BBC Radio 2 ‘Jeremy Vine Show’ 10.09.2012

Jeremy Vine   30 years ago one of the highest profile terrorist attacks of the IRA’s campaign shocked the nation. The victim was Lord Mountbatten. He was a Supreme Allied Commander in south east Asia in World War Two, the last Viceroy of India and great uncle and mentor to Price Charles. He was killed at […]


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BBC Radio 5 Live ‘Queen’s Diamond Jubilee’ 05.06.2012

Shelagh Fogarty   In the summer of 1979 while holidaying in Ireland, the Queen’s cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten died when an IRA bomb exploded on his boat. Well that explosion claimed the lives of four people including the Earl’s 14 year old grandson, Nicholas Knatchbull. Nicky’s twin brother Timothy Knatchbull survived but in his words he’d […]


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RTE 2fm ‘The Tubridy Show’ 02.09.2012

Ryan Tubridy   Here’s a quote, ‘We all have a car crash in our lives and 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 […]


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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 4 ‘Today’ 27.08.2009

Justin Webb    It is 30 years since an IRA bomb killed Lord Mountbatten. The bomb was placed in a boat. Also in that boat was Timothy Knatchbull, Lord Mountbatten’s grandson. He survived though his twin brother, his grandmother and a local teenager did not. Timothy Knatchbull now in his forties has written a book […]


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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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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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Extracts of ‘From a Clear Blue Sky’

‘Twins’               The heart of a human foetus starts to beat three weeks after conception. Mine started beating in the middle of March 1964. A few millimeters away another heart was beating alongside mine. It belonged to my identical twin. Our hearts beat in loose synchronicity over seven hundred million times until he was killed, […]


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Irish History

1169 Henry II oversees an Anglo Norman invasion of Ireland, establishing an English presence for the first time 1689 James II lands in Ireland and supported by a catholic army reigns from Dublin 1801 The Act of Union creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 1813 First recorded sectarian riots in Belfast 1836 […]


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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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