Monday 2 July 2018

Lift The Siege 3 - The Balcombe Street Siege




In 1974-75 the IRA brought their campaign to mainland Britain and at age 10, this was probably the first time I became aware of the issues in Northern Ireland. An IRA Active Service Unit had been responsible for a series of bombings and shootings in London and the Metropolitan Police responded by flooding the streets of London to catch them in the act. Two policemen got on their trail and hailing a taxi gave pursuit of the getaway car. The four IRA men took refuge in a flat in Marylebone, seizing the two occupants as hostages. A standoff took place for six days before the planted threat of the SAS storming the flat led to a peaceful end of the siege. All four were jailed for life and suggested most strongly that bombings in Woolwich and Guildford were down to them, rather than the men who were currently serving sentences for these attacks. However, nothing was done about their claims, so that 11 other men were still held in prison for another 15 years until their guilty verdicts were overturned as unsafe. 

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"Three Dreams In The Key Of G" has three female voices in a state of siege. One a young mother in sectarian Northern Ireland, just after the Good Friday Peace Agreement has returned paramilitary fighters from both sides back into the domestic realm for an uneasy peace there. The second a Waco-like siege in Florida, as the FBI, DEA and ATF surround a compound full of women, which they see as a threat to all of mankind. The third is in laboratories all over the globe, the Human Genome is being besieged by scientists as they try and uncover its code for life. 

 The siege will be lifted 26/07/2018

Published by Dead Ink Books 
Available from Amazon and all good book shops in the UK



Lift The Siege #2 - Waco

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