BBC Radio 4 ‘The Moral Maze’ 14.10.2009

Michael Buerk Our next witness is Timothy Knatchbull who lost his grandfather, Lord Mountbatten and his twin brother 30 years ago in an IRA bombing in Ireland and has recently written about it in a book called From a Clear Blue Sky. You have got yourself to a state of forgiveness, how long did it […]


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BBC Radio Four ‘Midweek’ 30.09.2009

Libby Purves Tim Knatchbull and his family have needed every ounce of determination to live. It’s thirty years since he was blown up on the fishing boat off Ireland in the IRA atrocity which killed Earl Mountbatten, his grandfather, his grandmother Lady Brabourne and the young Irish boat boy, Paul Maxwell and most savage of […]


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BBC Radio Kent 04.09.2009

PART ONE   Dominic Kent   He had an idyllic childhood in Kent, growing up in Mersham near Ashford. But in 1979 at the age of fourteen, Timothy Knatchbull’s world was shattered when he took a boat trip off the coast of Ireland. The Provisional IRA blew up the vessel assassinating his grandfather, Lord Mountbatten of […]


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TODAY fm ‘The Last Word’ 02.09.09

Matt Cooper   A dreadful event in Irish history from thirty years ago, August 1979. There were survivors from the IRA bomb that killed Lord Mountbatten. One of those survivors has written a book thirty years on. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Can I ask if it is difficult for you to […]


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Readers Comments

A compelling read… …especially if you remember! Tim shares his journey of pain, loss, searching and seeking understanding as he tells his own story of this remarkable family and this terrible event. Anon Kindle Reader   A superb book Beautifully written. Meticulous in its research. Painfully honest without being maudlin. Can’t recommend it enough. HD […]


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Preface to ‘From a Clear Blue Sky’

            We all have a car crash in our lives. To date I have had one; it happened to be a bomb. I was a boy at the time, on a small boat in Ireland. Three of my family and a friend died in the explosion. One of the dead was my identical twin brother Nicholas […]


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Prologue to ‘From a Clear Blue Sky’

            On the morning of Monday 27 August 1979, Paul Maxwell asked me the time. He laughed when I told him it was eleven thirty-nine and forty seconds. We were as carefree as skylarks, out together in my grandfather’s small fishing boat off County Sligo on the west coast of Ireland. My identical twin brother Nicholas […]


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  • 'It is one of the most intensely moving stories I have ever read, and I was gripped from the first page.'

    Barbara Taylor Bradford


    'Testament to a remarkable, benevolent soul...With this public love letter he has found a way to say goodbye’. Sunday Times


    ‘It is one of the most penetrating and humane books to have emerged from the Troubles.’

    Irish Independent


    'This amazingly clear-headed and mature book...Intelligent, honest, tender and so moving that it should come with a warning to read this in private because you're going to be in a tear-stained mess.’ Daily Mail


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