Good Friday

Author’s Note

During 1974 and 1975 London was subjected to a terrifying bombing campaign carried out by Active Service Units (ASU) of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Over forty bombs exploded, thirty-five people were killed and many were seriously injured. In one day alone the IRA planted seven bombs at locations across central London. Some were defused, some were not.

On 6 December 1975, four armed members of the ASU took two elderly Balcombe Street residents hostage after a botched machine-gun attack on a Mayfair restaurant. A tense stand-off with the Metropolitan Police Bomb Squad ensued, but after six days the siege ended when the IRA men surrendered and released the hostages.

After several days of intense interrogation, the ‘Balcombe Street Gang’ were charged and remanded in custody to stand trial for multiple bombings and murders. The press portrayed the arrests as a major victory for the Met’s Bomb Squad.

It was the lull before the storm. The bomb squad received information that another ASU had come to London. Both police and the public lived in fear: where and when would the IRA strike, and could they be stopped in time?