by Ian Hamilton
In the first place, we decided that a daylight raid was out of the question. We regretted this decision, for it would have been a fine thing to have spirited away four hundredweight of stone in broad daylight from under the noses of the Dean and Chapter. But the difficulties were too great, and although we considered having a bath-chair made with a special aperture under the seat to contain the Stone, we realised that this would be of little use, since the Confessor’s Chapel is up a flight of narrow wooden steps from the floor of the nave.
This meant that a night raid was essential, but before we moved to plan it, we came to the unanimous conclusion that the execution must be carried through by the smallest possible number of people. Scotland has no tradition of underground movements and secret societies, and the slightest hint of our intention meant ignominy and failure.
The last point that occupied our minds was what we should do with the Stone when we had removed it from the Abbey. We were certain that whatever else happened there would be a hue and cry up and down England, and every road on the Scottish Border would be watched. We therefore decided that we would take the Stone south, and hide it, to be recovered when the heat was off.
With all this in mind, we evolved the following plan. One of us would conceal himself in the Abbey towards closing time, and as soon as he had been locked in he would climb over the iron grill separating the east chapels from the nave and hide himself in the Confessor’s Chapel, which was then under repair. I claimed this honour for myself as the conception had been mine and I was selfish enough to demand as large a part as possible in its execution.
I would lie quietly in hiding, watching the nightwatchman and finding the pattern of his patrols, for although we knew that he came on duty at 6 p.m. and had an office some considerable distance from the Confessor’s Chapel, we were not certain how often he patrolled the building.
At 2 a.m. or as soon thereafter as I was satisfied that the nightwatchman had completed his rounds, I was to screw the lock off the door leading from the Margaret Chapel to the Abbey grounds, where an accomplice would be waiting. Failing that, I was to force the padlock from the door in Poets’ Corner. The door from Poets’ Corner and that from the Margaret Chapel are almost adjacent. We would then remove the Stone from the Chair, lash it to an iron bar, and carry it outside, where a small, inconspicuous car would be waiting. This car would drive to a quiet side street where the Stone would be transferred to a larger and faster car, which would head straight for Dartmoor, where the Stone would be hidden. Meanwhile the small car would race out towards Wales. If it had been seen outside the Abbey, and if the police recognised it and stopped it, the driver would try to convince the police that he had handed the Stone over to the Welsh Nationalists, whom, of course, we had not contacted and had no intention of contacting. This would lead to the police following up an entirely false scent in Wales, which might be useful when we returned to fetch the Stone from Dartmoor. This was a good plan. It was the basis of our subsequent action, but it had to be sorely amended under stress of circumstances, for the unforeseeable always happens.
Having now arrived on the brink of action, Bill and I commenced to fix a date for the enterprise. To me, Christmas was the only possible time, for the English celebrate it in a very thorough way, and while we did not want to spoil their joys or tarnish their festival, I maintained that we should come down on them while they were lying in drink with their minds unbuttoned.
On the other hand Bill was in no mood for precipitate action. He had many engagements to fulfil over the Christmas and New Year period. In addition to the seasonal festivity the student body was preparing to celebrate the fifth centenary of the founding of the university, which event fell on 7 January 1951, and Bill, as President of the Union, was much in demand. He showed me his diary which contained inescapable engagements for every day over the Christmas and New Year period. The plan would keep, he argued. It could be done any time. Some other factors might arise that would help us.
But I was not so sure. Secrets of this nature do not mature like good wine, and moreover I had screwed my resolution to the last turn, and I was not sure that it would not suddenly unwind if I were denied the prospect of immediate action. Bill was adamant. I was stubborn. It was the contest between the thruster, whose value is a sudden, furious output of power, followed by months of inertia, and the canny statesman who works and works and works, and can work and wait.
‘I’ll go myself,’ I told him in the bitterness of my disappointment, and there the matter rested.
In the days that followed I was not a happy man. In my uneasiness, I almost lost sight of the final purpose and gave up the struggle; for I knew that if I did not go to Westminster that Christmas I would never go at any other time. There was no one else I could turn to in whom I could place the same confidence I had placed in Bill. He held a position of respect in the university, and many students, who would gladly have faced uneasy issues with him, would have turned away with a smile if I had asked them. Together we could have talked even a Scottish politician into helping us; alone, I knew of no one I could inspire.
Then, as all the old arguments and plans came flooding back to me, I thought that there might still be a way. I remembered the £10 I had spent on my trip to London, and all the talk and thought and dreams about the Stone, and I decided that if I was not forever to consider myself a vain-mouthed braggart, I would have to go on, come what may.
At first I thought I might be able to design a little bogey on which I could place the Stone and wheel it from the Abbey like a baby in a pram. This baby weighed four hundredweight, and as I am only five foot six and weigh nine and a half stone, I was being madly optimistic. I had, however, a belief in my ability to lift a great weight if events proved it necessary, and when indeed the occasion arose, I did not find my strength lacking. What beat me in the end was the flight of wooden steps down which I would have to trundle the Stone from the Confessor’s Chapel. Try as I would I could design no bogey that would silently descend stairs. It was the middle of December and I was back where I started.
Then, on the evening of 15 December, I attended the university’s Daft Friday Dance which celebrates the end of the Martinmas Term. My partner was Kay Mathieson, a young teacher of domestic science, and a keen worker in the Scottish Covenant movement. I had met her two months previously at a party given by John MacCormick to celebrate the success of the Covenant plebiscite in the Scotstoun by-election.
Kay speaks with the quiet tongue that knows English only as a second language. She is small and dark and large eyed, and remote as a Hebridean island.
That night I was far from being a sociable companion. We sat in the bar having a quiet drink. Inwardly I moodily cursed Bill and sank deeper into that depression which comes when you have talked excitedly of great things and come back to a live present that contains only mediocre success, which in the long run is failure. My life was flavourless, and if I thought of anything I was wondering if anyone, among the people I knew, would willingly throw over their future prospects and come to London.
Suddenly I knew without doubt.
Kay’s views were almost identical to mine. If anything, coming as she did from the ravaged Highlands, with their long memory of oppression and clearance, she was more extreme than I. She was, I was certain, an idealist who would not be greatly concerned about her own welfare if she could do anything to serve the good of her own people.
Above all she was discreet. In every movement there are small secrets, both social and political. The Scottish movement was no exception. I had known these secrets and kept them: other people had known them and kept or broken them. Kay had known them and although we had been together many times she had never mentioned them to me. I was certain that she was thoroughly reliable.
The advantages of having Kay with me came crowding in on me. A lovely woman is never suspect, and a brave woman could fire the imagination of the world. Kay could never hamper our plan; she could only assist it. Were we not planning
something that would be meat and drink to the Sunday papers? Let us give it to them then, from the hors d’oeuvre to the brandy.
No chivalrous thoughts held me back even for a moment. While I was certain that no English court would punish Kay as rigorously as they would punish me, I knew that the results for her would not be pleasant. I knew I was being unfair in exposing her to the cold and the minor hardship and the prison which would inevitable follow. I was certain, however, that Kay would catch the imagination of Scotland as her countrywoman Flora MacDonald had done in the Islands two centuries previously. Even if the operation failed, and the English imprisoned Kay, there would be such an explosion in Scotland as would rock Westminster to its venerable foundations. As for her as a person, she had to take the same risks as I was willing to take.
I had made my choice. I decided to put it to Kay and let her make hers.
I put down my drink and spoke to her for the first time in 10 minutes. ‘What are you doing at Christmas, Kay?’
‘I’m going home,’ she said.
‘I’m going to London to bring back the Stone of Destiny.’
She laughed. ‘I thought you had a hard head,’ she said. ‘You’ve only had one drink.’
‘I mean it,’ I said, and I did mean it. I looked at her and saw the smile fade from her face. Then she laughed again.
‘So did Wendy Wood, and Compton MacKenzie and John MacCormick and Bertie Gray! Every Nationalist worth his salt has planned to get the Stone. Why do you think it’s never been done before?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, and I still don’t know. ‘I can’t understand why it’s never been done, but I’ve been to London and I’m certain that we can do it.’ I could see she was interested. ‘Would you like to come?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said, and meant yes. ‘What can I do?’
‘You can drive,’ I told her and outlined the plan.
‘If we fail,’ she said, ‘we’ll get shot out of the movement.’
I assured her that would be the least of our worries.
I was delighted, for I knew she would come. I had lost one comrade and gained another, and as we danced that night I was for the first time certain of ultimate success. It was not a feeling springing out of any rational weighing of the odds against us. With Kay with us, as we were to find out, the odds were considerably shortened. In practical things women have practical minds, and if their feet are too often fixed to the ground, they are all the better placed for guiding men who have their heads in the clouds. On occasion when I have been inflated with impracticable ends and searching for possible means to meet them, I have had my nonsense, to say nothing of my vanity, pricked by the cold logic of a woman.
Yet the one real reservation I had about Kay was the fact that she was a woman. I had never any doubt of her will, that it would drive her on to breaking point as indeed it did. Where that breaking point would be I did not know. When a little later I met Gavin and Alan I had to make the same assessment. Were they physically fit for the job? Was Kay physically fit for the job? Some of us took exercise. Some of us, particularly girls, did not. It was a long way to London. It would be an exhausting trip with sleep only in snatches. I had had experience of the trip in the preceding years, travelling by motorbike from my RAF postings in the south of England. Although many roads in Scotland were still unmetalled the road to London was tarred all the way. Yet it was narrow with barely room for two lorries to pass when they met. The road connected every town and village on the way. That was its main purpose. It wasn’t designed for through journeys. Through journeys were done by train. Between habitations it would be deserted. People didn’t use their cars much in the winter for long journeys. If it was icy I had reason to hope that the bits through the bigger towns would be gritted, but for the rest we would have to do our best if there was ice, and after all it was December. We would freeze if we broke down or had punctures. I wondered if she knew what she was letting herself in for. The sheer cold and effort of such a trip would be exhausting.
As a precaution against the cold I had bought a supply of night-lights, these short stubby candles which you burned on the glove tray. They helped to keep the windscreen from freezing up, but they did little to warm the inside of the car or the people travelling in it. I planned to take a couple of blankets off my bed but even that was insufficient. I thought of hot-water bottles but they soon cooled and there would be no way of refilling them in the course of the journey, which would take a long time. We could expect to average little more than 25 miles an hour, and with stops the 400 miles would take the best part of 20 hours. People doing this sort of journey usually went by train. If they went by car they took two days, unless you were a serviceman and couldn’t afford hotels. Students were in the same category. My concern for Kay and the other two was born of an ex-serviceman’s experience over these post-war roads. I had once had a fellow serviceman travelling pillion with me collapse because the cold had got to him crossing Douglas Moor. I thought he was going to die. However that was on a motorbike, and we would be better off in a car. It would be cold but there would be no wind chill.
I was right to be worried. We arrived tired and continued tired and perhaps it affected our judgement. Had we been fresh we would have been sane and turned and come back home. We didn’t and throughout, Kay faced the cold and the excitement and the risk with bland indifference. Time and again when things went wrong, and we descended into black depression, she kept her composure when we had nothing else left to cling to. The success of the whole episode probably owes more to sheer feminine practicality than anyone will ever know.
Chapter Six
The rapidity with which things happened after I approached Kay often fills me with astonishment. Within one week we had cut all our threads in Glasgow and taken the road south, with two compatriots, two cars and a sackful of house-breaking tools.
Before that was done, however, I felt that my first duty was to report the new addition to our forces to John MacCormick and Councillor Gray. I rang John MacCormick, and told him that I had found a friend to take on holiday with me. Although I had no reason to fear that his telephone was being tapped a natural canniness made me take care.
‘Oh yes, Ian,’ he said in his usual curt noncommittal way.
‘I’m taking her for coffee. Could you meet us?’
There was a sudden hesitation in his voice as he heard that my associate was a woman. Then he named a place and time and hung up.
We were to meet that afternoon in Miss Rombach’s restaurant in Waterloo Street. I passed the information on to Kay and made arrangements to meet her there. I arrived a few minutes late and found them already in conversation, for they were no strangers to each other. I sat down and we ordered coffee.
The older man took the initiative right away, and I was glad, as I was not used to diplomacy of this sort.
‘Kay has been telling me that she wants to go for the Stone with you, Ian,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I think it’s a very good idea.’
Kay sat quietly listening.
‘Well, it would have its advantages,’ he said, looking at Kay.
I knew from experience that I did not have to enumerate the advantages to this man. I had found, on many occasions before, that a word or a hint or a look could convey all that I could have said in ten sentences. A lesser man would have argued pro and argued con, and might even have doubted our morality to say nothing of our sanity. Not this man. He knew what we were after and saw the advantages in a flash.
‘What do you think?’ asked Kay, turning towards him and speaking for the first time.
‘Well, you know, Kay,’ he said. ‘You’ll lose your job as a teacher.’
‘I know,’ she said.
‘And it’s scarcely a task for a girl. Even the minor hardships of a trip to London by road at this time of the year are something you should consider.’
‘I would be going home anyway,’ she said. ‘And there are no trains to Inverasdale.’
One up for Kay, I thought.
I sat back and listened to the conversation with a considerable amount of amusement. The man, proceeding carefully from point to point, opened up avenues of escape for Kay to run along had she been looking for an excuse to escape. The girl did not let her point drop for a moment and quietly parried all his objections.
At last it was Kay’s chance to ask a question.
‘Will I get expelled from the Covenant movement if I go?’ she asked rather worriedly.
‘Whatever else happens, they will not do that,’ he said spiritedly, and thereafter Kay’s decision to come with me was so unassailable that he desisted from badgering her.
We finished our coffee and rose to go. Outside it was a grey colourless evening. Wisps of starlings crossed the sky like swift smoke. We stood among the hurrying figures in Waterloo Street and John MacCormick looked at us and said quietly, ‘For 20 years in the Scottish movement I’ve made it a rule never to ask anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I can’t help you any more with this, but if between now and Christmas you want to back out don’t be frightened to come and tell me.’
We laughed at him, but as I went away I knew the bitterness of the mind torn two ways. This man had used himself ruthlessly in the service of Scotland for half a lifetime. It had been his boast that he would use anyone as ruthlessly as he had used himself. Now, when his boast was being proved and someone else was going forward instead of himself, he found that it is easier to sacrifice oneself than one’s friends.
The next day I approached one or two possible recruits. Three of them immediately turned me down for reasons the validity of which I was in no position to challenge. This disturbed me a great deal. For the first time there were people in possession of our intention who had no stake in the plan, and who were under no necessity to keep a still tongue. There was nothing I could do about this except trust to Scottish taciturnity, and in the months that followed my trust was justified.
