The History Podcast

One winter's night, 50 years ago, a crime took place that obsessed the nation. Lord Lucan is said to have killed the family nanny, attacked his wife and vanished. Newspapers ran wild with lurid detail and it became a story hardwired into British culture. Why did this case capture the British imagination, and spark one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th Century?Historian Alex von Tunzelmann unpacks the story of our obsession, taking us into a dizzying world of high stakes gambling and exclusive London clubs, powerboat racing and pet tigers. It’s also a dark realm of bankruptcy, gaslighting and stalking, and at its heart, a story with a violent and very tragic death. Across the series she investigates the two mysteries at the centre of this story: was Lord Lucan the murder, and where on earth did he go? Told and retold, the facts of the Lucan story have got lost. Alex finds herself in a hall of mirrors where truth and lies distort themselves into new myths and new mysteries. Was the truth obscured by booze and backhanders, class deference and journalist spin?As she tries to get to the bottom of this case, she meets eyewitnesses from the '70s, people caught up in the crime, and those who just can’t let it go. She unearths long forgotten tapes and letters, piecing together fragments of a legend to discover why the Lucan myth still holds such power. Series contributors: Algy Cluff, Pierrette Goletto and Mandy Parks Journalists: Bob Strange and James Fox Author: Laura Thompson Crime writer: Claire McGowan Police: Geoff Lewry, Richard Swarbrick and Jackie Malton UK Missing Persons Unit: Louise Newell Presenter: Alex von Tunzelmann Series Producer: Sarah Bowen Content Producer: Becca Bryers

One winter's night, 50 years ago, a crime took place that obsessed the nation.Lord Lucan is said to have killed the family nanny, attacked his wife and vanished. Why did this case capture the British imagination, and spark one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th Century?Alex von Tunzelmann unpacks the story of our obsession, taking us into a dizzying world of high stakes gambling and exclusive London clubs, powerboat racing and pet tigers. It's also a dark realm of bankruptcy, gaslighting and stalking, and at its heart, a story with a violent and very tragic death. She tries to get to the bottom of this case, meeting eyewitnesses from the '70s, people caught up in the crime, and those who just can't let it go. Told and retold, the facts of the Lucan story have got lost. Alex discovers a hall of mirrors where truth and lies have distorted themselves into new myths and new mysteries. Was the truth obscured by booze and backhanders, class deference and journalist spin? As the stories and conspiracies swirl around her, Alex herself gets caught up in the Lucan obsession. Across the series she unearths long forgotten tapes and letters, piecing together the fragments of the legend to discover why the Lucan myth still holds such power.

Remember remember the 5th of November. The Gunpowder Plot has been seared into centuries of British popular history. Why have the events of October 1984 and the attempt to wipe out a Prime Minister and her cabinet not been committed to our public consciousness in the same way? For the principal contributors in our series, the events of 40 years ago had a seismic impact on their lives. What, if anything, did the Brighton time bomb achieve?Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown ProductionsExecutive Producer Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films

When you get right down to it, everything in life is a matter of timing.Any other evening, a knock at the door would put Patrick Magee on alert. As chance would have it, though, it being a Saturday, rent day, Magee, and the four other people in the flat with him on Glasgow’s Langside Road, are expecting the landlord. Instead Magee opens the door to dozens of police and Special Branch officers who have over the past few hours massed around the address. They rush into the flat and overpower them before they have time to react. After six years of trying, Special Branch finally have the man they have dubbed ‘the Chancer’, the man only a few of them as yet know bombed Brighton’s Grand Hotel.Getting him to confess to it, or even speak, is another matter.Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown ProductionsExecutive Producer Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films

Spring 1985, six months on from the bomb at Brighton’s Grand Hotel that killed five men and women in town for the Conservative Party conference and came within feet of killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Police are now satisfied that they have identified the man responsible for planting the bomb - Patrick Magee, aka the Chancer.They just don’t know where he is. Magee is back in Britain, planting a bomb in a hotel across the road from Buckingham Palace with an even longer timer fuse than the Brighton bomb. A police surveillance operation on another IRA suspect, meanwhile, leads to an unexpected result.Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown ProductionsExecutive Producer Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films

Patrick Magee plays mouse to the cat of the Southern Irish police, acting on a tip-off from their colleagues in the North. He escapes back to Great Britain from Dublin and joins a new IRA unit planning a summer-long campaign targeting seaside resorts: more bombs in hotels and a new tactic - burying bombs on beaches. It will be the most concentrated wave of IRA attacks since the 1930s.Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown ProductionsExecutive Producer Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films

It's the day after one of the most shocking terror attacks in British history - a timebomb hidden in the Brighton hotel where the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her cabinet are staying during the 1984 Conservative Party conference. The casualties have all now been recovered. Four are dead, several of the injured are fighting for life. Now all that remains is the rubble. Somewhere in here will lie the answer to who was responsible. Not the organisation – the Provisional IRA has already said it was them – but the individual human being, or beings, who left the bomb. All the police have to do is find them.Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown ProductionsExecutive Producer Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films

The IRA’s Patrick Magee has left a bomb, under a bath, in room 629 of the Brighton’s Grand Hotel. It’s timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October. The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. While Party colleagues socialise, or prepare for bed on the last night of conference, the Prime Minister settles down to write her big speech until the early hours. Or until 2:54am, when the bomb goes off. It's the biggest direct assault on a British Government since the Gunpowder Plot.Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions Executive Producer: Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4

When you get right down to it, everything in life is a matter of timing. It's the night of 17 September 1984. The guest in room 629 of Brighton’s Grand Hotel has ordered a bottle of vodka and three cokes. A few minutes before, the guest – who signed in two days ago as Roy Walsh – put the panel back on the side of the bath in 629’s en suite. Behind that panel he has left a bomb, timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October. The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. And the Prime Minister and all her cabinet, as this man who calls himself Roy Walsh knows, will be staying in the Grand Hotel. How do you feel as the timer ticks down? How do you fill your days? And what of those who, all unknowing, are travelling towards the end date you have set?Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown ProductionsExecutive Producer: Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4

The bomb is set for 12 October 1984 - but the IRA have been building to this for decadesIt's the night of 17 September 1984. The guest in room 629 of Brighton’s Grand Hotel has ordered a bottle of vodka and three cokes. It seems he is having a small party. A few minutes before, the guest – who signed in two days ago as Roy Walsh – put the panel back on the side of the bath in 629’s en suite. Behind that panel he has left a bomb, timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October. The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton.And the Prime Minister and all her cabinet, as this man who calls himself Roy Walsh knows, will be staying in the Grand Hotel. It's the biggest direct assault on the British Government since the Gunpowder Plot. The bomb will kill 5 people and injure 30. It's the latest in a line of Irish republican attacks in England that stretches back to 1867.Written and presented by Glenn PattersonSeries Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions Executive Producer: Rachel HooperA Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4