and Mrs. Muriel McLean, the
Scottish president's wife.
- Do you remember a point
that had begun to sink in,
that five lives had been lost
and some of them were close friends?
- It was a slow thing.
It started on the day
and just became more and more clear.
Visiting Normand Tebbit and
seeing the terrible condition
in which both he and Margaret were.
Of course, you became utterly aware
of the awfulness of what had happened.
- When did you hear that your friend,
Roberta Wakeham, had lost her life?
- I don't know.
When I heard that she'd lost her life,
But the awful thing was, I
could suddenly hear her laughing.
It is absolutely my
belief that once people die,
somehow they sort of go
round people they've known.
Yeah.
She was one of the good
mates amongst the wives.
And I can tell it was a
terrible shock, all of this.
Oh. Yeah.
I mean, what can you say about it?
- Well, you don't imagine it.
Ten weeks ago an IRA b*mb
devastated the Grand Hotel Brighton,
k*lled five, injured 33 and
all but k*lled Mrs Thatcher and
senior members of her government.
Today Brighton police made
a fresh appeal for information
about a guest who stayed in the
hotel in September using
a false name and address.
At Scotland Yard, fingerprint
experts positively identified the
missing guest as Patrick Joseph
Magee, a Belfast man in his thirties
and a well-known member of the IRA.
One distinguishing feature, a
finger missing on his right hand.
Would it be an exaggeration to
say one of the most wanted men in
the world at that point?
Well, I guess that must have been
the case. Of course it was, yes.
I always worked on the
principle of what information to have
about you and how you look.
And all I have are
photographs when I'm arrested.
So I was pretty convinced all I
had to do was ensure I didn't look
like, you know, my mug shots.
This was the number one
priority of all police officers
in the United Kingdom.
Our job was to follow the
sympathisers and see if
they lead us to McGee.
The longer and longer he was at
liberty, the more the pressure grew.
Where is this man?
Why haven't you caught him?
England was. Big field of
haystacks. You'd lose a needle in.
The commitment I made at
the time was to be out of the
country for two years.
You just kept it tight.
Because you know, this is
the only way you can survive.
I was on my own most of the time.
But, you know, you're used to
your own, you know, you're used
to that, you get used to that.
At this particular stage, I had
actually split up. I didn't
have, you know, my wife at the time.
I was married, but we had split
up, largely because I was away too
much, you know,
because of being active.
It took its toll. I mean, there was
one period when I was
away for eight months.
There's not many relationships I think
can survive no contact at all for
eight months, none, not even a
letter, phone call, no contact at all.
Did you have children at this point?
I had a son.
How old was your son?
He would have been
about six, he was six.
When you're looking back on it, that's
probably the source of greatest
regret, the impact on your loved ones.
I feel hugely conflicted about that.
You know, I'll carry that and I
still will always carry that.
That's part of the price.
We were told that someone may be
coming across from Northern Ireland
and we were to go to
Scotland for the operation.
Our job was to monitor Peter Sherry.
He was suspected, I have to
say suspected, of k*lling
at least nine people.
And the RUC were telling
us, "Follow this guy."
"Okay, don't lose him."
There's a little bit of
theatre involved in surveillance.
It's an art form.
One of the ways that
surveillance watch people
is to pretend to be a kissing couple.
A female officer and a male officer
sat down in the railway station
and started
canoodling and stroking hair.
Meantime, they're watching Sherry.
She had an earpiece.
And the female officer said,
"Ah, there's a meat."
She said,
"I think it's McGee."
The first thing that came back was,
"Are you sure it's McGee?"
When they're talking,
I noticed Pat's
missing part of his finger.
So I came out and I
said, "It's McGee."
We followed them to a flat in Glasgow.
- I remember we were
sitting around having a meal.
I think we had plans
to go out that evening.
There was some concern that
the landlord was due to come
round to collect the rent.
And so when there was a
knock on the door, I went half
anticipating the landlord.
As soon as he opened the
door, he knew it was the police.
I just remember saying,
you know, "Can I help you?"
He said, "Yes, can I help you?"
You know, while this was happening,
this split second, it was so fast,
Suddenly there was other
bodies appeared and rushed in
and captured the others.
A cache of expl*sives and arms,
which could be one of the biggest
t*rror1st hauls ever made in Britain,
has been uncovered by police
in the block of flats they've
been searching in Glasgow.
The t*rror1st b*mb factory
contained timing devices which were
already running, g*ns, ammunition,
and enough expl*sives to make a b*mb
ten times bigger than the one which
wrecked the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
Sixteen explosions had been
planned, using long delay bombs.
They were to hit London and a
dozen seaside resorts at the
height of the summer season.
I have to tell you that
the Scottish police were
very large gentlemen.
And I get in the driver's
seat, and I look in the mirror,
and there's these two huge Glasgow
police officers and Patrick McGee.
When I look in the
mirror, and I go, "Ah, Pat."
And his eyes were
looking straight at me,
and it was like looking
at the eyes of a shark.
Cold eyes, you know?
He's thinking. You can
see his eyes thinking.
I was looking a way out of it.
I was looking, you know, really
desperate, thinking, you know,
about looking for any angle,
some way of taking
advantage of the situation
and hopefully, in the chaos, get
away, you know, it's impossible.
Good evening.
The man who tried to blow up the
Prime Minister and most of her cabinet
is tonight beginning a
life sentence in prison,
guilty of the m*rder of five
leading members of the Tory party
at their conference in 1984.
We were looking at
some of the headlines.
The k*ller in room 629,
that's from the Daily Star.
Oh, dear God, I missed that one.
- You can have that one.
- No, keep it.
This is The Times.
You're called Inhuman.
Yeah, I remember that one, yeah.
I refused to stand for the judge,
so I had this process of being
dragged on my feet and held,
you know, while they
were giving the verdict.
I didn't want to convey to him
that I was taking what he had to say
with any sort of wit, what he had
to say didn't matter, and it didn't.
This week, the man who tried
to k*ll you, and indeed k*lled
some of your dearest friends,
was convicted at the Old Bailey.
What's your reaction,
what's your feeling, seeing
those verdicts brought in?
- Whatever the
violence, to whomsoever it occurs,
I hope those who perpetrate
it will be brought to justice,
because it matters to the whole
stability of our society.
Do you have any personal feelings
towards Patrick McGee?
I have no personal feelings
except a total hatred and
contempt for violence.
You voted in the past for the
return of capital punishment.
If ever there was a case for
the sort of offense which you
and people who think like you
on that issue would hang a man
for, it is this, isn't it?
I have always voted for the
return of capital punishment.
I don't believe that people
should be able to go out and
and do the most hideous crimes.
- Prime Minister, thank you
very much for talking to us.
- Thank you.
Yes, that is terribly bright.
That's a bit better.
- Is that all right like that?
- That's better, much better.
- I didn't notice any
change in Margaret Thatcher
as a result of the b*mb incidents.
But I think that her utter defiance
did in the end, cause her downfall.
- Ladies and gentlemen,
we're leaving Downing Street
for the last time after 11
and a half wonderful years.
- When she left, we were
all in our trenches, still.
It was complete stalemate.
She was an impediment to peace.
To us, she represented w*r.
I don't regard the British government
as having beaten the IRA.
What I do regard
them as having achieved
was the defeat of violence as a means
of achieving political ends.
It was the fact that the
British government were staunch,
and in particular, Margaret
Thatcher was a leader in that,
that in the end, I think,
caused the nationalists
to decide that it had to be achieved
by politics or by negotiation.
- That's him.
That's him, okay.
- We didn't know he was
coming out of prison.
I turn on the TV.
- The man who plotted to
m*rder Margaret Thatcher
and her entire cabinet in Brighton,
the Brighton bombing, has
been released from prison.
- He's free.
My dad's not free.
My dad can't come back.
How is this justice?
The trial judge said he
should serve at least 35 years.
Now he's free after
just 14 years in jail,
much to the anger of conservative MPs.
Are you angry?
I'm not terribly pleased.
I don't believe you can ever
achieve peace without justice.
And what has happened is unjust.
- I remember looking
into his eyes and thinking,
does he feel any remorse?
- There he is, front
seat, front right.
- He's just whisked away.
- And what was that
making you think and feel?
- Well, I'd like to meet him.
- I mean, you're
literally knocking on a door
about to go in and meet
the daughter of somebody
who died in Brighton.
And, well, that's pretty daunting.
I shook his hand and
said, "Thank you for coming."
And I remember looking
at him and thinking,
"You don't look like
my dear Vitarist."
He started off by giving me a
lot of justification of his cause.
I went there, as I said, with
this feeling and obligation
of explaining our intent,
what our purpose was
in targeting Brighton.
I was about to leave because I saw him
justifying k*lling my
father, and that was difficult.
And then he said to me,
"Tell me about your
anger and your rage."
She was telling me
things about her father.
She talked about her, about his
own kind of view of the world.
He was a family man, he was a
caring, compassionate politician.
He was wonderful, and I missed him.
She wasn't hitting me over the head
with it, "This is the man you k*lled."
She was just explaining
something about her loss.
And then, in my head,
something clicked, it says,
"I k*lled this guy."
You know, who, at
some level, many levels,
had created this woman.
You know, and that's
shattering, that realization.
At some level, I'd reduced
him to all he stands for,
to the point where he's
the cipher who, you know,
you can take this action against.
I had been reduced,
something in me had been narrowed.
- That's then when he stopped.
He like ran out of words
and he just looked at me
and he took off his
glasses and he rubbed his eyes
and just said, "I don't
know who I am anymore."
- I remember, I remember saying to Jo
that I'm sorry I
k*lled your dad, you know,
And she said a very
extraordinary thing.
- Well, the words just
popped out of my mouth.
I'm so glad it's you.
- What on earth did you mean?
- I couldn't have predicted
that he would go on this journey
to move from justifying to
being open and vulnerable.
Because if he hadn't, I
wouldn't have met him a second time.
- Roughly how many times
have you met with Patrick McGee
between then and now?
- I don't know, three or 400 times.
- So...
- The gritty bit.
Yeah. I mean, take this off my hands.
No, I'm not going to.
I'll let you go through the
pain and I'll just decide
what I'm going to say.
If you hold it
together, if you could...
You may have seen this
before, but if not, I'd be
interested to see what it...
Joe wanted to meet again.
Pat says yes.
There's no right for me to
sit here and be forgiven.
I mean, in a sense,
it's a political thing.
I knew what I was doing,
and I would even defend
actions I've taken, et cetera.
But I think it's very important
to be confronted
with the consequences,
to be confronted with your pain.
That's a consequence that,
you know, I suppose I deserve,
because there's always
a price to pay for it
in terms of my humanity.
I have no emotion, I really don't, I'm
sorry, I just, I have,
I have nothing to offer on the subject
of this gentleman.
What's going through your head?
I don't know if it should go on
camera.
I wonder what it really
feels like inside his head.
I wonder what his mum thinks.
Well, the reason he did it was
because he believed in his cause.
He felt so strongly
about it that he took these
extraordinary strong actions, but...
Terrible actions.
I mean, for him to use the word
"humanity" is just disgraceful.
Who does he think he is?
The people he's maimed and k*lled.
If my sister is on this
particular journey, if it does good,
then that's fine with me.
I did meet Patrick, they were
having this presentation, I
sneaked up on Patrick again
and said, "Patrick, I'm behind you."
"Oh, Brian, is that you?"
And I shook his hand.
And a lot of my colleagues said,
"You shouldn't have done that."
I said, "Look, he's changed.
He's adjusted.
He's analysed what he did.
Now he understands the consequences.
He's met the daughter
of someone he's k*lled."
Hello Joanne, clothes or leg
coming across? Stormy? Chompy?
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah,
they can see me on them.
Let's get in the car. It's going to be
wet. Are you OK? Have you got a coat?
You'll need it.
Why did Pat meet Jo?
Because he's honest.
He's an honest person.
He was involved in a conflict.
He didn't invent the conflict.
He responded to the conflict.
So, what's Pat is doing is
actually confronting the truth here
and the out-workings of the
consequences of one's actions.
Is there a conclusion you
want to reach with him?
Is there something he can say
or do that would make you feel
like, "Ah, we've got there"?
Well, is there a place to get to,
but if there is such a place, it
would be him saying nothing
is worth k*lling someone for.
He says that he will never
forgive himself because he isn't
saying what he did was wrong.
Because he's holding on, that
they had no choice.
Like, how, as human beings, how can we
deal with the fact that we've k*lled?
You know, I don't know,
I think... I don't know.
Do you think learning this would
make it impossible for you to carry
out something like the Brighton
b*mb never again?
I think the very fact that
you know more about a person
makes it impossible.
Impossible for what?
To hurt them.
So on that level, yes.
The usual, it sounds like
a cop-out, but it isn't.
When people don't have resources or
don't feel they have alternatives,
that happens, violence happens.
The work with Jo
has been my response.
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Bombing Brighton: The Plot to k*ll Thatcher (2024)
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