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Why it took 25 years to solve the greatest prison break in British history

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There was nothing to suggest that October 22 1966 would be anything other than a typically dismal Saturday at Wormwood Scrubs, a dingy Victorian prison in north-west London. Late that afternoon, inmate 455 told a guard that the idea of spending his free time watching TV with the other high-security prisoners in D Hall was a “farce” and he’d prefer to read in his cell.

He then made his way to the second-floor landing, where he squeezed through a broken window and shimmied down the outside wall into the rain-slicked exercise yard sometime between 6pm and 7pm. An accomplice waited in a hiding place on Artillery Road nearby. After a brief burst of communication over walkie-talkie, a handmade rope ladder fell into the yard as the guards and inmates settled down to their weekly film night. The most audacious prison break in modern British history had begun.

When the alarm sounded at roll call less than an hour later, the prison governor picked up the phone to call Shepherd’s Bush police station. “One of our chaps has gone over the wall,” he explained to a PC Frankling. Inmate 455 was no ordinary prisoner. George Blake, the 43-year-old ex-MI6 spy turned Soviet agent, had been unmasked in 1961 following a tip-off from a Russian defector. At the Old Bailey that May, Blake was handed a 42-year sentence, the longest non-life sentence ever given by a British court. It represented, the media reported, a year for every intelligence agent killed due to Blake’s betrayal — a claim that has been contested ever since. The severity of the punishment shocked even the prime minister Harold Macmillan, who the presiding judge had consulted the night before the verdict. “The LCJ [Lord Chief Justice] has passed a savage sentence — 42 years!” Macmillan noted in his diary.

Blake had served just five years of his sentence by the time he escaped. After a months-long manhunt, he resurfaced in East Berlin, then moved permanently to Moscow. Speculation as to the identity of his accomplices dominated the news cycle, with theories ranging from the plausible to the absurd. The novelist John le Carré mused on a potential KGB operation. Others that the escape was an elaborate inside job, with British intelligence releasing Blake in order to redeploy him against the Soviets. Perhaps he had flown incognito to Sydney, or been driven up the M1 motorway in a hearse. Some even whispered that a deep-cover Czech orchestra had smuggled Blake out of Britain in a cello case. To many, the Russian connection seemed most likely. “[Blake’s] escape was [probably] engineered indirectly by the Russians, and he is now well on the way to, if not yet behind, the Iron Curtain,” declared one broadsheet editorial.

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The truth, when it finally emerged more than 20 years later, was even more extraordinary. Michael Randle and Pat Pottle were a pair of English peace activists, now middle-aged, who had met Blake at Wormwood Scrubs during a stint inside for organising a non-violent protest at Wethersfield military base in Essex. They worked on the escape plan with another inmate, Sean Bourke, a charismatic Irish career criminal with a penchant for violence and literary quotation. Their respective motivations were clear. For Randle and Pottle, Blake’s sentence represented a “vicious and indefensible” case of cold war-era political malice. For Bourke, the prison break offered an unmissable chance to inject some adventure and sense of purpose into his life.

A black and white photo of a man smiling as he walks away from imposing prison gates. The man in question is Michael Randle on his release from Wormwood Scrubs prison in February 1963, after serving an 18-month sentence for his involvement in a sit-in at a US air base in Essex
Michael Randle leaving Wormwood Scrubs in February 1963, after his 18-month sentence. It was here that he and fellow peace activist Pat Pottle met George Blake © Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
A black and white image taken in 1961 of a young man sitting at a typewriter. The man is Pat Pottle, a peace activist. He is in the offices of the anti-war group the Committee of 100; the CND logo can be seen on a poster hanging on a wall behind him
Pat Pottle in 1961. While firm friends, Pottle and Randall were very different men: ‘[Pottle] drank gin and smoked, while Randle was a kind of Quaker vegetarian’ © Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

When Randle and Pottle’s roles were publicly revealed by The Sunday Times in 1987, the blowback was immediate. They were charged with three historic offences. “It would be poetic justice,” sniffed The Sun, “if this nasty pair could be locked away for the remaining 40 years of Blake’s sentence.”

When the case went to trial at the Old Bailey in June 1991, it was in the same courtroom in which Blake had been convicted 30 years earlier. The new trial, studded with Special Branch agents, bombshell testimonies and novel legal arguments, was every bit as dramatic as its predecessor. But its impact ran even deeper, its shockwaves felt today in the British criminal justice system.

Whatever the shifts in geopolitics since Blake’s day, our collective fascination with the world of international espionage is undimmed. In April this year, two young British men were accused of spying for China and subsequently charged under the Official Secrets Act. This summer, it was difficult to scroll through social media without some reference to the unmasking of Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva, two Russian agents arrested on espionage charges in Slovenia in 2022, who were shipped back to their homeland in early August, to an effusive welcome from President Vladimir Putin. So committed were they to their cover story — an entrepreneurial Argentine family setting up home in Slovenia — that their two young children had no idea about their parents’ double life, nor spoke a word of Russian. It didn’t take a cultural critic to note the similarities to the cult TV drama The Americans.


Blake was born George Behar in Rotterdam in 1922 to a Dutch mother and Sephardic Jewish father, who was a naturalised Brit on account of his service in the first world war. Blake’s upbringing was peripatetic, with spells in the Netherlands and Egypt. Britain was a distant place experienced mostly second hand; before the outbreak of the second world war, he had visited only once. “To betray, you first have to belong. I never belonged,” he later said. The war made Blake. A talented linguist, he was recruited by MI6 in the early 1940s after a spell in the Dutch resistance under the nom de guerre Max de Vries. He arrived in Britain after a daring, circuitous journey through Belgium, France and Spain.

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Following stints reading Russian at Cambridge University after the war, and working with naval intelligence in East Germany, Blake was posted to Seoul at the start of the Korean war. He later claimed that the brutality of the war is what fully converted him to the communist cause, after a brief university flirtation with Marxist theory: “I saw the Korean war with my own eyes — young American PoWs dying and enormous American Flying Fortresses bombing small defenceless villages. And when you [have seen] that, you don’t feel particularly proud to be on the western side.”

He was captured in 1950 and, after three years in captivity, he was released and sent to Berlin by MI6 with the goal of recruiting Soviet and East German double agents. The British had no idea that Blake had long since passed a note from his captors to the Soviet embassy offering his services as double agent. For the next eight years, he would meet his Soviet handler in London and Berlin. When he was finally summoned for interrogation in London, following a tip-off from a Polish communist defector, he quickly confessed.

The news of Blake’s treachery was met with revulsion and disbelief. One MI6 training instructor reportedly burst into tears. Leniency was not likely to be on the cards. Blake did not command the same protection afforded to the more establishment “Cambridge Five”, none of whom were ever prosecuted for their decades as Soviet double agents. Blake — unapologetic, cosmopolitan, icily intellectual — didn’t have the bonhomie of Kim Philby or booze-soaked melancholy of Guy Burgess or Donald Maclean. While Philby was offered immunity in return for his full co-operation, no similar deal was offered to Blake. “But then Blake, a foreigner, was not a gentleman,” wrote historian Ben Macintyre.

A black-and white photo of a man in a suit and tie standing on a bridge. He is Sean Bourke, the third member of the trio who helped George Blake escape from prison. The picture was taken in 1968 in Bourke’s native Dublin
The trio’s third member, Sean Bourke, in 1968, back in his native Ireland, from where the British government tried, and failed, to extradite him. After enjoying a period of minor celebrity, he died penniless and alone © Bentley Archive/Popperfoto/Getty Images

I first learnt of the Blake escape long after it happened, in Thomas Grant’s Court No.1 The Old Bailey: The Trials and Scandals that Shocked Modern Britain, published in 2019. I found myself less drawn to Blake himself than to Michael Randle and Pat Pottle, the genial peace activists, and to Sean Bourke, their squiffy accomplice. How had this unlikely trio pulled off such a daring act? Were their professed motivations really so straightforward? And why had it taken decades for the might of British intelligence to catch up with them?


In January this year, I travelled from London to Saltaire, a pretty Victorian model village on the outskirts of Bradford, West Yorkshire. The walk from the station to the Randle family home took me past a preserved former cloth mill and cluster of 19th-century terraces. On arrival, I was greeted by Michael, now well into his nineties, and his youngest son Gavin, a middle-aged musician.

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I’d initially spoken to Gavin on the phone at the end of last year. It wasn’t an easy time for the family. Anne Randle, Gavin’s mother and Michael’s wife of over half a century, had recently died after a long illness. When I arrived at their home, Gavin offered up a photo of his beaming newly wed parents in the early 1960s. “I still think, ‘Oh, I must tell Anne this [or] that,’ before I realise that it isn’t possible,” Michael told me. Though there were signs his short-term memory had begun to decline, it quickly became apparent there was little wrong with his recall of the more distant past. During our afternoon together, I found both Randles urbane, winning company, the conversation serious, though laced with mischief.

Michael Randle was born in Worcester Park, Surrey in 1933. He lived in England for much of his childhood, though he spent the duration of the second world war in Ireland with his mother’s Republican family in County Carlow and Kildare. “It taught me there was more than one perspective to take [on] an issue”, he explained with wry understatement. “They lived near a prison [during] the Easter Rising and [they] could hear the executioners’ rifles from their home.” Randle, following his father, registered as a conscientious objector in his teens. In his twenties, he joined the anti-nuclear-weapons protest movement, and served as secretary of the Committee of 100, the direct action group founded by Bertrand Russell, among other grandees of the British peace movement.

Pat Pottle was born into a large, working-class family in London in 1938. His upbringing was marked by the influence of his socialist father, a trade union official. On the urging of his mother, he trained as a printer before going into business in London. Like Randle, his political commitments crystallised early on. By the end of the 1950s, Pottle was organising his first anti-war protests. He became one of the founding members of the Committee of 100 in 1960. The following year, he defended himself against charges under the Official Secrets Act relating to a sit-in at the US air base at Wethersfield, Essex. Despite putting up a spirited fight in court, Pottle, Randle and several others were jailed for 18 months and sent to Wormwood Scrubs. It was there they met George Blake.

“Pat was very outgoing. There was no side to him. He was straightforward,” said Randle when I asked him about his friend, who died in 2000 aged 62. The two men had strikingly different temperaments. “Pottle was [always] a great raconteur. He drank gin and smoked,” said Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian’s longtime former security editor and a close friend of both men. “Randle was quite ascetic and skinny. Sort of a vegetarian Quaker.” What they shared was faith in non-violent resistance.

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Randle and Pottle first met Blake at a prison music class. Pottle later wrote that the sympathy between the three was mutual. Blake admired their principled anti-nuclear stance, while they considered him to be a political prisoner. Do you ever think of escaping, Pottle asked him one day. Blake replied that he thought of little else. Pottle was soon shipped out to an open prison, while Randle remained at Wormwood Scrubs, but they continued to mull over the idea of Blake’s escape.

Randle met Sean Bourke working at the prison bakehouse. In a story crammed with unlikely, outsized characters, he is perhaps the loudest. The 32-year-old had had an eventful upbringing in Limerick. At 12, he was sent to a reformatory for stealing a bunch of bananas. After moving to England in his late teens, he was packed off to borstal for handling stolen goods. From then, his criminal career escalated. In 1961, he posted a biscuit tin containing a home-made bomb to the address of a police officer he suspected of spreading false rumours about his sexuality. The device shot into the would-be victim’s ceiling, landing Bourke a seven-year sentence. What had attracted Randle, the vegetarian pacifist, to Bourke, apart from a shared acquaintance with Blake? “He was charming and intelligent,” Randle offered, by way of explanation. “Entertaining. He had a very good sense of humour.”

By 1963, Randle was back home in north London, now with a young family to support. But this period of domesticity was soon interrupted by a phone call from Bourke. It was mid-May, 1966, and he was living in a halfway house in west London. He said he was anxious to meet up. Delighted, if surprised, to hear from him, Randle told Bourke to make his way to his family home in Kentish Town. After a brief burst of reminiscence, Bourke grew sombre. Blake’s mood had deteriorated drastically in prison, he told Randle. Bourke had agreed to work on an escape plan and had made some progress, including getting a walkie-talkie to Blake. But financing remained an issue. The Randles immediately agreed to help.

After months of preparation, Randle telephoned Pottle, who had spent a brief spell working as Bertrand Russell’s secretary following his release from prison. Randle had something to discuss in person, he told his friend. Pottle understood straight away that it must be about Blake. They met that evening at Holborn Tube station, near Pottle’s printing press, and he agreed to help.

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The success of the plot relied on a mix of courage and good fortune. Bourke sourced a getaway car, knitted a rope ladder and rented a bedsit near the prison under an assumed name. Randle drummed up some money from a small circle of well wishers in the peace movement. The escape itself passed with just one significant hitch: Blake broke his wrist on landing. A friendly doctor was rapidly procured, though it became apparent Blake would have to be moved before the bedsit’s landlady appeared for her weekly cleaning day. He then lived between a series of unsuitable safe houses before Pottle agreed to lodge him and an increasingly truculent Bourke in his Hampstead flat.

After discarding a series of ludicrous schemes — one had Blake using chemicals to black up in order to flee Britain under a false passport — a second-hand Commer camper van was procured and modified with a hidden compartment in which Blake could be stowed. Just before Christmas 1966, the Randles took what appeared to be a family road trip to Berlin. After days of relentless, amphetamine-fuelled driving, Blake was released from his hiding place into the freezing East German night. “He waved, and almost at once was lost in the darkness,” Randle recalled.


© Cristiana Couceiro

Meanwhile, in London, Bourke’s flair for self-sabotage was becoming apparent. Not only did he fail to dispose of the getaway car, but he rang a west London police station to report its precise whereabouts. During his time at Pottle’s flat, supposedly in hiding, he would regularly walk the streets of Hampstead, even accosting a local boy to post a photo of himself to the office of a tabloid newspaper. Later, it transpired that he’d made tape recordings of his and Blake’s walkie-talkie conversations, to be auctioned off to the News of the World.

Despite Bourke’s best efforts at conducting a one-man publicity campaign, the furore died down and normality gradually returned. Randle and Pottle went back to their busy lives devoted to various leftwing causes. “I remember when George Blake’s name came up when we were playing Trivial Pursuit,” recalled Pottle’s son Casper, when we spoke on the phone. “My parents started creasing up and I had no idea why.”

Blake’s and Bourke’s trajectories were less happy. Bourke followed Blake to Moscow in 1967 and the two men were placed in a lavish flat. There their relationship drifted into mutual resentment. Blake was “sullen, intolerant, arrogant and pompous”, Bourke later wrote, intimating that Blake was spying on him (almost certainly true) and even manoeuvring to have him assassinated (this more outlandish claim has never been proven). As for Blake, his flatmate’s grandstanding quickly lost its charm. “I soon began to resent him,” he wrote. “I thought at least he should do some housework.”

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In 1968, Bourke returned to Ireland, riding a wave of self-generated publicity. By now, he was speaking openly to the press about his role in the escape. Attempts at extradition by the British government failed and Bourke was left to bask in his new celebrity. His sensational tell-all, The Springing of George Blake, appeared in 1970. It set out for the first time — with major lacunae and harsh criticism of Blake — the events of the escape and its aftermath. Michael and Anne Randle became “Michael and Anne Reynolds”, and Pat Pottle became the equally easy to decode “Pat Porter”.

“Why on earth did you use our actual Christian names?” Randle demanded on the first of several visits to Bourke in Ireland during the 1970s. Bourke replied he wasn’t “the simple, uncomplicated Irishman people . . . take me for”. But the book attracted positive reviews and surprisingly little blowback from the British state. Randle and Pottle spent months waiting for a knock at the door that never came. During Randle’s second visit, Bourke said he’d taken a call from a detective from Scotland Yard who’d told him they had long known about Randle and Pottle’s involvement in Blake’s escape and decided not to prosecute, not least because they were now leading “useful lives in the community”.

Sean Bourke died penniless and alone in January 1982, having spent his last years in a caravan on the coast of County Clare. The cause of death was heart failure, likely brought on by chronic alcoholism. Public interest in Randle and Pottle continued, with a series of books dropping more unsubtle hints about their involvement in the now historic escape. When The Sunday Times named the pair outright in early October 1987, Scotland Yard finally made contact. Randle and Pottle arrived at Holborn Police Station on October 30. Their “no comment” interviews were polite and perfunctory. A formal reopening of the enquiry into the Blake escape was announced shortly afterwards, on the urging of the rightwing press and 101 MPs who signed a motion backing the new investigation.


To set out their side of the story, and counter any suggestion that they or the wider peace movement had been in thrall to the KGB, Randle and Pottle co-authored a book, The Blake Escape: How We Freed George Blake — And Why. When the two men, now well into their fifties, were charged following its publication in 1989, the enormity of their situation finally began to sink in. The maximum sentence on charges of aiding the escape of a convicted prisoner, conspiring to harbour him and conspiring to prevent, hinder or interfere with his arrest ran up to nine years each. “I was really proud of my dad,” said Casper Pottle, “[but] when the police search the house it gets real, doesn’t it? We were teenagers, it makes an impression.”

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Despite pressure to plead guilty, Randle and Pottle refused. They instead pleaded not guilty on grounds of “necessity of conscience”, a rarely invoked defence with its roots in 17th-century religious nonconformism. Its only previous modern usage was during the 1985 trial of Clive Ponting, a Ministry of Defence official who was tried and acquitted under the Official Secrets Act for revealing to an MP that government ministers had misled Parliament over the sinking of the Argentine warship General Belgrano during the Falklands war. For Randle and Pottle, Blake’s sentence had represented a moral outrage, and aiding his escape was therefore justified.

Pottle engaged Geoffrey Robertson, one of Britain’s leading human rights lawyers. “We [wanted] to argue that it was an abuse of process . . . [because] the authorities had known of their involvement since at least 1970,” Robertson explained when we spoke. In 1970, a detective named Rollo Watts had written a report outlining the case against Randle and Pottle, new evidence had revealed. The defence suspected that his report offered the truth as to why neither man had been brought to book. That it had simply been too humiliating for the state to admit that such a high-profile prisoner had been freed by a ramshackle group of outsiders.

The case moved to judicial review at the High Court in July 1990. The now retired Watts, a squat, nervous man with long, slightly out-of-time sideburns, was called to testify. He denied ever suggesting that the proposed prosecution of Randle and Pottle had been halted due to political pressure. When Watts left the witness box, two nameless men, likely intelligence agents, handed the judge a memo written by an MI5 officer in 1970. In it, the officer alleged Watts had openly said that “[prosecuting] Randle and Pottle . . . might be persecution — a big fish had got away so they were taking it out on the little fish.”

Still, the law pressed on. On November 15 1990, the “abuse of process” argument was dismissed out of hand. As Randle and Pottle’s new “conscience defence” was not formally recognised by the law, neither Robertson nor the other lawyers engaged by Randle could represent them beyond the preliminary hearings. They were on their own. The trial finally began on June 17 1991.

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A balding, grey-haired man standing by a car, in a suit and tie. He is the Soviet double agent George Blake, who escaped prison and returned to Moscow in 1996, where he lived until he died in 2020
George Blake in 2001 in Moscow, where he died in 2020. None of the more establishment ‘Cambridge Five’ spies was prosecuted, whereas Blake was serving a 42-year sentence when he met Pottle and Randle in prison © Kommersant Photo/AFP/Getty Images

For the next nine days, the public gallery was packed with supporters, and journalists jostled for space on the press benches. The atmosphere was electric. “It might sound weird, when your father’s liberty is in the balance, but it was good fun,” recalled Casper Pottle. “There was a real camaraderie. We’d be spending every day together, going to the pub at lunch.” It was remarkable, he added, to see how seamlessly his father and Randle slipped back into the campaigning mode of their youth. “They’d built up so many contacts in the press. All sorts of people showed up,” he said. “Dave Gilmour, Harold Pinter, Alexei Sayle . . . I think Dad needed the adrenaline.” John Berger, another ex-member of the Committee of 100, sent a letter of support. “I wanted to tell you how happy I was to read [about you] . . . And to tell you how much you have my admiration,” he wrote. 

Randle and Pottle pressed on with the abuse-of-process argument, despite protestations from the judge. Randle appeared in court each day with a pile of legal texts procured from London’s public libraries, citing ever more obscure cases as defence. Pottle’s approach was more direct. “If you or the jury think [our defence is] a load of old codswallop, then you can say so . . . But at least give us the chance to say it.” Neither denied their role in the escape, which they considered a humanitarian act. “I refuse to believe that George Blake would have been better rotting in some English jail than living a semi-ordinary life back in Moscow,” Pottle told the jury.

Then he called his next witness: George Blake. Over video link, Blake stressed that there had been no KGB interference in his escape and that no money had changed hands. His appearance dominated the next day’s news cycle. “I think the jury were amazed [to hear from Blake]. Almost stunned. No one seemed to be thinking, ‘Oh, how awful we’ve got this bloody spy coming from Moscow,’” said Richard Norton-Taylor, who covered the trial for The Guardian.

Despite the outpouring of support, both defendants fully expected a guilty verdict. “I remember [someone] asking what they’d take with them to prison if they were convicted,” said Norton-Taylor. “Michael said Ulysses. Pat said rolling tobacco. That summed them up.” In his closing speech, Pottle said he could understand the moral indignation about Blake’s espionage, but that Blake’s original sentence had never been about justice. Its severity could at least partly be explained by the fact that Blake was “not of the ‘old school’, not ‘one of us’. He was a foreigner and half-Jewish to boot,” Pottle told the jury. “You are 12 individuals with minds of your own . . . we think what we did was right. If you think the same, then obviously you will not find us guilty.” Then he quoted Bertrand Russell: “Remember your humanity and forget the rest.”


On a damp midweek morning in February this year, I travelled to Inner London Crown Court. I made my way to the shabby public gallery overlooking Court Four, which was packed with supporters of five climate activists charged with criminal damage after smashing a door at JPMorgan’s London headquarters in 2021 during a protest against the bank’s status as the world’s largest investor in fossil fuel expansion.

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In March 2023, two of the accused had served seven-week stints in prison after flouting a court order not to invoke the climate crisis during an unrelated trial. The judge had banned them from explaining to the jury that they had been protesting to raise awareness of climate change and fuel poverty. The past few years have witnessed a steady spate of acquittals in climate activism cases involving defendants who have deployed the same defence of conscience used by Michael Randle and Pat Pottle in the 1990s. “[The] Randle and Pottle trial has been an inspiration for the work we’ve been doing,” Tim Crosland, an Extinction Rebellion legal adviser, told me. “Juries have an absolute right to acquit . . . [that depends] on understanding why people did what they did.” 

This rash of acquittals has been a source of embarrassment for the state. Judges have taken to banning any mention of climate change, fuel poverty or even the history of the civil rights movement, and jail sentences have been passed down for contempt of court for activists who have refused to comply. In one case, government lawyers pursued Trudi Warner, a 68-year-old retired social worker, for contempt of court. She had stood alone outside Inner London Crown Court during the March 2023 trial involving the same defendants I’d seen in court. “Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience,” read her placard. This April, the High Court finally threw out the charges against her. “[It can] have a chilling effect”, said Crosland. “If people hear the story they say, ‘No, that can’t have happened’. Yes it did.”


The judge’s summing-up on June 26 1991 began with reference to Randle and Pottle’s ready admission of their guilt. Whether or not their being taken to trial after decades of inaction was an abuse of process was not a matter for the jury to concern themselves with, he said. Though he could not order a conviction, he implored the jury to “loyally honour my ruling on the law whatever view you may have formed of the defendants”. The jury retired just before noon, and Randle and Pottle waited in the court canteen. After an hour of inaction, they made their way to the pub for what they expected to be their final meal as free men.

At 3pm, the announcement filtered through the court. The jury had returned their verdict. “If you can cope, so can I,” Anne Randle whispered in her husband’s ear. In the same dock they had stood in 30 years earlier, before their fateful spell at Wormwood Scrubs, Randle and Pottle peered at the jury for any clues. Silence descended across the courtroom. “Members of the jury, in the respect of count one . . . do you find the defendants guilty or not guilty?”

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“Not guilty,” came the foreman’s reply. The verdict was greeted by a wall of noise. Randle’s sons burst into tears. Somewhere from the back of the court came a shout straight from the football terraces. “It was my brother,” laughed Casper Pottle when I asked him about it. “All the accounts have said he shouted ‘Come on you Spurs’, but he’s a Queen’s Park Rangers fan. It was ‘Come on you Rs!’”

Randle and Pottle were found not guilty on every count of the indictment. Outside the court, the jurors embraced the pair they’d just acquitted. “Thank God for the jury system and the independence of jurors,” a jubilant Randle told assembled reporters. Passers-by offered their congratulations, as did Blake when he telephoned from Moscow that evening during the raucous celebrations. Not everyone was pleased. “A Bad Day for British Justice,” stormed The Telegraph. “Stinkers of the Old Bailey,” fumed The Sun.

Norton-Taylor summed up the prevailing opinion on what became known as the “perverse verdict”. By the early 1990s, the controversy of Blake’s treachery and escape had begun to feel like a relic of the past. The cold war was nominally over and the Berlin Wall had fallen. “That atmosphere had changed, really. Juries can smell oppression. The state knew who it was years before.” Even those unsympathetic to Blake didn’t doubt the sincerity of Randle and Pottle. “They were a brilliant double act really. It was one of the reasons they were acquitted,” said Casper Pottle. “It was a DIY jailbreak and a DIY defence. I’ve always thought those were contributing factors.”

Some regard Randle and Pottle’s acquittal as evidence of a more decent epoch in British justice. A time when fair-mindedness could trump relentless pressure from the tabloid press. “Perhaps the biggest heroine of the case was English justice itself and its tradition of independent juries and equality before the law,” wrote Thomas Grant in his history of the Old Bailey. Still, the lack of an earlier prosecution had less to do with high mindedness, than a desire to avoid humiliation. Randle and Pottle’s acquittal was down to the jury and not the beneficence of the state.

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George Blake died in December 2020, aged 98, having lived long enough to see his reputation move from highly controversial to cold war curio. Randle and Pottle continued to take an interest in politics and protest. “My father was political right up until his death,” said Casper Pottle. “He kept that anarchist streak. He always kept his own mind. I remember just before the trial, it was during the Gulf war, I went down to a demo with some friends from school. We sat down in the road by Parliament Square. A policeman told us to move and we did.” Later, he returned to find that his parents had joined the same protest. When they refused to move, they were both arrested and taken to the police cells for processing.

LONDON LEGENDS

This is the final in a series on urban legends. Francisco Garcia’s first piece was about the cult of personality around Britain’s most prolific hangman, Albert Pierrepoint. The second was about the compulsive digger known as the Hackney Mole Man.

Francisco Garcia is the author of “We All Go Into the Dark: the Hunt for Bible John”, published by Mudlark/HarperCollins

Follow @FTMag to find out about our latest stories first and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen

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Tiny town nicknamed ‘Little Marrakesh’ has affordable 4* hotel stays and £23 flights

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Taroudant is much smaller in size than Marrakech, and also considered calmer and less crowded

MOROCCO has become more popular as a holiday destination in recent years, especially as a winter sun destination.

But those looking to beat the crowds and for an even cheaper alternative to Marrakesh, might want to consider visiting Taroudant.

Taroudant is much smaller in size than Marrakech, and also considered calmer and less crowded

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Taroudant is much smaller in size than Marrakech, and also considered calmer and less crowdedCredit: Alamy
Domaine Villa Talaa is a 4* hotel with an outdoor pool, spa and wellness centre, gardens with mountain views, and good room rates

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Domaine Villa Talaa is a 4* hotel with an outdoor pool, spa and wellness centre, gardens with mountain views, and good room ratesCredit: Alamy

The city, which is sometimes called ‘Little Marrakesh’, is known for its impressive red-mud walls and views of the High Atlas Mountains.

As its nickname suggests, it’s much smaller in size than Marrakesh, and also considered calmer and less crowded.

Many visitors say it offers one of the most authentic experiences of every day Moroccan life.

Taroudant and Marrakesh bear many similarities – both cities have rich cultures that are influenced by Berber tradition and Islamic civilisations, and they have medinas (old towns) and souks (open air marketplaces).

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But Taroudant also has its own unique features, including its walls, landmarks and location.

For a short time in the 16th century, Taroudant was the capital of Morocco. Its location between two mountain ranges was why it was chosen.

To defend it, a huge wall was built around the city, which today are among the best preserved in Morocco.

Made of honeyed stone, the walls are seven kilometres long and encircle the entire medina.

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Marrakech best budget friendly autumn getaway

The best time to visit the walls is at sunset to see the low light make the stone glow.

And the best way to see the walls is to walk, bike or take a horse-drawn carriage, known as a calèche.

Taroudant’s landmarks include Palais Caludio Bravo, famous for being the former home of Chilean painter Claudio Bravo.

The palace houses a large collection of his works, as well as other artists, including Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso.

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Its architecture is noteworthy as it’s made up of several wings and structures connected by courtyards and covered passages.

The palace’s beautiful garden is a mini-replica of the famous Menara garden in Marrakesh, with trails, sculptures and exotic plants dotted around.

Taroudant is known for its well-preserved wall that surround its medina

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Taroudant is known for its well-preserved wall that surround its medinaCredit: Alamy
Palais Claudio Bravo is famous for being the former home of Chilean painter Claudio Bravo

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Palais Claudio Bravo is famous for being the former home of Chilean painter Claudio BravoCredit: Alamy

Taroudant has a good location because it’s close to many other attractions, making it a good base for exploring the surrounding area.

Marrakesh is about a three and a half our drive away, and Skoura, an oasis town on the way to the desert, is about a five hour journey east.

The coastal resort of Agadir, with an international airport, is about an hour’s drive west, and Essaouira, with a pretty beach and coastal medina, is about a four hour journey northwest.

Tarroudant is also located at the foot of the Atlas mountains, making it a good base for hiking

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When it comes to places to stay, there are lots of luxurious 4* hotels for cheap prices.

Domaine Villa Talaa is a 4* hotel with an outdoor pool, spa and wellness centre, gardens with mountain views, and lots of activities, such as ping-pong, walking tours, bike tours and cooking classes.

Other alternatives to Marrakesh in Morocco

Casablanca – a modern city with a youthful vibe, sea breezes, and few tourists than Marrakesh. It’s a mix of modern dynamism and scenic beaches.

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Meknes – a medieval city with a stunning Medina, historic architecture, mosques, royal palaces, and hammams.

Ouarzazate – a gateway to the fortified village and UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ait Ben haddou, and is nicknamed the ‘door of the desert’.

Fes – a place to explore ancient history.

Rif – a place to hike the cedar forests.

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Rabat – a place to discover Morroccan art.

Oualidia – a place to enjoy lazy days by the sea.

Taghazout – a place for surfing and sun salutations.

Prices for two adults for one night start from £75.

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Dar Zitoune is another 4* hotel built in the Berber style using local materials.

It’s set in four acres of landscaped grounds with olive, papaya, and citrus trees, has a large heated swimming pool and Jacuzzi, a spa, and a gourmet restaurant that serves a mix of Moroccan and Western specialities.

Prices for two adults for one night start from £99.

Flights from London Gatwick to Agadir, the nearest airport, are also good value.

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At the beginning of November, a one way flight with easyJet starts from £22.99.

Marrakesh was recently named the best city for a budget friendly Autumn break.

Agadir, with an international airport, is about an hour's drive west of Taroudant

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Agadir, with an international airport, is about an hour’s drive west of TaroudantCredit: Alamy

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have a Skims through this week’s stories

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HTSI editor Jo Ellison
HTSI editor Jo Ellison © Marili Andre

First, a confession. I have never watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Nor the Real Housewives series, nor any of the reality juggernauts that have dominated television schedules for the past decade. When Kim Kardashian first became a major presence in fashion, I was one of those alien people who remained totally ignorant of her cultural value. I would watch bemusedly as she wiggled into front-row seats at Tom Ford and Givenchy while editors would variously venerate her presence or tut loudly and clutch their pearls. 

Kardashian has always been a provocateur in fashion: her very existence seems to excite more heated argument – about relevance, privilege, changing attitudes and talent – than any other in the western world. And yet despite being the focus of a million weird projections, she’s always come across as intelligent, articulate, even-handed and – for someone so ridiculously famous – oddly down-to-earth.

Kim Kardashian wears Skims nylon-mix Milky Sheer long-sleeved dress, £88, polyamide-mix Fits Everybody triangle bralette, £34, and matching full brief knickers, £20. Jude leather shoes, £485
Kim Kardashian wears Skims nylon-mix Milky Sheer long-sleeved dress, £88, polyamide-mix Fits Everybody triangle bralette, £34, and matching full brief knickers, £20. Jude leather shoes, £485 © Vanessa Beecroft

This year marks the fifth birthday of her “solutionswear” line, Skims, the company she founded with Jens and Emma Grede in 2019 to rebrand support hosiery, girdles and other deeply unsexy undergarments as something desirable and new. And, boy, has she succeeded. As Maria Shollenbarger writes in this week’s issue: “Skims has since proliferated into a full-blown apparel company, with a market valuation of $4bn and pole position in the global pop-culture discourse.”

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Maria met Kardashian at the Skims headquarters in Los Angeles last month. Chief among her observations was Kardashian’s laser focus, her determination and her personal investment. “I handle all the visuals, all the ideas, fabrics, fits,” she tells Maria. “I’m the face of this brand.” 

What’s so brilliant about Skims is that it offers the kind of lingerie you think you should be able to pick up anywhere, but actually find quite scarce. Kardashian couldn’t find shapewear that matched her skin tone. So she came up with a solution. And is now bouncing all the way to the bank.

Kardashian is a living legend, but she is not the only one in this issue. Bob Crowley, the theatre designer, director and costume designer, has worked on so many productions that his artistic signature is scrawled in almost every theatre on Broadway – and off it – and the West End. His little brother John is no slouch either: the director’s latest film, We Live in Time, will come out later this year. (Side note: his first movie, Intermission, starring a delightfully callow Cillian Murphy and Colin Farrell, remains one of my favourites.) As the brothers mark new career milestones, they reflect on their relationship, their shared love of drama and the things that have inspired their work. John has been too in awe of his older brother to work with him much in the past, but I hope he overcomes that notion soon.

Part of Noritsugu Oda’s 1,400-strong collection of chairs
Part of Noritsugu Oda’s 1,400-strong collection of chairs © Kentauros Yasunaga

At HTSI we love an obsessive and in Noritsugu Oda we have perhaps found the most endearing yet. Oda has worked for most of his career as an illustrator, but his pastime has been collecting chairs: he now has 1,400 designs of historical importance, of which he keeps more than 100 in his specially appointed home. Kanae Hasegawa goes to visit him on the island of Hokkaido to admire one of the greatest private archives in the world . Now 78, Oda is beginning to consider what he’ll do with his extraordinary legacy – but first he’s going to have a long sit down.

Is there an optimum temperature at which food should be served?
Is there an optimum temperature at which food should be served? © Lebrecht Music & Arts/Alamy

Lastly, how hot do you like your food? Do you love your plate to sizzle? Do you keep a plaque chauffante to hand? Ajesh Patalay investigates the politics of heat this week, and whether an optimum meal temperature exists. Turns out I may be a hypo-taster, as I rather like my food lukewarm. 

@jellison22

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We HATE our neighbours’ huge 20ft trees – they’re an eyesore, block our views from posh homes and we want them gone NOW

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We HATE our neighbours' huge 20ft trees - they're an eyesore, block our views from posh homes and we want them gone NOW

NEIGHBOURS have gone to war over a row of 20ft trees which some locals want chopped down – but the owners are fighting to keep.

Charles Welsh has been locked in a row with neighbours Mohammed and Saima Faheem over the hedge between their properties in Crookston, Glasgow.

Welsh said he cannot enjoy his veranda as it's always in shade

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Welsh said he cannot enjoy his veranda as it’s always in shade
Welsh claims the trees made his life a misery and stopped him from using solar power to reduce his energy bills

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Welsh claims the trees made his life a misery and stopped him from using solar power to reduce his energy bills

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Welsh claimed the trees made his life a misery and stopped him from using solar power to reduce his energy bills, and enjoying his veranda.

He went to Glasgow City Council under high hedge laws and officials told the Faheems to reduce the height to 10ft.

But they appealed to the Scottish Government, which amended the ruling and said the trees would only have to be reduced to 13ft.

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The couple claimed chopping them down would impact their privacy and on wildlife in the area.

Now one neighbour, 84-year-old John Galbraith, said: “I follow him [Charles Welsh], he’s in charge, he wants rid of it.

“He [Mohammed Faheem] doesn’t speak to anyone… his wife’s a nice person I’m told, but I don’t bother with him.

“I think everybody is frustrated, the trees blocked my view when my son was going out, he’s disabled you see.

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“I’ve got to keep an eye on him, sometimes he sneaks out on his own.”

Another neighbour, a 20-year-old who asked not to be named, said: “I don’t know about the complaints, not many people would complain about them.

“Since we’ve lived here the trees have been there.

DIY Privacy Fences: Affordable Garden Solutions

“I personally don’t know Mr and Mrs Faheem, I honestly think it’s their privacy.

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“They pay their council tax, it’s their house, they pay their mortgage, why would anybody have an issue?

“Mr Welsh is a very nice person, he’s a very nice neighbour, it’s a very nice neighbourhood to live in.”

What are your rights over neighbouring hedges?

By Marc Shoffman

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OVERGROWN hedges are a common source of neighbourly disputes, but what are your rights if your neighbour’s hedge is taking over your garden?

Hedges do have benefits for homeowners as they provide security, as well as shade and a home for wildlife.

But an overgrown hedge from the next door garden can be a nuisance.

It may block the light and sunshine into your garden, which can be pretty annoying in the summer.

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Plus, your garden could be messed up with its dropped leaves and twigs.

So what are your rights?

If you’re in a disagreement with your neighbours over their hedge, there are some steps you can take to try to get the situation sorted.

A useful first port of call is the government guidance on hedge heights, which lays out the rules on when a garden growth has gotten out of control.

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The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) suggests that homeowners should use this guidance first before involving lawyers.

It said: “Where you feel that a hedge is too tall and affects the ‘reasonable’ enjoyment of your house or garden, the first step is to negotiate with your neighbours. 

“Keep a copy of any letters to demonstrate you have tried.”

If this fails, you can contact your local council to enquire about using the high hedges legislation. 

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You can find your local council using the Gov.uk website.

There is no guarantee your council will intervene, and there is a fee for making a complaint, typically £400, to deter frivolous applications.

Your local authority will consider both sides’ cases and make a decision.

If the council accepts your complaint, it will issue a notice for the hedge to be cut to a requested height by a set deadline.

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Councils have the power to fine homeowners up to £1,000 if they refuse to comply with orders to cut hedges back.

But the neighbour is also able to appeal the decision.

Even if the hedge is within the legal height, your neighbour is responsible for maintaining it so it doesn’t damage your property.

You are also able to trim back any overgrown parts of the hedge that are covering your own boundary, according to Citizens Advice.

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But don’t be tempted to trim the whole hedge down – if you are cutting it back you should also check if it’s protected by a tree preservation order.

There is also the option of getting legal advice and taking your neighbour to court if the issue can’t be resolved, but this can be pricey.

Mr Welsh had previously told the government: “From 6am the hedge casts a shadow and this continues for the rest of the day.

“I cannot enjoy my veranda as it’s always in shade and I would just like to sit out and have a coffee in the sunshine.

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“Due to the shade from the high hedge, the entire side of my house is always in shade and cold and this costs me more money to heat my home.

“I have been driving electric cars for more than seven years and was hoping to have solar panels fitted to my roof to charge my car and also help reduce my energy bill.

“Again due the the hedge height, I cannot fit solar panels as they would be in the shade.”

In a letter to the government, the Faheems said the trees not only afford them privacy in their home, but were are home to a host of wildlife “which if reduced to three metres (10ft) will leave bare tree stumps without foliage”.

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They added: “There are six trees with trunks of approx three metres in height.

“If reduced to the three metre height as specified in the high hedge notice issued all that will be left will be stumps with no foliage.

“The reason provided for the high hedge notice is that it has an overbearing and dominant impact on the property.

“This is disputed on the ground that the trees do not form a barrier to light to the occupants and do not cause any obstruction to their views or to the enjoyment of their property.”

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Issuing their high hedge notice, the council said the hedge was considered to have an “overbearing and dominant” impact on the property and garden grounds.

But, amending the council decision, government reporter Alison Kirkwood said: “Based on my assessment of impact on the reasonable enjoyment of the veranda, I do not consider the requirement to reduce the height of the trees to three metres would be justified.

“Instead, I consider that a maximum height of four metres (13ft) from ground level would be appropriate to address the adverse impact on the veranda, whilst also taking account of the privacy concerns raised by the appellant.

“I am also satisfied that, subject to the required tree works taking place outwith nesting season, there would be no harm to birds or biodiversity.”

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Welsh went to Glasgow City Council under high hedge laws

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Welsh went to Glasgow City Council under high hedge lawsCredit: John Kirkby

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Israel extends bombardment of Beirut while fighters clash on the border

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Israel continued to bombard Beirut’s suburbs overnight and struck a mosque in southern Lebanon as its forces battled Hizbollah fighters on the ground in the border region.

Israeli warplanes also launched a strike on the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli for the first time, killing a Hamas commander, the Palestinian militant group said.

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The Israeli military said it had targeted a mosque adjacent to the hospital, adding it was being used by Hizbollah fighters as a command centre.

But a Hizbollah-affiliated hospital in southern Lebanon, The Martyr Salah Ghandour, said it was hit by a strike shortly after the Israeli military issued orders that it be evacuated, according to a statement on Lebanon’s state news agency on Saturday. It said nine staff were injured in the attack in the town of Bint Jbeil.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday that at least 28 on-duty medics had been killed in Lebanon in the previous 24-hours.

Israel has issued multiple evacuation orders in recent days, warning people in dozens of towns and villages across the south to move north. It has given similar orders during its war against Hamas in Gaza ahead of major offensives.

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Iranian-backed Hizbollah said there were clashes around the Lebanese border town of Odeisseh with Israeli soldiers.

Israel has intensified its assault against Hizbollah over the past two weeks as it has shifted it focus from Gaza to the northern front. It has killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah, launched air strikes across Lebanon and sent troops into the country’s south for the first time in almost two decades.

The escalation has heightened fears about all-out war in the Middle East. The region is bracing for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to an Iranian missile barrage fired at Israel on Tuesday.

Tehran said the missile attack was in response to the assassination of Nasrallah last week and the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

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Hizbollah said Israel bombed a convention centre in the southern Beirut neighbourhood of Dahiyeh overnight. The group, which dominates the suburb, used the complex to host events, including rallies to broadcast speeches by Nasrallah.

Almost 2,000 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon in the past year, according Lebanese authorities, after Hizbollah started firing missiles at Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza.

The majority were killed in the past two weeks, Lebanon’s health minister said. More than 1.2mn people have been displaced, triggering one of the worst crises for the country in decades.

This week there have been indications that Israel has expanded its offensive to include Hizbollah’s civil infrastructure, while also continuing to target the group’s remaining leaders.

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The movement is Lebanon’s dominant political force and has a huge network of social programmes and business interests. On Thursday, Israel struck a Hizbollah-linked medical facility in the heart of Beirut, killing at least nine people, including health workers, as well as a building used by the group’s media relations team in the southern suburbs.

The strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in the northern city of Tripoli killed Saeed Atallah Ali, a commander of its Qassam Brigades and his family in the early hours of Saturday, Hamas said.

In northern Israel, air raid sirens were triggered several times as Hizbollah launched barrages of rockets. The Israel Defense Forces said the militant group shot 222 projectiles at Israel on Friday.

It claimed on Friday it had killed 250 Hizbollah fighters, including four battalion commanders, since the start of the ground offensive in Lebanon this week.

Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in clashes with Hizbollah in southern Lebanon this week as the fighting intensified.

Joe Biden has urged Israel to make a “proportional” response to Iran’s missile strikes, and to avoid targeting Iranian nuclear sites or oil infrastructure. But the president has also made it clear that the US supports Israel’s military riposte.

“The Israelis have every right to respond to the vicious attacks on them, not just on the Iranians but on everyone from Hizbollah to the Houthis,” Biden said on Friday.

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Exact dates reveal whether you will get £200 or £300 Winter fuel payment

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Exact dates reveal whether you will get £200 or £300 Winter fuel payment

HOUSEHOLDS should be aware of these exact dates to help figure out how much money they will get to help with energy bills this winter.

The Winter Fuel Payment is a state benefit paid once a year to pensioners to help cover the cost of heating during colder months.

Pensioners should be aware of these dates to check how much they will get

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Pensioners should be aware of these dates to check how much they will getCredit: PA

The government handout was previously available to everyone aged above 66 and helped with pricey energy costs.

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However, Chancellor Rachel Reeves revealed earlier this year the cash would only be given to retirees on pension credit, or other means-tested benefits.

Those who qualify will receive a payment of either £200 or £300.

It is worth noting the amount you receive depends on the year you were born.

For example, if you live alone you will get £200 if you were born between September 23 1944 and September 22 1958.

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But you will get £300 if you were born before 23 September 1944.

If you and your partner jointly claim any of the benefits, one of you will get a payment of either:

  • £200 if one or both of you were born between September 23 1944 and September 22 1958
  • £300 if one or both of you were born before September 23 1944

For those who live with a partner or spouse of pension age, the individual amount is split between you.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has said pensioners will get a letter in either October or November to inform them of how much Winter Fuel Payment they will get.

What is the Warm Home Discount?

Who is eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment

You will receive the Winter Fuel Payment if you are aged 66 or above and on any of the following benefits.

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  • Pension Credit
  • Universal Credit
  • income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
  • income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
  • Income Support
  • Child Tax Credit
  • Working Tax Credit

It is worth noting that around 800,000 older ­people risk missing out on the £300 Winter Fuel Payment because they have not first registered for Pension Credit.

The benefit is a weekly payment from the government to those over the state pension age who have an income below a certain level.

If your claim is successful then the benefit will top up your income to £218.15 a week if you are single, or £11,343.80 a year.

It will also give you access to the Winter Fuel Payment.

What is the Winter Fuel Payment?

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Consumer reporter Sam Walker explains all you need to know about the payment.

The Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free benefit designed to help cover the cost of heating through the colder months.

Most who are eligible receive the payment automatically.

Those who qualify are usually told via a letter sent in October or November each year.

If you do meet the criteria but don’t automatically get the Winter Fuel Payment, you will have to apply on the government’s website.

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You’ll qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment this winter if:

  • you were born on or before September 23, 1958
  • you lived in the UK for at least one day during the week of September 16 to 22, 2024, known as the “qualifying week”
  • you receive Pension Credit, Universal Credit, ESA, JSA, Income Support, Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit

If you did not live in the UK during the qualifying week, you might still get the payment if both the following apply:

  • you live in Switzerland or a EEA country
  • you have a “genuine and sufficient” link with the UK social security system, such as having lived or worked in the UK and having a family in the UK

But there are exclusions – you can’t get the payment if you live in Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Portugal or Spain.

This is because the average winter temperature is higher than the warmest region of the UK.

You will also not qualify if you:

  • are in hospital getting free treatment for more than a year
  • need permission to enter the UK and your granted leave states that you can not claim public funds
  • were in prison for the whole “qualifying week”
  • lived in a care home for the whole time between 26 June to 24 September 2023, and got Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance

Payments are usually made between November and December, with some made up until the end of January the following year.

You will need to have been claiming Pension Credit in the ‘qualifying week’ of September 16 to 22, 2024.

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But claims can be backdated by three months meaning you have until December 21 to make a claim and still get the Winter Fuel Payment.

If you want to check your eligibility then it is worth checking out our article here.

You can also find free-to-use online benefits calculators to work out what you’re entitled to.

For example, Age UK has an online calculator which helps you work out what benefits you could be entitled to including the Winter Fuel Payment and Pension Credit.

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According to the site it takes 10 minutes to complete and you will need the following information:

  • Your savings
  • Your income, including your partner’s if you have one
  • Any benefits or pensions you’re already claiming, including anyone you’re living with.

The calculator is free to use and confidential.

Help at hand

The Sun has launched a ­Winter Fuel SOS campaign to help thousands of pensioners worried about their energy bills.

We want to hear from you by phone or email — and it’s fine if you are calling or messaging on behalf of a friend or relative.

Our panel includes former ­pensions minister Sir Steve Webb, pensions expert Baroness Ros ­Altmann and consumer champion Martyn James.

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They will be joined by The Sun’s Head of Consumer Tara Evans and Sun Savers Editor Lana ­Clements.

And even if you aren’t eligible for the payment, our team will be ­sharing tips on how to switch energy providers and save money, get help if you’re in debt or simply need to save this winter.

Your cases will be considered by our panel, who will aim to give you advice within one week of your call or email.

Caroline Abrahams, of the charity Age UK, said: “People often think if you have some savings or a small ­pension there’s no point applying for Pension Credit, but that’s often not the case.

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“Don’t be put off by the forms — Age UK can help.”

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‘Art history doesn’t belong exclusively to the western world’

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When curator Pablo José Ramírez was asked to take charge of a section at the Frieze London art fair dedicated each year to special presentations, he wanted to shine a light on Indigenous and diaspora artists from the Americas, while acknowledging the unfixed and ambiguous identities these artists often inhabit. He titled it Smoke, inspired by “El Animal de Humo” (“The Smoke Animal”), a short story by Humberto Ak’abal, a Kʼicheʼ Maya poet from Guatemala, which describes a phantasmagoric creature that lives in the forest, part bogeyman, part guardian of the trees.

In Smoke, 11 artists, some of whom have Indigenous American heritage and others of whom are of mestizo (mixed) ancestry, show work in a variety of media, but predominantly clay. In Ramírez’s project, smoke is a metaphor, but it is also a byproduct of the fire needed to turn soft clay into hard ceramic.

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“It’s not a section about Indigenous ceramics or Indigenous artists,” cautions Ramírez. The Guatemala-born curator, who was the inaugural adjunct curator of First Nations and Indigenous art at Tate Modern in London, before relocating to take up a curatorial role at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, refuses to let his work be pigeonholed. The artists he has chosen “move between worlds”, he says, between local traditions and the globalised contemporary art sphere. He aspires for the project to be inclusive, acknowledging how emigration disperses cultural knowledge across diasporas.

A series of white ceramic and porcelain shapes, including one inscribed with a human face, are bound into a hanging sculpture by thick white string.
Detail of ‘Racimo 3’ (2022) by Mexican Huastec artist Noé Martínez © Courtesy of the artist and Patron Gallery

Indigenous Mexican artist Noé Martínez says that his sculptural ceramics are a means of communicating with his ancestors, the Huastec people. “They are containers to store the souls of my ancestors, slaves who were extracted in the 16th century,” he says. “The dead never leave, they are always in our daily lives.” As with many Indigenous communities, many of the Huastec people are now in diaspora. While his grandmothers worked with clay, their knowledge has been lost. “I use different materials than my ancestors, but I use them with the same thinking about the world that they had.”

The backgrounds of artists in Smoke are diverse. Christine Howard Sandoval was born in California and is an enrolled member of the Chalon Nation but now lives in Canada. Mexican-American Linda Vallejo, who was born in LA but moved around Europe as a child, was later invited to participate in Native American ceremonies through her involvement with traditional Mexican dance. (Both artists are represented at Frieze by Parrasch Heijnen.)

Painting of an exotic, colourful fish, amid the foliage and stones at the bottom of a fish tank
‘Michael Wants His Privacy’ (2024) by the US-based Chinese artist Yuri Yuan © Courtesy of the artist

Vallejo’s sculptures at Frieze, made from found hunks of wood, paper pulp and other media, include no clay but — through their colours and materiality — allude to fire. As she explains, according to many Indigenous beliefs, “the fire lives within the wood”. Sandoval’s more conceptual works explore an Indigenous relationship to the land: a single Ohlone word (the traditional language of the Chalon people) is embossed on white paper, accompanied by a thick daub of adobe mud.

Not all the artists in Smoke claim Indigenous heritage, however. LA-based Roksana Pirouzmand was born in Iran. On the clay tablets she will present in Smoke, she paints bodies melding with mountainous landscapes, emphasising through her choice of medium the physical connection between a person and the land that claims them. Clay, for Pirouzmand, is a participant in her work: “I see the slow erosion that can occur between unfired clay and water as a performance of material,” she says.

Active, too, are works by the Brazilian artist Ayla Tavares. She places ceramic “totems”, as she calls them, in tanks filled with water. Tavares does not draw specifically on ceramic craft traditions, but instead references natural forms such as corals and anemones, fossils or slow-moving tectonic plates.

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A pink ceramic object featuring a series of overlapping, highly patterned cupolas on top of each other
‘Una forma siempre Húmeda’ (2022), one of the ‘ceramic totems’ created by the Brazilian artist Ayla Tavares © Rafael Estefania, Lucia Berrón Almeida Courtesy of the artist, Galeria Athena and Hatch Gallery
Sculpture of what looks like a tree stump overlaid with a face and tale, made from a dark green material that looks like tarnished copper
‘El Pacal’ (1990) by Mexican-American artist Linda Vallejo contains no clay but is created from fragments of tree, lead and handmade paper © Courtesy the artist

What binds this disparate group of artists is an understanding of land not in the nationalist sense but as terrain, as earth. (The soil on either side of any geopolitical border is, after all, the same.) For Ramírez this is a way of displaying work from distinct places, generations and traditions “with a certain degree of horizontality”, as he puts it. He sees a shift in the way that museums are framing craft-based, Indigenous and non-western artistic practices: “Institutions are finally trying to come to terms with the fact that art history doesn’t belong exclusively to the western world.” 

His approach, as he demonstrates in Smoke, is to highlight connections while still acknowledging specificity, to question simplified models of identity and foster a climate of respect for difference.

Frieze London runs October 9-13, frieze.com

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