NETFLIX UK DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION. LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE . FASCISM IN BRITAIN DURING THE 1930’S-THROUGH TO THE 1960’S WITH SIR OSWALD MOSLEY’S BLACKSHIRTS BUF MOVEMENT & UNION MOVEMENT. FEATURED HERE ON DISPLAY IN & AMONGST THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION.

DARK TOURIST VISITOR ATTRACTION LIKE NO OTHER. 

A HOPEFULLY HISTORICALLY AND EDUCATIONAL INSIGHT INTO FASCISM HERE IN THE UK, ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE JAIL .

British Fascist and Leader of the BUF Movement ( British Union of Fascist Movement ) , Oswald Mosley in his prime during the 1930’s

Above & Below: Original oil paintings of British Union of Fascists founder & leader Oswald Mosley, by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean jail , UK .

PLEASE DO BE AWARE THAT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAS NO AFFILIATION , CONNECTION OR INVOLVEMENT WITH ANY EXTREMIST , POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS WHATSOEVER …… WE SIMPLY EXHIBIT AND TOUCH UPON A GREAT MANY POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE COVER IN THE WAY WE CHOOSE TO DO HERE. …. “IT’S ALL HISTORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE”

POLITICALLY INCORRECT IT MAY BE… SO WHAT…… IT HAPPENED HERE IN BRITAIN

BELOW: A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO A FEW OF OUR RARE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF BRITISH FASCIST MOVEMENT MEMORABILIA, HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL

BELOW IS A VERY BRIEF PICTORIAL SLIDESHOW INSIGHT INTO JUST A FEW OF THE EXHIBIT ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY IN OUR FASCISM IN BRITAIN EXHIBITION.TOUCHING UPON A TABOO SUBJECT MATTER THAT OUR UK GOVERNMENTS HAVE LONG SINCE WISHED TO BRUSH UNDER THE CARPETS AS NOT BEING WORTH REFLECTING UPON IN OUR BRITISH HISTORY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE CURRICULUM’S 

Above and below: Rare images of Oswald Mosley’s BUF Movement parading with the original  BUF Standards/Banners…. one of which is here on display  at Littledean Jail in and amongst the Fascism in Britain Exhibition .

Below: A rare original Oswald Mosley British Union Standard/Rally Banner being one of the so say 60 number of them that were carried and used by the movement during the 1930’s, along with other BUF related memorabilia

ASIN: B07L467C1X

Above and below: Oswald Mosley seen at various British Union rallies during the 1930’s …

SURELY IT IS A PART OF HISTORY THAT WE SHOULD ALL REFLECT UPON IN EDUCATIONAL TERMS AS TO OUR PAST CONFLICTS ?

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PLEASE DO TAKE THE TIME IF INTERESTED IN OUR FASCISM IN  BRITAIN  HISTORY DURING THE 1930’S-1940’S  TO LOOK AT THE INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE BELOW 

Above : An exceptionally rare Arnold Leese (1878-1956) “Imperial Fascist League” banner which controversially depicted the Nazi Swastika emblem within the centre of the Untider Kingdom’s Union Jack  Flag.

Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 7 June 1929 – 19 May 1930
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Ronald John McNeill
Succeeded by	Clement Attlee
Member of Parliament for Harrow
In office 1918 – 1924
Preceded by	Harry Mallaby-Deeley
Succeeded by	Sir Isidore Salmon
Member of Parliament for Smethwick
In office 1926 – 1931
Preceded by	John Davison
Succeeded by	Roy Wise
Personal details
Born	Oswald Ernald Mosley 16 November 1896 Burton upon Trent, England
Died	3 December 1980 (aged 84) Orsay, France
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative (1918–1922) Independent (1922–1924) Labour / I.L.P (1924–1931) New Party (1931–1932) British Union (1932–1940) Union Movement (1948–1973) National Party of Europe(1962–1980)
Spouse(s)	Lady Cynthia Mosley (1920–1933) Diana Mitford (1936–1980)
Children	Vivien Mosley (deceased) Nicholas Mosley Michael Mosley (Oswald) Alexander Mosley Max Mosley
Alma mater	• Winchester • Sandhurst
Military service
Allegiance	British Empire
Service/branch	British Army • 16th The Queen’s Lancers • Royal Flying Corps
Years of service	1914–1918
Rank	Lieutenant
Battles/wars	World War I • Second Battle of Ypres • Battle of Loos
Awards	Victory Medal  British War Medal  1914–15 Star

Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists. He was a Member of Parliament for Harrow from 1918 to 1924 and for Smethwick from 1926 to 1931, as well as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Labour Government of 1929–1931.

[edit]Family and early life[edit]Biography

Mosley was the eldest of three sons of Sir Oswald Mosley, 5th Baronet, of Ancoats (29 December 1873 – 21 September 1928), and wife Katharine Maud Edwards-Heathcote (1874–1950), the second child of Captain Justinian Edwards-Heathcote of Market Drayton, Shropshire. Mosley’s family were Anglo-Irish. His branch were prosperous landowners in Staffordshire. Through the intermarriage common among the British upper classes, the 5th Baronet was the third cousin of the Earl of Strathmore, which would eventually make Oswald Mosley, the 6th baronet, fourth cousin to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who was the Earl of Strathmore’s daughter, and fourth cousin once removed to Queen Elizabeth II.

Mosley was born at Rolleston Hall, near Burton-on-Trent on November 16, 1896. When his parents separated he was brought up by his mother, who initially went to live at Betton Hall near Market Drayton, and his paternal grandfather, Sir Oswald Mosley, 4th Baronet. Within the family and among intimate friends, he was always called “Tom”. He lived for many years at Apedale Hall near Newcastle-under-Lyme.

[edit]Military service

He was educated at West Downs School and Winchester College. In January 1914 he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst but was expelled in June for a “riotous act of retaliation” against a fellow student.^[1] During World War I he was commissioned in the 16th The Queen’s Lancers and fought on the Western Front. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as an observer but while demonstrating in front of his mother and sister he crashed, which left him with a permanent limp. He returned to the trenches before the injury was fully healed and, at the Battle of Loos, he passed out at his post from the pain. He spent the remainder of the war at desk jobs in the Ministry of Munitions and in the Foreign Office.^[1]

[edit]Personal life

Oswald Mosley and Lady Cynthia Curzon on their wedding day, 11 May 1920

On 11 May 1920 he married Lady Cynthia Curzon (known as ‘Cimmie’), (1898 – 1933), second daughter ofGeorge Curzon, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, (1859 – 1925), Viceroy of India, 1899 – 1905, Foreign Secretary, 1919 – 1924, and Lord Curzon’s first wife, the American mercantile heiress, the former Mary Victoria Leiter.

Lord Curzon had to be persuaded that Mosley was a suitable husband, as he suspected Mosley was largely motivated by social advancement in Conservative Party politics and her inheritance. The 1920 wedding took place in the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace in London. It was the social event of the year. The hundreds of guests included European royalty, including King George V and Queen Mary; and Leopold III and Astrid of Sweden, King and Queen of Belgium.^[2]

He had three children by Cynthia: Vivien Elizabeth Mosley (25 February 1921 – 26 August 2002), who married on 15 January 1949 Desmond Francis Forbes Adam (27 January 1926 – 3 January 1958), educated at Eton College,Eton, Berkshire, and at King’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, by whom she had two daughters and one son; Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale (born 25 June 1923), a successful novelist who wrote a biography of his father and edited his memoirs for publication; and Michael Mosley (born 25 April 1932), unmarried and without issue.

During this marriage he had an extended affair with his wife’s younger sister Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, and with their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, the American-born, also, second wife and widow of Lord Curzon of Kedleston.

Cynthia died of peritonitis in 1933, after which Mosley married his mistress Diana Guinness, née Diana Mitford(1910 – 2003, one of the Mitford sisters). They married in secret in Germany on 6 October 1936, in the Berlin home of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Adolf Hitler was one of the guests.

By Diana Mitford, he had two sons: Oswald Alexander Mosley (born 26 November 1938), married on 10 May 1975 to Charlotte Diana Marten (born 1952) and father of Louis Mosley (born 1983); and Max Rufus Mosley (born 13 April 1940), who was president of theFédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) for 16 years.

Part of a series on
Fascism

Mosley spent large amounts of his private fortune on the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and tried to establish it on a firm financial footing by negotiating, through Diana, with Adolf Hitler for permission to broadcast commercial radio to Britain from Germany.

Mosley also reportedly struck a deal in 1937 with Francis William Lionel Collings Beaumont, the heir to the Seigneur of Sark, to set up a privately owned radio station on Sark.^[3][4]

[edit]Elected Member of Parliament

By the end of World War I Mosley decided to go into politics as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), although he was only 21 years old and had not fully developed his politics. He was driven by a passionate conviction to avoid any future war and this motivated his career. Largely because of his family background, he was considered by several constituencies; a vacancy near the family estates seemed to be the best prospect.

Unexpectedly, he was selected for Harrow first. In the general election of 1918 he faced no serious opposition and was elected easily. He was the youngest member of the House of Commons to take his seat (Joseph Sweeney, an abstentionist Sinn Féin MP was younger). He soon distinguished himself as an orator and political player, one marked by extreme self-confidence. He made a point of speaking in the House of Commons without notes.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Crossing the floor

Mosley was at this time falling out with the Conservatives over Irish policy, objecting to the use of the Black and Tans to suppress the Irish population. Eventually he ‘crossed the floor‘ and sat as an Independent MP on the opposition side of the House of Commons. Having built up a following in his constituency, he retained it against a Conservative challenge in the 1922 and 1923 general elections.

The liberal Westminster Gazette wrote that he was “the most polished literary speaker in the Commons, words flow from him in graceful epigrammatic phrases that have a sting in them for the government and the conservatives. To listen to him is an education in the English language, also in the art of delicate but deadly repartee. He has human sympathies, courage and brains.”^[5] By 1924 he was growing increasingly attracted to the Labour Party, which had just formed a government, and in March he joined. He immediately joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) as well and allied himself with the left.

When the government fell in October, Mosley had to choose a new seat as he believed that Harrow would not re-elect him as a Labour candidate. He therefore decided to oppose Neville Chamberlain in Birmingham Ladywood. An energetic campaign led to a knife-edge result but Mosley was defeated by 77 votes. His period outside Parliament was used to develop a new economic policy for the ILP, which eventually became known as the Birmingham Proposals; they continued to form the basis of Mosley’s economics until the end of his political career.

In 1926, the Labour-held seat of Smethwick fell vacant and Mosley returned to Parliament after winning the resulting by-election on 21 December. Mosley felt the campaign was dominated by Conservative attacks on him for being too rich and claims he was covering up his wealth.^[6]

Mosley and his wife Cynthia were ardent Fabians in the 1920s and 1930s. Mosley appears in a list of names of Fabians from Fabian News and Fabian Society Annual Report 1929–31. He wasKingsway Hall lecturer in 1924 and Livingstone Hall lecturer in 1931.

[edit]Office

Mosley then made a bold bid for political advancement within the Labour Party. He was close to Ramsay MacDonald and hoped for one of the great offices of state, but when Labour won the 1929 general election he was appointed only to the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, de facto Minister without Portfolio, outside the Cabinet. He was given responsibility for solving the unemployment problem, but found that his radical proposals were blocked either by his superior James Henry Thomas or by the Cabinet.^{[citation needed]}

Mosley was always impatient and eventually put forward a whole scheme in the ‘Mosley Memorandum’ to find it rejected by the Cabinet; he then resigned in May 1930. At the time, the weekly liberal paper The Nation described his move: “The resignation of Sir Oswald Mosley is an event of capital importance in domestic politics… We feel that Sir Oswald has acted rightly—as he has certainly acted courageously—in declining to share any longer in the responsibility for inertia.”^[5] He attempted to persuade the Labour Party Conference in October, but was defeated again.

The memorandum called for high tariffs to protect British industries from international finance, for state nationalisation of industry and a programme of public works to solve unemployment. Thirty years later, in 1961, R. H. S. Crossman described the memorandum: “… this brilliant memorandum was a whole generation ahead of Labour thinking.”^[5]

[edit]New Party

Determined that the Labour Party was no longer suitable, Mosley quickly founded the New Party. Its early parliamentary contests, in the 1931 Ashton-under-Lyne by-election and subsequent by-elections, were successful only in splitting the vote and allowing the Conservative candidate to win. Despite this, the organisation gained support among many Labour and Conservative MPs, who agreed with his corporatist economic policy—among those who agreed were Aneurin Bevan and Harold Macmillan. It also gained the endorsement of the Daily Mail newspaper, headed at the time byAlfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe.^{[citation needed]}

The New Party increasingly inclined to fascist policies, but Mosley was denied the opportunity to get his party established when the 1931 election was suddenly called. All its candidates, including Mosley, lost their seats. As the New Party gradually became more radical and authoritarian, many previous supporters defected from it. Shortly after the election, he was described by the Manchester Guardian:

When Sir Oswald Mosley sat down after his Free Trade Hall speech in Manchester and the audience, stirred as an audience rarely is, rose and swept a storm of applause towards the platform—who could doubt that here was one of those root-and-branch men who have been thrown up from time to time in the religious, political and business story of England. First that gripping audience is arrested, then stirred and finally, as we have said, swept off its feet by a tornado of peroration yelled at the defiant high pitch of a tremendous voice.^[5]

Flag of the British Union of Fascists

[edit]Fascism

After his failure in 1931 Mosley went on a study tour of the ‘new movements’ of Italy’s Benito Mussolini and other fascists, and returned convinced that it was the way forward for him and for Britain. He determined to unite the existing fascist movements and created the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932. The BUF was anti-communist and protectionist. It claimed membership as high as 50,000, and had the Daily Mail^[7] and Daily Mirror^[8] among its earliest (if, in the case of theMail, short-lived) supporters.^[9]

Among his followers were the novelist Henry Williamson, military theorist J. F. C. Fuller and the future “Lord Haw Haw“, William Joyce.

Mosley had found problems with disruption of New Party meetings, and instituted a corps of black-uniformed paramilitary stewards, nicknamed blackshirts. The party was frequently involved in violent confrontations, particularly with Communist and Jewish groups and especially in London.^[10] At a large Mosley rally at Olympia on 7 June 1934 mass brawling broke out when hecklers were removed by blackshirts, resulting in bad publicity. This and the Night of the Long Knives in Germany led to the loss of most of the BUF’s mass support. The party was unable to fight the 1935 general election.

Plaque commemorating the Battle of Cable Street

In October 1936 Mosley and the BUF attempted to march through an area with a high proportion of Jewish residents, and violence resulted between local and nationally organised protesters trying to block the march and police trying to force it through, since called the Battle of Cable Street. At length Sir Philip Gamethe Police Commissioner disallowed the march from going ahead and the BUF abandoned it.

Mosley continued to organise marches policed by the blackshirts, and the government was sufficiently concerned to pass the Public Order Act 1936, which, amongst other things, banned political uniforms and quasi-military style organisations and came into effect on 1 January 1937.

In the London County Council elections in 1937 the BUF stood in three of its East London strongholds, polling up to a quarter of the vote. Mosley then made most of the employees redundant, some of whom then defected from the party with William Joyce. As the European situation moved towards war, the BUF began nominating Parliamentary candidates and launched campaigns on the theme of Mind Britain’s Business. After the outbreak of war he led the campaign for a negotiated peace. He was at first received well but, after the invasion of Norway, public opinion of him gave way to hostility and Mosley was nearly assaulted. ^[11]

[edit]Internment

On 23 May 1940 Mosley, who had continued his peace campaign, was interned under Defence Regulation 18B, along with most active fascists in Britain, and the BUF was later proscribed. His wife Diana Mitford was also interned,^[12] shortly after the birth of their son Max; they lived together for most of the war in a house in the grounds of Holloway prison.

Mosley used the time to read extensively on classical civilisations. Mosley refused visits from most BUF members, but on 18 March 1943 Dudley and Norah Elam (who had been released by then) accompanied Unity Mitford to see her sister Diana. Mosley agreed to be present because he mistakenly believed Diana and Unity’s mother Lady Redesdale was accompanying Unity.^[13]

The Mosleys were released in November 1943, when Mosley was suffering with phlebitis, and spent the rest of the war under house arrest. On his release from prison he stayed with his sister-in-lawPamela Mitford, followed shortly by a stay at the Shaven Crown Hotel in Shipton-under-Wychwood. He then purchased Crux Easton, near Newbury, with Diana. He and his wife were the subject of much media attention.^[14] The war ended what remained of his political reputation.

[edit]Post-war politics

After the war Mosley was contacted by his former supporters and persuaded to rejoin active politics. He formed the Union Movement, calling for a single nation-state covering the continent of Europe (known as Europe a Nation), and later attempted to launch a National Party of Europe to this end. The Union Movement’s meetings were often physically disrupted, as Mosley’s meetings had been before the war, and largely by the same opponents.

This led to Mosley’s decision, in 1951, to leave Britain and live in Ireland. He later moved to Paris. Of his decision to leave, he said, “You don’t clear up a dungheap from underneath it.”^{[citation needed]}

Mosley briefly returned to Britain in order to fight the 1959 general election at Kensington North, shortly after the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. Concerns over immigration were beginning to come into the spotlight for the first time and Mosley led his campaign on this issue. When Mosley’s final share of the vote was less than he expected, he launched a legal challenge to the election on the basis that the result had been rigged. The result was upheld.

In 1961 he took part in a debate at University College London about Commonwealth immigration, seconded by a young David Irving.^[15] He contested the 1966 general election at Shoreditch and Finsbury, where he fared even worse than he had in 1959. He wrote his autobiography, My Life (1968), and made a number of television appearances before retiring. In 1977, by which time he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he was nominated for the post of Rector of the University of Glasgow. In the subsequent election he polled over 100 votes but finished bottom of the poll.

[edit]Death

Mosley died of natural causes on 3 December 1980 in his Orsay home, aged 84. He was cremated in Paris and his ashes were scattered on the pond at Orsay. His papers are housed at the University of Birmingham Special Collections.

[edit]In popular culture

This “In popular culture” section may contain minor or trivial references. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject’s impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances, and remove trivial references. (October 2011)

Mosley’s rising influence before the Second World War provoked alarm and reaction against would-be populist dictators by major cultural figures of the time:

• Aldous Huxley‘s Point Counter Point features Everard Webley, a character modelled on Mosley.

• A character in the novel The Holy Terror (1939) by H. G. Wells is a bombastic British fascist with an aristocratic background, strikingly similar to Mosley.

• “Sir Roderick Spode” in P.G. Wodehouse‘s novels parodies Mosley. Spode, a blustering bully who is described as an “amateur dictator”, heads a British fascist “Black Shorts” organization.

Mosley’s attempts to promote his views after the war resulted in continued critical reaction:

• In 2006 he was selected by the BBC History Magazine as the 20th century’s worst Briton.^[16]

• In 1997 Channel Four Television produced a mini-series about him called Mosley, starring Jonathan Cake.

• In the 1986 film version of Colin MacInnes‘s book Absolute Beginners, Steven Berkoff appears as a Mosley-esque character billed as “The Fanatic”, who delivers a (rhyming) hate speech at a fascist election rally; it is generally assumed this is meant to be Mosley during his brief resurgence in 1958.

• The indulgent tone of Mosley’s newspaper obituaries was lampooned by the satirical television programme Not The Nine O’Clock News in the song “Baronet Oswald Ernald Mosley” by Peter Brewis, which featured Mel Smith, Pamela Stephenson and Griff Rhys Jones all dressed as Nazi Skinheads, singing his eulogy and reading some of the more positive remarks of newspapers from all sides of the political spectrum, including The Times and The Guardian.^[17]

• A semi-fictionalized depiction of Mosley, the BUF, and Battle of Cable Street appears in the 2010 BBC Wales revival of Upstairs, Downstairs, which is set in 1936.

• The original version of the Elvis Costello song “Less Than Zero” is an attack on Mosley and his politics, but US listeners assumed that the “Mr Oswald” referred to was Lee Harvey Oswald and Costello obligingly wrote an alternative lyric in which it was.^[18]:74,84

• In Kazuo Ishiguro‘s The Remains of the Day and James Ivory‘s film adaptation Mosley is portrayed as the fictional “Sir Geoffrey Wren”.

• In the popular BBC science fiction sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart, 1990s time traveller Gary Sparrow attempts to educate 1940s East End barmaid Phoebe Bamford on the subject of racism, only to have Phoebe rebut him by saying: “You can be a right twit sometimes Gary. Me and dad were down Cable Street in ’36 standing up to Mosley and his Blackshirts. I know all about Fascists, thank you very much!” (Series 3, Episode 25, “The Yanks are Coming“).

• Mosley and the black shirts are referenced in the song “The Ghosts of Cable Street” by folk punk band The Men They Couldn’t Hang.

Mosley appears in alternative history stories:

• In Harry Turtledove‘s Southern Victory Series of alternative history novels, Mosley and Winston Churchill lead a fascist Britain after the Allies lose the First World War. Mosley is also referred to in Turtledove’s Colonization trilogy, where MP Mosley introduces legislation to revoke the citizenship of the country’s Jews; and in Turtledove’s novel, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, where he was given control of Britain after the Nazis won World War II.

• In the film It Happened Here, Mosley is implied to be the puppet leader of German-occupied Britain.

• In Guy Walters‘s alternative history novel The Leader, Mosley has taken power as “The Leader” of Great Britain in 1937. King Edward VIII is still on the throne, Winston Churchill is a prisoner on theIsle of Man, and Prime Minister Mosley is conspiring with Adolf Hitler about the fate of Britain’s Jewish population.

• In Philip Roth‘s alternative history novel The Plot Against America, a secret pact between President Charles Lindbergh and Hitler is said to include an agreement to impose Mosley as the ruler of a German-occupied Britain with America’s blessing after a sham attempt by Lindbergh to convince Churchill to negotiate peace with Hitler would fail.

• In Kim Newman‘s alternative history novel The Bloody Red Baron, Mosley is shot down and killed in 1918 by Erich von Stalhein (from the Biggles series by W. E. Johns), with a character later commenting that “a career has been ended before it was begun.”

• Mosley becomes Leader of Britain after the alien invasion is defeated in Superman: War of the Worlds.

NETFLIX UK DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE GL14 3NL… FEATURING …. BRITISH WW2 FEMALE SOE (SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE ) SECRET AGENT AND HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO, GEORGE CROSS,M.B.E, CROIX de GUERRE, MEDAILLE DE LA RESISTANCE – 1921-1945

HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL WE FEATURE THE  BRITISH SECRET AGENT – VIOLETTE SZABO, ALONG WITH OTHER SOE HERO’S AND HEROINES, SAS (SPECIAL AIR SERVICE) AND  OTHER  UK SPECIAL FORCES.  NOT FORGETTING OF COURSE OUR WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST EXHIBITION FOR WHICH WE FEATURE AND INCLUDE MANY OF THE ABOVE WHO HAD BEEN  CAPTURED, TORTURED AND SUBSEQUENTLY EXECUTED BY THE NAZI’S DURING THIS HORRIFIC PERIOD. WE ALSO HAVE A NUMBER OF PERSONALLY SIGNED EXHIBIT ITEMS KINDLY DONATED TO THE MUSEUM AND ON DISPLAY FROM VIOLETTE SZABO’S DAUGHTER – TANIA WHO HAS CARRIED ON THE LEGACY OF HER MOTHER SINCE HER DEATH IN 1945 . ABOVE & BELOW ….  Original oil paintings by our in-house Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman here on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail . SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO VIOLETTE’S DAUGHTER TANIA ORIGINAL FILM POSTER FROM THE EPIC FILM BASED ON VIOLETTE SZABO TANIA SZABO PROUDLY SHOWING HER MOTHER’S MEDALS SHE RECEIVED POSTHUMOUSLY TO ANDY JONES OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL BELOW ARE A FEW  PICTURES TAKEN AT  A RECENT GET-TOGETHER AND CATCH-UP WITH TANIA  , DAUGHTER OF  WW2 S.O.E. ( SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE )  HEROINE – VIOLETTE SZABO … PARTICULARLY SPECIAL WHEREBY SHE KINDLY BROUGHT ALONG AS A SURPRISE , HER MOTHERS GEORGE MEDAL , CROIX DE GUERRE AND THE MEDAILLE DE LA RESISTANCE  FOR WHICH TANIA HAD RECEIVED POSTHUMOUSLY AS A YOUNG CHILD. A GREAT PRIVILEGE TO HAVE SEEN AND HELD SUCH A HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT PIECE OF HISTORY .      BELOW: ANDY JONES  OF LITTLEDEAN JAIL WITH ACTRESS VIRGINIA McKENNA STAR OF THE FILM ”  CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE” AT A RECENT GARDEN PARTY FUNDRAISING EVENT AT THE LITTLE STONE SHED ‘VIOLETTE SZABO MUSEUM ‘ IN WORMELOW, HEREFORDSHIRE. BELOW: ANDY JONES  OF LITTLEDEAN JAIL WITH VIOLETTE SZABO’S DAUGHTER TANIA  AT A RECENT GARDEN PARTY FUNDRAISING EVENT AT THE LITTLE STONE SHED ‘VIOLETTE SZABO MUSEUM ‘ IN WORMELOW, HEREFORDSHIRE.   Below is a signed image of Tania Szabo wearing the medals she received posthumously for and behalf of her mother Violette now on display at the Crime Through Time Collection      VIOLETTE WITH DAUGHTER TANIA TANIA SZABO WEARING HER MOTHERS MEDALS SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO TANIA SZABO TANIA SZABO TANIA SZABO WEARING HER MOTHERS MEDALS SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO VIRGINIA McKENNA SIGNED FILM STILL ACTRESS VIRGINIA McKENNA WITH TANIA SZABO SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO VIRGINIA McKENNA SIGNED FILM STILL SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE FILM POSTER TANIA SZABO VISITS LITTLEDEAN JAIL SOE HEROINE VIOLETTE SZABO CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE FILM POSTER VIRGINIA McKENNA SIGNED FILM STILL CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE FILM POSTER 1ST DAY COVER SIGNED BY WW2 SOE HEROINE NANCY WAKE VIRGINIA McKENNA SIGNED FILM STILLS ANDY JONES WITH TANIA SZABO AT A RECENT VIOLETTE SZABO MEMORIAL EVENT AT THE VIOLETTE SZABO MUSEUM , WORMELOW IN 2014 ANDY JONES WITH VIRGINIA McKENNA AT A RECENT VIOLETTE SZABO MEMORIAL EVENT AT THE VIOLETTE SZABO MUSEUM , WORMELOW IN 2014 TANIA SZABO AT THE UNVEILING OF THE PLAQUE COMMEMORATING HER MOTHER AND OTHER SOE MEMBERS IN 2013 TANIA SZABO’S BOOK ON HER MOTHER 1ST DAY COVER SIGNED BY WW2 SOE HEROINE ODETTE HALLOWES ALONG WITH TANIA SZABO HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK ….. WE FEATURE MANY OF THE UK’S SPECIAL FORCES INCLUDING PERSONAL TESTAMENTS TO MANY OF OUR HEROINES INCLUDING SOE VIOLETTE SZABO WHO WAS CAPTURED , TORTURED AND  MURDERED BY THE NAZI’S AT RAVENSBRUCK CONCENTRATION CAMP IN 1945 (AGED 23)

Violette Szabo

NicknameLouise (also: La P’tite Anglaise)Born26 June 1921
Paris, FranceDied5 February 1945 (aged 23)
Ravensbrück, Nazi GermanyAllegianceUnited Kingdom, FranceService/branchSpecial Operations Executive,
First Aid Nursing YeomanryYears of service1941-1945 (FANY) /
1942/43-1945 (SOE)RankEnsignUnitF SectionAwards  George Cross  
   Croix de Guerre
    Medaille de la Resistance

Violette Szabo was born Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell in Paris, on 26 June 1921, the second child of a French mother and an English taxi-driver father, who had met during World War I. The family moved to London, and she attended school in Brixton until the age of 14. At the start of World War II, she was working at the perfume counter of Le Bon Marché, a department store in Brixton.

Violette met Étienne Szabo, a French officer of Hungarian descent, at the Bastille Day parade in London in 1940. They married on 21 August 1940 after a whirlwind 42-day romance. Violette was 19, Étienne was 31. Shortly after the birth of their only child, Tania, Étienne died from chest wounds at the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. He had never seen his daughter. It was Étienne’s death that made Violette, having already joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1941, decide to offer her services to the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Below shows Violette with her husband Etienne

After an assessment for fluency in French and a series of interviews, she was inducted into SOE. She received intensive training in night and daylight navigation; escape and evasion, both Allied and German weapons, unarmed combat, demolitions, explosives, communications and cryptography. In his book “Das Reich” Max Hastings comments that Szabo was adored by the men and women of SOE both for her courage and endless infectious cockney laughter. An ankle injury during parachute training delayed her deployment until 5 April 1944, when she parachuted into German-occupied France, near Cherbourg.

Under the code name “Louise”, which also happened to be her nickname, she and SOE colleague Philippe Liewer reorganised a Resistance network that had been broken up by the Germans. She led the new group in sabotaging road and railway bridges. Her wireless reports to SOE headquarters on the local factories producing war materials for the Germans were important in establishing Allied bombing targets. She returned to England by Lysander on 30 April 1944, landing at RAF Tempsford, after an intense but successful first mission.

Second mission

She flew to the outskirts of Limoges, France on 7 June 1944 (immediately following D-Day) from RAF Tempsford. Immediately on arrival, she coordinated the activities of the local Maquis (led by Jacques Dufour) in sabotaging communication lines during German attempts to stem the Normandy landings.

She was a passenger in a car that raised the suspicions of German troops at an unexpected roadblock that had been set up to find Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe of the Das Reich Division, who had been captured by the local resistance.

A brief gun battle ensued. Her Maquis minders escaped unscathed in the confusion. However, Szabo was captured when she ran out of ammunition, around midday on 10 June 1944, near Salon-la-Tour. Her captors were most likely from the 1st Battalion of 3rd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Deutschland (Das Reich Division). In R.J. Minney’s biography she is described as putting up fierce resistance with her Sten gun, although German documents of the incident record no German injuries or casualties. A recent biography of Vera Atkins, the intelligence officer for the French section of SOE, notes that that there was a great deal of confusion about what happened to Szabo—the story was revised four times—and states that the Sten gun incident “was probably a fabrication.”

Interrogation, torture and execution

She was transferred to the custody of the Sicherheitsdienst(SD) (SS Security Service) in Limoges, where she was interrogated for four days. From there, she was moved to Fresnes Prison in Paris and brought to Gestapo headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch for interrogation and torture. In August 1944, she was moved to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where over 92,000 women died. Although she endured hard labour and malnutrition, she managed to help save the life of Belgian resistance courier Hortense Clews.

Violette Szabo was executed, aged 23, by SS firing squad on or about 5 February 1945. Her body was cremated in the camp’s crematorium.

Three other women members of the SOE were also executed at Ravensbrück: Denise Bloch, Cecily Lefort, and Lilian Rolfe. Of the SOE’s 55 female agents, thirteen were killed in action or died in Nazi concentration camps

BELOW ARE SOME BRIEF IMAGES OF AN ORIGINAL WW2 “F.A.N.Y” (FIRST AID NURSING YEOMANRY ) – WTS (WOMENS TRANSPORT SERVICES ) UNIFORM COMPLETE WITH ITS ORIGINAL WW2 ISSUE GAS MASK … AS WOULD HAVE ALSO BEEN WORN BY VIOLETTE SZABO DURING HER DUTIES PRIOR TO HAVING BEEN SECONDED TO THE SOE  (SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE ) AS A BRITISH SECRET AGENT .

A VERY SCARCE AND HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER HISTORIC ITEM IN ITS OWN RIGHT  DISPLAYED HERE TOO IN AND AMONGST OTHER WW2 F.A.N.Y , ATS, WTS ETC ETC WOMEN IN WARTIME MOVEMENTS

BELOW AND ABOVE

World War 2 FANY ( First Aid Nursing Yeomany) uniform on mannequin displayed along with an original WW2 anti aircraft binocular gunsight on tripod now on display to the public here at the Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean jail, Gloucestershire

below… Film poster advertising “CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE” based on the heroine -Violette Szabo… starring Virginia McKenna and Paul Scofield

ORIGINAL 1958 CINEMA RELEASE POSTER

George Cross posthumously awarded to Violette Szabo’s daughter Tania

Croix de Guerre posthumously awarded to Violette Szabo’s daughter Tania 

Tania Szabó is Violette’s daughter, although, as she says, she is of an age to be her mother’s grandmother by now. On her ninth birthday, in June 1951, she sailed forAustralia with her grandparents, Charles and Reine Bushell, on the £10 ticket. After college in Armidale, NSW and a stint as a psychiatric nurse in Sydney, she returned to England in the New Year of 1963. It was so very cold.

     After working as a secretary, croupier, office administrator in various companies, completing a course in computing in the late 60s (cards with holes and no electronics) and spending a year in Beverley Hills studying Spanish while continuing her studies in the humanities, she returned to England and finally moved to Jersey in April 1976 where she opened her Language Studio with the help of Paul Emile Francis Holley, a friend of Violette’s. He also trained her in the recognition of German armaments and uniforms as he was a British Intelligence Officer during WWII.

Tania is an author as well as a professional multilingual translator and private tutor. The author, Avv. Mario Zacchi of Florence and author of Il Mastino Napoletano – the Italian Mastiff, the Standard and History of this amazing dog commissioned Tania to translate it. It is now lodged with the British Library. Zacchi’s writing in his native Italian immediately draws you into the mystery, fierce loyalty and funny antics of this Cerebus of dogs and it was a sheer delight for Tania to translate into English bringing his love and erudition of this remarkable breed to an anglophone readership.

On 29 April 2009, Paul Holley, the Intelligence officer,  who had trained Violette in German armaments and uniforms, and was Tania’s friend and mentor, died one month into his 90th year. She continues to miss his friendship and invaluable support. She has closed her Language Studio and now retired could no longer afford to live in Jersey and now lives in a lovely 17th century cottage just outside Builth Wells in Wales. She is still sorting out all the books and archives before completing her paperback version of Young Brave and Beautiful and getting back down to writing Etienne’s amazing life’s story.

Violette’s only daughter Tania Szabo pictured at her home in Jersey i 2007

Violette’s only daughter Tania Szabo pictured as a young child shortly after the death of her mother  Various publications relating to the life of Violette Szabo 

Below is a historical insight into the Ravensbruck Nazi Death Camp where upon she was imprisoned and executed

IN MEMORY OF ……FALKLANDS WAR PARACHUTE REGIMENT HERO…… LIEUTENANT COLONEL HERBERT JONES VC . OBE. ( simply known as H Jones) killed in action on 28 May 1982 during the Battle of Goose Green .

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Jones, VC, OBE (14 May 1940 – 28 May 1982), known as H. Jones, was a British army officer and posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross. He was awarded the VC after being killed in action during the Battle of Goose Green for his actions as commanding officer of 2 Battalion, Parachute Regiment during the Falklands War.

ABOVE AND BELOW  : COMMEMORATIVE BRONZE FIGURINE DEPICTING  COLONEL H JONES , 2 PARA  ON DISPLAY IN AND AMONGST THE UK SPECIAL FORCES EXHIBITION AREA  AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL

On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a remote UK colony in the South Atlantic. The move led to a brief, but bitter war.

Argentina’s military junta hoped to restore its support at a time of economic crisis, by reclaiming sovereignty of the islands. It said it had inherited them from Spain in the 1800s and they were close to South America.

The UK, which had ruled the islands for 150 years, quickly chose to fight. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said the 1,800 Falklanders were “of British tradition and stock”. A task force was sent to reclaim the islands, 8,000 miles away.

In the fighting that followed, 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen lost their lives, as did three Falkland Islanders.

 

 

medals awarded to H Jones posthumously .

Rare bronze statue on plinth ( 18 inch tall ) of Colonel H Jones , now on display at Littledean Jail .

Plaque on side of Rare bronze statue on plinth ( 18 inch tall ) of Colonel H Jones , now on display at Littledean Jail .

Rare bronze statue on plinth ( 18 inch tall ) of Colonel H Jones , now on display at Littledean Jail .

Colonel H Jones memorial situated oa the Falkland Islands

Colonel H Jones memorial plaque

Colonel H Jones gravestone

Memorial , listing some of those soldiers who were killed in action during the 1982 Falklands War

Was Colonel ‘H’ a mad fool?

Last updated at 00:39 12 May 2007

Much has been written about the hero’s death that won Colonel ‘H’ Jones a Falklands VC.

Here, for the first time, is the brutally honest and vivid account of one of the Paras who fought with him.

It raises some deeply unsettling questions

My breath sounded like a storm in my ears. Surely they could hear it? They were only a dozen metres away – no distance at all.

You know you’re really scared when you think your own breathing is going to betray you.

Sliding my weapon into the crook of my arms, I inched forward on my elbows, pushing slowly, very slowly, with my feet.

The slightest sound could lead to catastrophe for our patrol. Every movement I made was carefully measured and weighed.

I was soaked to the skin, and my knees and thighs were bruised by the rocky ground I’d crawled over.

My hands were numb with cold, and the muscles on my neck and shoulders were clenched like a vice. But I had to concentrate.

There was an Argy trench directly in front of me. No enemy visible. One heavy machine gun in place. Couldn’t miss that. I was staring straight down its barrel.

Another trench 20 yards to the left. Two enemy talking – and pink toilet paper everywhere.

The dirty devils had not dug latrines, they’d just walked out of their trenches and fouled the ground in front of their own positions.

This was encouraging. It told us they’d been worn down by the wind and weather and couldn’t be bothered to dig pits in the freezing cold.

If they were similarly sloppy about sentry duty, that was good news for our lads.

Surprisingly, no one seemed to be manning the gun pointing straight up my nose. What was going on in that trench? Better take a closer look.

As I inched forward, I could hear the Argies still chatting away in a low murmur. What were they talking about? Girlfriends? Mothers? The price of penguin meat?

All that mattered was that there was no edge of alarm in their voices; no hint they’d heard anything. I didn’t need Spanish to know they hadn’t rumbled us.

One more push and I was nearly close enough to touch the ice-cold barrel of that machine-gun.

Cloaked by the mist, I lifted myself onto one knee, rifle at the ready, and peered down into the gloom of the trench.

There they were. Three of them. Sleeping like babes, tucked up nicely in their sleeping bags, counting Falklands sheep in their sleep.

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I could have killed all three before they could say their Hail Marys. This was a unit that was exhausted and couldn’t give a damn. More good news for our lads.

It was time to pull back. But as I crawled away in reverse, slowly and deliberately, I had a hunch that we hadn’t discovered all the Argy positions and decided we should look further over to the east.

There was no way that we’d let our mates run into a lead storm that they hadn’t been warned about.

They were depending on us to recce these outlying positions before we launched our attack on Goose Green.

As we began eyeballing the ground we hadn’t covered, we were ready for anything. Or so we thought.

It was Pete Myers, the youngest member of our patrol, who spotted them first, swirling around like spirits in the mist.

“What’s that over there?” he growled.

“Get down,” I ordered. We hit the ground and tried to make out what the hell we were looking at.

One thing was for sure, they weren’t spirits. These things were neighing and whinnying.

“They’re f****** wild horses,” said Steve Jones, our Welsh lead scout. At that moment, they came thundering straight for us. It was scary as hell.

“F*** it. Let’s drop the b*******,” I spat.

“No, don’t!” said Jonesy. “Just lie still and flat! They’ll run over you! Horses hate stepping on living things!”

What did he know that I didn’t? Had he been a hussar before he joined the Paras? I didn’t think so.

There was no time to argue. The herd was upon us. I looked up at them for a moment before pressing my nose to the ground and squeezing my eyes shut.

Heads and manes tossing, they charged over us, pounding the ground in every direction, filling our senses.

I opened one eye and looked up as a mustang leapt over me. I could see the blur of its legs for a split second before one of its hooves slapped into the peat inches from my head.

Then gun shots! One, two, three! The Argies must have stampeded the horses to flush us out and pinpoint our position.

We were done for – laid out in the middle of nowhere with only horse-dung to hide behind.

As the horses vanished into the darkness, I snatched up my rifle and took aim. But it was OK. The shooting had stopped.

The Argies had only been firing to scare the horses off, turning them away from their trenches.

A few relieved shouts and nervous laughter from the enemy. The sight of wild animals coming out of the dark had rattled them, too.

“Everyone all right?” A quick head check confirmed that no one had been hoof-minced.

“How did you know they wouldn’t stamp the f*** out of us?” I asked Steve. “Some ancient bit of Welsh folklore?”

“Nah,” he answered, “Grand National. You know when those jockeys come off at Beechers Brook?

“They just roll into a ball and stay still as f***, then the horses do anything they can not to put a hoof on ’em.”

“Really?” I said. “Interesting.” My heart was pounding, I’d just produced enough adrenaline to fuel a rocket, and my second in command was telling me the reason we’d lived through it was the Grand National.

Still, the Argies didn’t suspect it was us who had spooked the horses or they would have mown the grass with machine guns. God, they were sloppy.

Careless soldiering costs lives, I reflected as we made our way back to base.

Those poor devils were going to discover the truth of that within the next three hours when our lads got stuck into them. The trouble was, so would we.

FLASHBACK. December 1981. Kenya. An hour after dawn.

As I gazed out over the African plain stretching far away into the heat haze, I blinked the salty sweat out of my eyes and tried to concentrate on the view through the sight of my rifle as I searched for the enemy.

Movement was not an option. One absent-minded swat at the cluster of flies drinking on my sweat and the game was up.

We’d laid three long snakes of green parachute cord across the bush and they slithered invisibly through the landscape.

Suddenly one came to life with a rapid tattoo of tugs – a signal from one of the other lads that the enemy was advancing into our trap.

We watched them every step of the way. They were inching forward, knowing we were out there. And every second took them deeper into our ambush.

It was only an exercise. The yellow blank-firing attachments on the muzzles of our rifles showed that. The enemy were just other lads from 2 Para.

But the stakes were high. To the victor went the spoils and that meant the right to taunt the losers over free beer for weeks to come. A prize not to be scoffed at.

Then I spotted him, moving up through the scrub to the foot of the ridge we were lying on, right up with the enemy’s lead section.

It was our boss, 2 Para’s commanding officer, Colonel Herbert ‘H’ Jones.

What the hell was H doing there? He should have been back with his tactical headquarters unit conducting operations, not up with the front platoons.

Mark Sleap saw him too. Sleapy by name but not sleepy by nature, Mark was sharp as a tack and one of our top guys. As H handed out instructions to his men, Sleapy opened up.

The ambush erupted as rifles and machine guns raked the enemy. It was fast, brutal and effective. The colonel was dead. Direct hit.

He wasn’t happy. No one likes to be killed and H humped and grumped about it. “It wouldn’t have happened,” he told Mark later.

“We’d have got you lot with our artillery when we softened up your area before moving in.”

“Maybe, sir,” said Sleapy diplomatically. “But I did get you, sir.”

It was a prophetic moment, a glimpse into a future some six months ahead. Next time, though, 2 Para wouldn’t be sweltering in Kenya; we’d be freezing our backsides off in the Falklands.

ONCE again, H would be leading from the front, where he shouldn’t be, but this time it wouldn’t be an exercise. It would be live rounds and H really would be dead.

The posthumous Victoria Cross he earned at Goose Green is probably the most controversial VC of all time.

The accounts of the events surrounding his death have mostly been written by former officers and military historians.

They’re fine as far as they go, but they can’t tell it like a front-line para – or Toms as we call ourselves – and they haven’t told the whole story. But I can. I was there.

The first thing to say is that H was a cracking bloke, the best boss I ever had in the army.

He was what we called a “crap-hat” – a soldier from a non-Para regiment, and thus a stranger to the coveted red beret – but he made an immediate impact the moment he joined us.

The hard-core Toms loved the way he called battalion meetings in the drill hall and then announced:

“Right, now that you’re all here we’re going on a ten-mile run.”

All the fat HQ wallahs, drivers and officers, who normally skived off battalion runs, were trapped and H ran the life out of them.

Like any good commander, H wanted action and if there was any glory about, he wanted it for his men and not the “Booties”, the Royal Marines who led the task force sent to the Falklands after the Argentinian invasion in April 1982.

H’s distrust of the “Booties” was apparent from the moment we tried to come ashore on the night of May 21, scrambling off the converted car ferry which had brought us south and cramming into landing craft driven by the marines.

As the boats swayed and dipped in the swell, sea-sickness was only part of the problem. There was something else in the air.

Raw fear. Any minute now a fusillade from the shore might cut us into pieces.

We thought we would head straight for the beach but, instead, we went round and round in endless circles like day-trippers on a municipal boating lake.

Just in case the enemy might have any problem spotting us, the whole performance took place in the light of a near-full moon.

Boat engines throbbed, chains rattled and clanked, and friendly Booties flashed lights and called out to one another across the water.

I was not impressed – and neither was H. We heard him bellowing as he verbally castrated a few gobby marines.

When we finally got ashore, we holed up for two days on the freezing slopes of Sussex Mountain before London gave us the go-ahead for a raid on the airfield at Goose Green to the south.

H was on top form. He had plans to formulate and there isn’t an officer on the planet that doesn’t love planning.

Critics now say his plan was too complex, with lots of overlapping waves of attack. It certainly started to come unstuck pretty quickly.

On the night of May 23, we pressed through dense mist and rain towards Camilla Creek House -a sheep farm which was our initial base for the attack.

But after seven stumbling, mind-numbing, muscle-tearing miles in full kit, we were almost there when we were told to turn back.

Bad weather had grounded the Sea King helicopters that were supposed to be moving our artillery forward and Brigadier Julian Thompson, the Bootie in charge of the task force, had called the mission off.

H kicked off like a firecracker. “I’ve waited 20 years for this,” he snarled. “Now some f****** marine’s cancelled it.”

There was nothing for it but to slog back to Sussex Mountain. With the gallows humour typical of the paras, me and the lads from the Patrols Platoon started belting out a song: John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance.

Suddenly a head popped out of the command HQ tent flap. It was H. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at us with an expression that said:

“Oh, it’s those f****** nutters from Patrols.”

H loved the Patrols Platoon – fit, aggressive soldiers whose speciality was getting up close to the enemy, acting as the eyes and ears of the regiment.

He just looked at us like a patient father with some naughty kids and never said a word.

Four days later, the battle was on for real -but there was more grief for H. On the morning of May 27, we were awaiting orders at Camilla Creek House when suddenly a melee of officers and sergeants appeared among the men. They were in a right flap.

“Move out! Move out! Away from these buildings on the double!” one of them yelled. “Grab your kit and f****** get out of here!”

It turned out the BBC had announced that we were about to attack Goose Green and, according to some of the men, had even revealed our position at Camilla Creek House.

Ironically, it turned out later that the Argy high command thought the bulletins were a double bluff, designed to wrong-foot them.

But the BBC announcement was a real jolt for H and left him wondering how much the enemy knew about his intentions.

It wasn’t his day. The chaos caused by the BBC meant that several officers failed to make a vital briefing meeting.

On top of that, the Special Forces recces that he’d been relying on to assess the readiness of the enemy were turning out to be a fairytale, while a Harrier jet had just been lost in a raid that left the enemy unscathed and on full alert.

All of which was enough to put any colonel into a spin on the eve of a battle.

Nothing travels faster in a battalion than news of the boss’s mood and the word was out. H was not a happy man.

CLICK, click. Click, click, click. It sounded like sinister insects calling out to each other in the darkness and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

For this wasn’t insects. It was our lads fixing their bayonets and preparing to advance down the narrow isthmus of land leading to Goose Green.

I was thrilled and I’m not ashamed to say it. I was a soldier and the thought of the fight to come gave me a warrior’s rush.

One or two hands reached out and briefly clasped mine as they slipped by me into the darkness. Somewhere in the gloom a young para puked up with the tension.

He got that off his chest and went on to fight like a demon.

Things kicked off around 3am when one of the lads from B Company spotted a silhouette in the middle of a field. “It must be a scarecrow,” whispered a young officer.

A scarecrow? He was on the Falklands, the place was crawling with Argies and he thought he was seeing a scarecrow.

“Hands up!” shouted one of the lads. With that, the scarecrow came to life. “Por favor?” he said and reached under his poncho for his weapon.

Two rifles and two machine guns opened up on him without a moment’s hesitation. Bullets tore through him and tracer rounds ignited his clothing, lighting him up like a Halloween pumpkin.

Soon B Company had taken out nearly 20 Argy trenches, tearing through them with machine-guns, grenades and bayonets.

It was a good start to their advance but elsewhere H’s plans were evaporating as fast as a bottle of port in the officers’ mess.

We were supposed to be receiving support from HMS Arrow, softening up the enemy positions with bombardments of huge shells at the rate of 30 a minute. This would have shortened the engagement by hours.

In the event, Arrow had fired just one shell before her gun jammed. Meanwhile, the Harrier jets we had been promised were fog-bound on their carriers.

 

A BRIEF HISTORICAL GLIMPSE INTO SOME OF THE VARIOUS ORIGINAL AND RARE WW2 SAS OFFICERS PEAK CAPS, BERETS, COMMEMORATIVE AND OTHER SAS MEMORABILIA ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK .

FOR THE FIRST TIME ON PUBLIC DISPLAY …EXCEPTIONALLY RARE AND ORIGINAL WW2 SAS OFFICERS PEAK CAP , WW2 SAS OFF-WHITE BERET AND  OTHERS HERE IN AND AMONGST NOW THE UK’S LARGEST PRIVATELY OWNED SAS COLLECTIONS ON PUBLIC DISPLAY .

Above : Here is an original oil painting of one of the SAS founders David Stirling aka ” The Phantom Major”, by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman, here on display at Littledean Jail

ABOVE; AN ORIGINAL AND VERY RARE WW2 SAS OFFICERS PEAK CAP

Here is an original oil painting of one of the SAS founders Paddy Mayne aka “Mad Jack ” by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman, here on display at Littledean Jail