It’ll be stonely this Christmas |
On Christmas day in 1950, Scottish nationalists stole the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey, recalls Eliot Wilson
The winter of 1950-51 was cold and savage for Britain, still tending its wounds from the Second World War. At the general election in February 1950, Clement Attlee’s reforming Labour government had remained in office – but only just. The Prime Minister was 67, his senior ministers worn out.
Britain was running on empty. The National Debt stood at 200 per cent of GDP and there were still 700,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen deployed across the globe. Then in June, the Korean War had broken out, and by Christmas the United Nations Command, including 5,000 British personnel, was on the verge of defeat.
Closer to home, the Scottish Covenant Association had been formed in 1942 by John MacCormick, co-founder of the Scottish National Party. He favoured Home Rule by a devolved Scottish legislature, and had quit the SNP when it declared its goal of full independence. In October 1950 he had been elected Rector of the University of Glasgow, and his victory sparked something extraordinary.
Ian Hamilton, a 25-year-old law student, had managed MacCormick’s campaign. He was a member of the SCA and an active debater at the Glasgow University Union. MacCormick’s electoral success gave him an idea. He approached an electrical engineering student from Aberdeenshire called Gavin Vernon, another SCA member, with a daring plan to promote the Home Rule cause: they would steal the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey and bring it back to Scotland........