Mr Churchill's Driver

Colin Farrington

Description

Mr Churchill's Driver: A Murderer's Story describes real events, and events that may be real. Did Winston Churchill meet secretly at Holyhead with Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera in July 1940? Did they agree to Ireland's re-unification if it joined the war against Germany, as alleged by Bert Gilbey, Churchill's driver, and father of the narrator William? Did the two leaders discuss German terms to end the war? Theirs is a sensational story. Bert and William are both self-confessed criminals. Who will believe them?William Gilbey, released in 2014 after a twelve year sentence for murder, seeks money and jewels kept for him by gang members. After a lifetime of neglect he also wants to find the truth about his father Bert's hanging in 1964 ('the last man to be executed in England') and his father's stories, including the one about Churchill. The novel, mainly William's 'memoire' (he was brought up in France), follows ten days when he finds companionship and love, but also 'bitterness, fear and evil'. The novel turns on a series of deceptions and misunderstood clues. We see events through the eyes of three groups watching Gilbey: his gang; MI5; and Irish nationalists. All believe, wrongly, that Gilbey had learned from his father the location of critical documents and antiques smuggled from Ireland to England during the war. William decides that only through murder and the posthumous publication of his 'memoire' will anyone take his father's story seriously. Mr Churchill's Driver: A Murderer's Story is a thrilling conspiracy novel, written in the crisp style of Ian McEwan with the historical depth of Peter Ackroyd. It is designed to entertain, to intrigue, and to provoke.

Sujets

• Conspiracy theory

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 12 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785896743
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2016 Colin Farrington

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781785896743

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
For Paul,

and for Charlotte Maria Burton (1877 - 1975)
my maternal grandmother, a great storyteller.
Author’s Preface
This is a work of fiction. But William Gilbey’s story refers to real events and to events that may be real.
In 1964 the last executions took place in Great Britain. Capital punishment was suspended in October that year by the incoming Labour government, and abolished in 1965 by Act of Parliament, for all crimes other than treason.
There remain many untold stories and undisclosed documents in London and Dublin relating to the events and negotiations of June/ July 1940.
The United Kingdom had no European allies. There remained a strong peace party in Winston Churchill’s government, led by Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax.
The priority of the Irish and their leader Eamon de Valera was to restore the unity of their island, against the fierce opposition of Northern Unionists. Some southerners wanted an alliance with Nazi Germany to achieve this, although many brave Irishmen also volunteered for the British Army. Officially Eire remained neutral.
Contents
PART ONE
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6

PART TWO
2.1
2.2

PART THREE
3.1
3.2
3.3

PART FOUR
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5

PART FIVE
5.1
5.2

PART SIX
6.1
6.2
6.3

PART SEVEN
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6

PART EIGHT
8.1
8.2
8.3

PART NINE
9.1
9.2
9.3

PART TEN
10.1
10.2
10.3
PART ONE
1
1.1
A mémoire…. this is the beginning of a mémoire posted to important persons at Euston Station, London.
My name is William Harrison Gilbey. My father, Herbert, ‘Bert’, Gilbey, a great storyteller, was the last man to be executed in England, by hanging, at eight in the morning on the 18 th of July, 1964. He is buried in the precincts of Pentonville Prison, London.
I started this m é moire two weeks ago, on my own release from prison after I had served twelve years of a life sentence for the same crime as my father – murder. I did not commit that particular offence. But I acknowledge that I have been a criminal for virtually all my adult life. The story about Winston Churchill, which my father told me several times, each time slightly varied, is the main reason that I decided to research and to write this mémoire, incomplete though it is. It is the one story of my father’s that, until now, I had written down. I transcribed it twenty years ago from a recording my father made, taped shortly before he was hanged. He used a German Grundig recorder, loaned by a wartime friend in Burnley, Lancashire, where we then lived.
‘Well, it was like this, William. I was a driver, a good driver. My father had been in service as a chauffeur in a big house in Flintshire, in north Wales. My father taught me to drive. So, when the second war came in 1939, I was put into the elite driving pool in London for the government, the top ministers, civil servants, those sort of people. Only men of standing went into that pool. Only the royal drivers or the top military drivers outranked us. Anyway, my best mate, a bit younger than me, Roy Harvey, he got me into it. Both of us had injuries you see, so we couldn’t go to the fighting front. I had a bit of a gammy leg, but above the knee, so it didn’t often affect my driving. Roy used to wheeze, you know cough, a lot. But he knew someone high up in the Air Ministry who looked after him. I think I know who he was, but the name doesn’t matter.
‘Anyway, son, I used to drive mainly the top civil servants and ministers like Eden, Anderson and Butler. One day in July 1940 Roy came to me in our little kitchen. He said that he had been asked to do a big job that night. But he was wheezing badly. He said that it was an overnighter. I would be driving with stops all night. There would be another driver for most of the return.
‘So, at ten at night on a humid evening, we left London in a big Humber. I had sealed instructions to be opened only ten minutes before departure. These directed me to my first refuelling stop at a military base, where there would be the next set of directions, and so on. There were no garages open, and virtually no other cars. There was what we called a blackout in operation. For the first part of the journey there was a military outrider on a motorbike and sidecar.
‘Imagine, son, driving in that darkness, air raid sirens going, planes overhead. Of course it was a critically important drive. To do it at all shows how important it was.’
(My father stopped at that point: to drink beer, I suppose.)
‘You see, son, there were two passengers. One was Mr Churchill, Mr Winston Churchill, who had been Prime Minister for just a few months. The other was a General Brooke. It was a long and careful journey. In each stage we had some clear main roads, no lights though – remember, son, although the Germans had their motorways by then, we hadn’t. They’re only just starting them properly, in the 1960s, now, thirty years later. Well, we’ve always been years behind the Germans.
‘It was a tough journey. Anyway, there were four stops. At each stop Mr Churchill got out and spoke to a welcoming committee. He was given a field telephone, down which I could hear him barking to Downing Street or wherever. Meanwhile, I opened my fresh instructions for the next stage. We were given tea and coffee, separately of course. The high–ups, the nobs, they didn’t mix with us. Actually, Mr Churchill didn’t drink much hot liquid. He was swigging from a flask most of the way, brandy I think. He had cigars always lit. Anyway, even with his lit cigars and his drink, he must have dozed a few times.
‘Both men had papers with them. They talked, but the car screen was closed, so, even though Mr Churchill was shouting, I couldn’t pick up much of what they said. I had to concentrate on the road. But, when we got to our last stop, it was becoming light. I opened the windows; and then General Brooke opened the interior screen as Mr Churchill needed to refuel his lighter. I left the screen open. Neither gentleman objected. At that point I heard Mr Churchill talking about a ‘momentous encounter’.
(Another drink, and a longer pause, a cigarette or two, the tape stopped and restarted. I remember my mother Marjorie moving in the background, ironing or cleaning, coughing, when father told this story.)
‘The last stage of the journey, son, took us into Wales, and over the bridge into the Isle of Anglesey. Mr Churchill then announced that we were early, ‘a good thing’. Mr Churchill had worked out that if we went up a particular road we could get to a hill, a ‘pwomontory’ (at various points my father used a rasping voice in imitation of Mr Churchill) where there was a viewing point. They could watch the great man’s boat come in over the mighty sea.
‘In fact, when we got where Mr Churchill directed, I remained in the car as the others strolled the last twenty yards or so, to get a view. But my gammy leg then began to play up, so I had to get out. I stood at a distance from my passengers, yet close enough to see what was happening. Mr Churchill was waving vigorously at a ferry approaching across a calm, and otherwise empty, sea. As it approached the harbour Mr Churchill abruptly turned and glared at me, as if I was intruding on his private thoughts and was trying to read his secret plan. But Mr Churchill said nothing. I then drove to the ferry terminal as instructed. It was closed: ‘services suspended’ a notice read. Anyway there were other bowler-hatted men waiting, who acknowledged Mr Churchill.
‘Then, from the pier, having come off the ferry boat, strolled up two men, both dressed in an old-fashioned way, even for those days. One was very tall and slim, with a proud manner. The other struggled to keep up with the tall man’s strides. The second man was fat and had a black moustache. Mr Churchill walked towards them, indicating to the other Englishmen to stay back. He then shook the hand of the first, tall man. The other man was introduced. Then Mr Churchill brought the two of them to my car. General Brooke joined me in the front seat.
‘Mr Churchill directed me to drive back to the hill ‘so that the Prime Minister and I can take a stroll’. Another car followed, that was to take the visitors back to the ferry. When we reached the hill, Mr Churchill and the tall man got out. The tall man carried a briefcase, from which he took out some papers. Mr Churchill carried just a cigar. Then for an hour, or maybe more, they strolled together, up and down along the headlands, passing several times a plinth on which was a sundial and, I suppose, an engraved panorama. So