Viva Lewes Issue #137 February 2018
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'That's definitely not<br />
thunder'.<br />
Steve Ramsey – who<br />
contributed regularly<br />
for many years to<br />
both <strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Lewes</strong> and<br />
<strong>Viva</strong> Brighton - has<br />
written a book about<br />
the aftermath of the<br />
IRA bombing of the<br />
Grand Hotel in 1984.<br />
He uses an unusual technique, with the narrative<br />
driven by the voices of over 60 people<br />
involved in the disaster, including policemen,<br />
hospital workers, firemen, journalists, MPs and<br />
civil servants. His own voice seems almost nonexistent,<br />
which is cleverly achieved: he deftly<br />
provides the conjoining sentences between<br />
quoted memories.<br />
I’m glad to say that it works, and extremely<br />
well, too. In fact it moves along at a cracking<br />
pace, especially towards the end, as the police<br />
draw their net around the perpetrator of the<br />
crime. It’s 222 pages long – knowing how much<br />
research Steve did it must have taken some editing<br />
– and I read it in a sitting.<br />
<strong>Lewes</strong> plays a small part in the drama. After the<br />
explosion, Margaret Thatcher and a selection of<br />
other cabinet MPs were whisked off to <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
Police HQ in Malling, before returning to<br />
Brighton to continue business as usual for the<br />
final day of the Tory Party Conference at the<br />
Brighton Centre the next morning.<br />
One of the most prominent voices is that of<br />
Norman Tebbit, who of course was badly<br />
injured in the bombing. He writes the foreword<br />
of the book, whose title – Something Has Gone<br />
Wrong – is a masterwork of Blitz-spirit British<br />
understatement, culled from the Argus report<br />
on the disaster the next day. Alex Leith<br />
Biteback Publishing, £12.99<br />
17
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