Archive for October 23rd, 2022

Obit watch: October 23, 2022.

Sunday, October 23rd, 2022

Ian Hamilton, historical footnote.

Mr. Hamilton was the last survivor of the four men who stole the Stone of Destiny on Christmas Day in 1950.

Mr. Hamilton was studying law when he hatched his plan with three others to recover the stone. It was not, in his view, a silly escapade or a student prank. An ardent Scottish nationalist, he viewed the stone as a potent symbol of Scottish independence that rightly belonged on Scottish soil.

…

All he and his crew had to do was break into Westminster Abbey, wrest the stone — a sandstone block weighing 336 pounds — from beneath the Coronation Chair built by King Edward I to enclose the relic after his conquest of Scotland, and get away cleanly.

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“You sort of know that when you take a crowbar to a side door of Westminster Abbey and jimmy the lock that there really isn’t any going back, don’t you?” Mr. Hamilton told British newspaper The Telegraph in 2008.
They moved swiftly into the darkness of the abbey and found their way to the Coronation Chair. They pried off a wooden retaining bar across the front of the chair, but freeing the stone was more difficult. They pushed and jimmied it until they were able to lift it and carry it for a yard before realizing that it was too heavy to take any further.
They then heaved the stone onto Mr. Hamilton’s coat, hoping to slide it to freedom. But as he pulled at one of the stone’s iron rings, it came apart, one chunk of about 100 pounds, another more than double that weight. Mr. Hamilton ran outside, almost giddily, lugging the smaller piece. The fourth member of the group, the getaway driver, Kay Matheson, drove up, and Mr. Hamilton laid it on the back seat.

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Mr. Hamilton returned later with the other car, dragged the remaining stone to it, and drove off.

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The four plotters were interrogated by a Scotland Yard detective in March 1951, but they denied any involvement and none were arrested.
In April, deciding that he had done all he could to advance Scottish nationalism, Mr. Hamilton decided to surrender the stone anonymously. He, the politician who had repaired it and another nationalist friend laid it at the altar in the ruins of the Abbey of Arbroath, about 100 miles northeast of Glasgow.

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In 1996, Mr. Hamilton’s goal was fulfilled. Prime Minister John Major of Britain agreed to return the stone to Scotland, and it was taken to a new permanent home at Edinburgh Castle, with the provision that it would be returned to London for coronations. And so it will be next year for the crowning of King Charles III.

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Leonard, part II.

Sunday, October 23rd, 2022

Neat profile in the Detroit Free Press of Gregg Sutter. Alt link.

“Who?” For many years, he was what the Freep refers to as “Elmore Leonard’s leg man”.

He also operates ElmoreLeonard.com and oversees a Leonard Facebook page, lends periodic expertise to the archivists handling Leonard’s papers at the University of South Carolina, and leads the push to put Leonard on a 100th anniversary postage stamp.
Actually, he is the push. His idea, his research into the postal service’s Literary Arts series, his three-page nominating letter that will, according to the Oct. 6 response, “be submitted for review and consideration before the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee at their next meeting.”

Damn skippy Leonard deserves a stamp.

In early October, he stumbled across the unveiling of Mama Cass Elliot’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with Stephen Stills and the Monkees’ Mickey Dolenz in attendance, and it reminded him of a disappointment.
“I have inquired about getting Elmore a star on Hollywood Boulevard,” he said, “but that costs $55,000,” and the appetite for a deceased author and screenwriter seems slight.

Kickstarter or one of the other funding services. (Not GoFundMe, because GoFarkThem.) I’d throw a few dollars in the direction of the Elmore Leonard Hollywood Boulevard Star. I bet you could get at least a few more out of the producers of “Justified” and “Justified: City Primeval”.

Mr. Sutter is also writing a memoir about his time with Leonard.

The library hopes to build an event around Leonard’s 100th birthday in 2025, she said, with exhibits, a movie or two, and presentations by Sutter and Leonard’s authorized biographer, C.M. Kushins, who has written books about rockers John Bonham and Warren Zevon.
That will require Sutter to finish his memoir. He says he will, in plenty of time.

I’ll be looking forward to both these books.

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