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An audacious plan
In May 1951, the Glasgow University students – Ian Hamilton, Kay Matheson, Gavin Vernon and Alan Stuart – confessed all in a BBC radio interview about just what had happened that night. It all began late on Christmas Eve, when the three men broke into the Abbey while Matheson waited outside in one of their two getaway cars.
“The first thing we did was move away the barrier that keeps away the rest of the public from the stone,” recalled Vernon. They prised the stone from underneath the Coronation Chair and laid it on the floor. Ian Hamilton’s coat became an improvised drag mat. Vernon added: “Alan and I took an arm of a coat each, and Ian took one of the chains of the stone. And as soon as he pulled, the stone gave way.”
AlamyBut the triumph was short-lived. As they dragged the heavy stone, it broke in two. “I remember how terrified I was,” Hamilton admitted. “We had come 400 miles and there, just as we dragged the stone along, it had come apart.” Unknown to them, almost four decades earlier a suffragette bomb attack may have weakened it. In the chaos, Hamilton seized the smaller fragment, still weighing about 41kg (90lb), and bolted through the Abbey carrying it like a rugby ball.
Outside, Matheson moved the car forward to warn that a policeman was approaching. Within moments he was in front of them. Hamilton leapt in beside her, covered the broken stone with an old coat and improvised a story about them being young lovers with nowhere to go on Christmas Eve. The officer, far from suspicious, removed his helmet, lit a cigarette and chatted amiably, then let them go.
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