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On 12 October 1984 at 2.54 am
in the Grand Hotel Brighton the IRA exploded a semtex bomb which had been
planted the previous month and set on a long-delay timer. |
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The hotel was full of that
year’s Conservative Party conference, including most of the Cabinet and the
Prime Minister herself, who was the principal target. The bomb had been hidden in the
fittings under her bath and destroyed the bathroom barely two minutes after
she had left it to continue working on her conference speech. Both Mrs. Thatcher and
her husband escaped injury but five people were killed and over 30 were
injured by the bomb. |
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The next day the IRA claimed
responsibility, and said that they would try again. Their statement famously
included the words: |
Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once.
You will have to be lucky always. |
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Despite the number of dead and
wounded and the frantic uncertainty at that time, Mrs. Thatcher began the
next session of the conference at 9.30am that day as scheduled. |
She began her address saying: The
attack failed. All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. |
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The bomb also affected many
people in the neighbourhood. Our vicar, Fr. John Milburn, was blown
from from his bed by the blast. The next morning he led prayers at the start
of the conference session. After a frantic and distressing night he called
for calm in front of the world’s press and television. |
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It was not only the Grand Hotel that was
ruined. Along the West side of the block was Grosvenor House, an old folks
home with close connections to S Paul’s, where the choir went to sing carols
every Christmas. The building was seriously damaged and had to be closed. The
residents, including the octegenarian Miss Kemp, in her wheelchair a regular
communicant to S Paul’s, had to leave. The Grand Hotel later extended
over the site. |
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The following Sunday S Paul’s
offered a requiem for the victims of the bomb. It was attended by members of
the Cabinet, led by John Selwyn Gummer, chairman of the Conservative Party
and at that time a staunch Anglo-Catholic. The choir sang the requiem setting
by Gabriel Fauré. |
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Margaret Thatcher later attended
S Paul’s for a small ceremony to unveil a plaque to commemorate the dead. |
Anthony Berry · Muriel Maclean Jeanne Shattock · Eric Taylor and Roberta Wakeham who died in the
Brighton bombing October 12th 1984 They paid the price of
Freedom X Requiescant in Pacem X |
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