#Goodwood Operation

[carbone14]

Les chars Cromwell de la 7e Division blindée britannique se préparent à attaquer Caen par la rive Est de l'Orne – Bataille de Caen – Opération Goddwood – Bataille de Normandie – Calvados – Normandie – France – 18 juillet 1944

Photographe : Sergent Laing - No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit

©Imperial War Museums - B 7649

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

Here are ten more lesser-known facts about Bentley and Rolls-Royce:

1. Bentley's Le Mans Dominance: Bentley gained fame in the 1920s for winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans race multiple times, including a streak of four consecutive wins from 1927 to 1930.

2. Rolls-Royce's Silent Engine Test: Rolls-Royce famously tests their engines in a specially designed room called the "Silent Room" to ensure they operate silently and smoothly.

3. Bentley's Connection to W.O. Bentley: Bentley Motors was founded by Walter Owen Bentley, known as W.O. Bentley, in 1919. He was deeply involved in the design and engineering of Bentley cars until the company's acquisition by Rolls-Royce.

4. Rolls-Royce's Bespoke Options: Rolls-Royce offers extensive customization options for their cars, allowing customers to create truly bespoke vehicles tailored to their preferences, from materials to finishes.

5. Bentley's Continental GT Lineage: The Bentley Continental GT, launched in 2003, revived the Continental name which was previously used for Bentley's famous racing cars and luxury coupes in the 1950s.

6. Rolls-Royce's Parent Companies: BMW acquired the rights to the Rolls-Royce brand in 1998, leading to the formation of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd., while the original Rolls-Royce plc continued as an aerospace company.

7. Bentley's Crewe Headquarters: Bentley Motors is headquartered in Crewe, England, where all Bentley cars have been manufactured since 1946. Crewe is also known for its long tradition of luxury car production.

8. Rolls-Royce's Goodwood Factory: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars operates a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Goodwood, England, where every Rolls-Royce car is meticulously handcrafted by skilled artisans.

9. Bentley's Continental Flying Spur: The Bentley Continental Flying Spur, a luxurious four-door sedan, was first introduced in 2005 as a companion to the Continental GT coupe, sharing its platform and design ethos.

10. Rolls-Royce's Phantom Name: The Rolls-Royce Phantom nameplate has been in continuous use since 1925, making it one of the longest-standing models in automotive history and synonymous with luxury and prestige.

These additional facts further illustrate the deep heritage, craftsmanship, and unique characteristics that define Bentley and Rolls-Royce in the automotive industry.

[oldschoolfrp]

Wargames of D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the Normandy breakout, Operations Cobra and Goodwood

Cobra: Game of the Normandy Breakout, TSR, 1984, Larry Elmore credited as illustrator (designed by BE Hessel and updated by David James Ritchie, originally published by SPI in Strategy & Tactics magazine #65, 1977, then as an SPI boxed game in 1978; the TSR edition expands the scope by including the D-Day landings and the battles of Cherbourg and Caen)

Breakout: Normandy, Avalon Hill, 1993, Michael Reis box art with text recolored for ad in The General V29 N2 (designed by Don Greenwood and James Stahler; republished in 2011 by L2 Design Group)

St Lo: Normandy 1944: The Breakout Begins, West End Games, 1986, with Robert Berran box art (designed by Joseph M. Balkoski; republished in 2021 by War Drum Games/Quarterdeck International)

[captain-price-unofficially]

A British Army M4 Sherman Crab flail tank crosses a Bailey bridge over the Orne, as it moves up to the start line for Operation 'Goodwood', 18 July 1944

[insilanar]

Quadrant posted a story on ig two hours ago with 'smooth operator' as background music... the story is completely unrelated to Carlos (I think it's about goodwood festival).

But WHY would they randomly choose that song??

They really ARE soft launching Carlando now. It's real! ✨

[ivovynckier]

Can you imagine Steven Spielberg humiliating his composer John Williams in public?

That’s what happened during the post-production of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Torn Curtain”.

As Bernard Herrmann, who had delivered the goodies on Hitchcock’s classic movies - the screeching violin in “Psycho”, the obsessive motifs of “Vertigo” - was recording his new score, Hitchcock shut the recording session down and stormed off.

He then did what the studio had been suggesting all along by going for a “younger” type of music. (You can read “younger” as less edgy and melodic instead of rhythmic.)

The 100% melodic British film composer John Addison took the baton and wrote a romantic score with some spy movie elements. He created a Cold War, Eastern-European mood with very simple means, for instance.

Addison is best known for scoring the epic World War II movie “A Bridge Too Far” (Richard Attenborough).

Uncanny detail: as a young man, tank commander Addison participated in the Normandy landings and got wounded during the tank battle that liberated the French city Caen. Operation “Market Garden”, shown by Attenborough, came after operation “Goodwood”, the invasion.

[usafphantom2]

#onthisday in 1944 Operation Goodwood began. This saw the German battleship Tirpitz targeted by the Fleet Air Arm. 35 Fairey Barracudas took part and despite a number of attacks the Tirpitz was not heavily damaged.

@classicwarbirds via Twitter

[e350tb]

Monty’s Men: The British Army and the Liberation of Europe by John Buckley

I don’t think you can review a book largely about Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery - the clue is in the name - without first stating your opinion on the man himself. Perhaps no other general of the Second World War is so polarising - British opinions tend to vary from praise to biting criticism, whereas American opinions run the range from biting criticism to believing that he was significantly worse than Hitler. My opinion is that, while he was deeply flawed, he was for the most part a supremely competent commander, and that he generally got less men killed than most of his counterparts. It must be remembered, too, that he was commanding an army that was nearing the limit of its potential manpower - he couldn’t afford to expend men in the same way that the Soviets or the Americans could. His chief problem, of course, was his vanity, his unerring ability to place his foot directly in his mouth, and his total inability to work well in a coalition. Basically, there’s certainly a lot to criticise, but calling him ‘tHe WoRsT gEnErAl Of WoRlD WaR tWo’ is having a bit of a laugh.

Much of the Monty bashing, Buckley posits, has been shifted onto the British Army itself, which has been cast as a plodding, unimaginative and incompetent force since 1945 by the likes of, in order, Liddell Hart, ex-German General, Cornelius Ryan and Max Hastings, Hollywood, and video games. This is true to an extent, especially in Liddell Hart’s case as he was trying to prove that his prewar ideas would have won the war. Yet I feel like these charges are generally levelled against the Allies as a whole, largely due to the continuing fetish for the forces of Nazi Germany. Still, there’s enough there in the popular imagination for Buckley to counter, and he does a pretty effective job.

Buckley puts postwar criticism of the British Army into context, particularly in Normandy. There, the British and Canadians faced the lion’s share of German armour, while still evolving their doctrines for cooperation between infantry and armour, and while dealing with ground that heavily suited the defence. As the campaign progressed, the British Second Army improved, while the concentration of German forces eventually allowed the Americans to start the breakout in Operation Cobra. The British then managed to advance from the Seine to the Dutch border with a speed quite at odds with the idea that they were a plodding morass, and proved quite capable of handling the Germans while reducing their pocket on the Waal in the autumn of 1944. They proved the capability of their combined arms operations in the Reichwald and while crossing the Rhine. The Second Army, it seems, proved especially proficient in the set-piece battle. The importance of the infantry, rather than simply blasting through Europe with artillery, was made clear by their casualties - 70% of total British losses in Northwest Europe, which eventually necessitated the breaking up of units to keep others going.

Buckley is not without criticisms, however, and none of them seem particularly unfair. Market Garden is rightly derided as a frankly poor plan, as was the failure to start clearing the Scheldt Estuary early, which led to a campaign that was longer and bloodier than it needed to be. Goodwood was a bit messy, and Montgomery absolutely should not have told Eisenhower it was going to be a breakthrough operation. (It wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. It still baffles me that he told Ike it was.) At times, he says, Montgomery’s forces could be operationally inflexible, which might have lost opportunities to exploit successes on the battlefield. The British didn’t really have a standard doctrine at the start of the Normandy campaign and had to learn a lot of things on the fly, particularly as a lot of what worked in the desert and Italy didn’t translate well to Western Europe. Ultimately, however, these were comparatively minor flaws, especially when compared to the state of the Germans opposite by 1944.

I do have one criticism of this book, and that’s in the title - ‘Monty’s Men.’ It’s somewhat tempered by the subtitle, but if someone just saw ‘Monty’s Men’ on its own, they’d quite reasonably assume that it would cover the British and the Canadians. It doesn’t - this is mostly just about the British, which the activities of the First Canadian Army covered from the perspective of the attached British corps (of which there was usually at least one.) Apart from Crerar and Simonds, there aren’t really any Canadian protagonists here. Keep that in mind if you were hoping for a broader history of the 21st Army Group. On a lesser note, there does seem to be a slight bias towards the 11th Armoured Division, but that’s more about my very specific opinions about British armoured divisions, and I don’t think his opinions about the 11th (vs the Guards and the 7th) are too egregious or unwarranted.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Monty’s Men. I don’t know if it’ll change anyone’s mind on Monty - most people with an interest in the subject have probably made up their minds by now - but even if you hate him, it’s worth a look just to see how the British Army fought in Europe.

[monkeyssalad-blog]

428 de Havilland Tiger Moth DH 82A (1942) G-ANEN by Robert Knight Via Flickr: de Havilland Tiger Moth (1931-34) Engine 130 hp (97 kW) de Havilland Gipsy Major piston engine Production 8,868 Registration Number G-ANEN AIRCRAFT ALBUM www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/albums/72157626970256152 The de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth is a 1930s British biplane designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and other operators as a primary trainer aircraft. The Second World War had RAF Tiger Moths operating in other capacities, including maritime surveillance and defensive anti-invasion preparations; some aircraft were even outfitted to function as armed light bombers. The Tiger Moth remained in service with the RAF until it was replaced by the de Havilland Chipmunk during the early 1950s. The DH82A Tiger Moth, sometimes refereed to a Tiger Moth II is a two seat primary trainer aircraft. Powered by a 130 hp (97 kW) de Havilland Gipsy Major piston engine and fitted with a hood over the rear cockpit for blind flying instruction. Named Tiger Moth II in RAF. Tiger Moth G-ANEN Was taken on charge as DE410 at 10 MU RAF Hullavington, Chippenham, Wiltshire, 25.03.1942. Transferred 23.8.42 To 28 EFTS RAF Pendeford, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire 23.8.42 coded “93”. To 9 MU RAF Cosford, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire 21.7.45. To 23 RFS (Reserve Flying School). RAF Usworth, Sunderland, County Durham 26.1.50 coded “RSA-G”. To 7 RFS (Reserve Flying School) RAF Desford, Leicestershire 26.3.51. To 9 MU RAF Cosford, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire 14.11.51 for storage pending disposal.. Struck off charge charge when sold 15.10.53 to Association of British Aero Clubs. UK civil registered asa G-ANEN (C of R R4158) 2.10.53 to Link Training Services Ltd, London SW3 (aircraft based at Elstree Aerdrome, Elstree, Herfordshire). C of A not known. Registration G-ANEN cancelled 11.10.53 as 'sold to Belgium - OO-ACG'.. Delivered 25.10.53 and re-registered in Belgium as OO-ACG [C of R 995] 18.2.54 to L Vlieghe, Lier/Keerbergen. Re-registered 22.3.55 to D Jordens, Tienen/Aalst. Re-registered 12.6.57 to J Bogaerts, Grimbergen. Re-registered 4.3.58 to Publiciel sprl, Grimbergen. Registration G-ANEN 2.4.92 restored (C of R G-ANEN/R2) to Michael David Souch, Durley, Hants. Rebuilt at Hedge End and reflown in 1995; C of A renewed 21.7.95. Re-registered (C of R G-ANEN/R3) 22.3.96 to Robert James Jackson, Salisbury. Wiltshire [aircraft based at Old Sarum]. Sold 7.2000 and re-registered (C of R G-ANEN/R4) 15.5.2001 to Dr Anthony John Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Chichester (based Goodwood). Damaged 17.3.2003 in a forced landing at Goodwood, Chichester, West Sussex. According to the AAIB Report into the incident:. Repaired and returned to service. Damaged when tipped on nose on take-off Goodwood 13.7.2005..Repaired and returned to service. Sold 8.2007 (but not re-registered) to David Wildridge & Simon Holland, Bicester. Oxfordshire. Re-registered (C of R G-ANEN/R5) 18.5.2009 to David Brian Wildridge, trustee of the G-ANEN Group, Bicester, Oxfordshire. C of A replaced by Permit to Fly 28.11.2014. Re-registered (C of R G-ANEN/R6) 14.5.2019 to Timothy William Kenyon Emrys-Roberts, trustee of the G-ANEN Group, Bicester, Oxfordshire. Currently registered and airworthy. Diolch am 89,103,703 o olygfeydd anhygoel, mae pob un yn cael ei werthfawrogi'n fawr. Thanks for 89,103,703 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated. Shot 10.10.2021 at Bicester Scramble, Bicester, Oxon. Ref. 122-428

[smartphonerepairhubs]

What Are The Common Signs Your Computer Needs Repair?

Our computers are necessary for work, play and remaining connected in the modern digital world. When problems arise with your computer, it can be upsetting and annoying. That’s where the expert computer repair service comes in to troubleshoot your issues. In this guide, we will explore some of the common signs that your computer might need professional attention.

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[automundoarg]

Mika Hakkinen y el McLaren Solus GT emocionan en Goodwood

El bicampeón de Fórmula 1 condujo el súper GT británico decorado como el McLaren MP4/13 con el que logró su primera corona en la Máxima.

El finlandés Mika Hakkinen, dos veces campeón mundial de Fórmula 1, volvió a ponerse al volante de un McLaren como en sus viejos tiempos en la máxima categoría. Aunque esta vez fue sobre un McLaren Solus GT y nada menos que en el Festival de la Velocidad de Goodwood de este año. El modelo conducido por Hakkinen, monarca de la F.1 en 1998 y 1999, fue personalizado por McLaren Special Operations…

[hifilounge]

Looking Back at the Silverstone Festival 2023, What A Blast it Was!

Looking Back at the Silverstone Festival 2023, What A Blast it Was!

Hi All,

So I just thought I’d look back at last Weekend’s Silverstone Festival which I had been looking forward to for a long time, for 2 reasons really, firstly we finally get to race our 1961 Lotus Formula Junior, 18 months after buying her and after a 12 month restoration, and also we were invited to drive the Nascar around the Silverstone Grand Prix track for some demo runs so I finally get to see what it is capable of as since owning the 24 I have really only driven it up the Goodwood FOS hill climb, as amazing as that is it isn’t really what the car was designed for so at last I’ll be able to give it some beans down the long straights at Silverstone.

Thursday.

The latest Custodian of this gorgeous 1961 Lotus Formula Junior.

We were going to be at Silverstone for 4 days, the Thursday being a test day in the Lotus, this was to be my first real drive in the Junior so I was certainly keen to get out and see what she was like, we were only going to get 2 x 25 minute sessions but I am well aware that seat time is everything in motorsport so I was keen to get every second I could. Unfortunately both sessions had red flags in the middle of them so we didn’t get as much time as I’d have liked, in my head I wanted to get down to a 2 minute 38 second lap as that was the time a friend of mine achieved in his first outing last year in his Lotus Type 18 Junior, all the could manage though was a 2:48 so plenty of time still to find.

She drove well though, the engine seems to have a dead spot between 4-6000 revs but the power really comes in between 6-9000 revs so it is just a matter of keeping it in that power band, also the gearbox is a little temperamental, there is no synchromesh on it so it is just a matter of throwing it in which does throw up the odd grinding noise from time to time, what I soon realised was that I need to learn to heel and toe to match the revs to the gear change, I have never done this before and I did try it a few times and only managed to get it right once which worked a treat, the other times I tried went horribly wrong and I missed the apex by a mile, definitely something to work on though as definitely helps.

The real highlight of Thursday was that when coming in at the end of the second test session Jim Clarks Lotus 25 overtook me and I followed it down the Hangar straight which was incredible, the Type 25 is by far my favourite F1 car and I’m a huge Jim Clark fan so that made my weekend, that really was priceless for me.

Friday.

So today was qualifying, luckily it was dry but I was a bit concerned that with 60 cars on track it would be difficult to get any clean laps in but I needn’t have worried as it wasn’t too bad at all, so with a 2:38 lap time in mind I gave my best for the 20 minute session but only got down to a 2:41 and an overall qualifying position of 42 out of 56, not great but after only spending about 30 minutes driving the car in total I guess it could have been worse and a lot of the drivers are Pro’s for this event as there is a lot of prestige in winning the Silverstone Festival. I was really struggling with 2nd gear in the slow left hander ‘The Loop’ which was costing me a lot of time, later I would find out it could be taken in 3rd which would make things a lot easier, and faster.

Then at lunchtime we got to take the Nascar out for it’s first proper drive, since getting the car over from America last year we had always had a water overheating issue, now we weren’t sure if it was a problem or if as the car is designed to run at over 200 mph then it just wasn’t getting enough airflow, around Silverstone this would help to figure this out as we could get some serious speed up, it turns out that it really needs to be moving at speed for the temps to stay in a safe operating window as once we got going then it stayed very constant.

I have to say that the Nascar really couldn’t be anymore different to the Lotus Junior but what an experience it was nailing the throttle down the Hangar Straight, it was like Hyperspace as the car just fly’s, with 900 horsepower the acceleration is off the scale, before you know it Stowe is approaching quicker than you’d like and you have to put a lot of trust that the brakes are going to do their job, it really was an incredible experience but before you know it our time was up, at least we’ll have runs on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday.

Feeling a little Nervous

Today was a big day, my first race in the Junior and my first ever single seater race, now I don’t generally get nervous but I had never been on a grid this big especially with people that are used to racing this type of car, as you can see from the above pic I was a little apprehensive.

This wasn’t helped that the race was at 9am so I needed to be ready for around 8am but when I got to the garage the 20/22’s battery was totally dead, we didn’t realise that there was no alternator on these cars and you are supposed to put the battery on trickle charge to keep it alive when not being driven so it was looking quite unlikely that I would get to start my first planned single seater race as we only had a few minutes to find a solution. Luckily for us, not for one of my fellow computers though who’s car had an engine issue, we asked around and as he couldn’t race he very Kindly lent us his battery, what a gent, so the race was back on.

To make things even more nerve wrecking we had a lot of rain overnight and the track was still pretty wet so I had no idea what to expect, I was assuming a fair bit of sliding around. So anyway the race started and off we went, as I thought there was a lot of understeer and I went off the track a couple of times, a couple of laps in to the race as I came round Copse I saw my friends Lotus 18 in the gravel looking very sorry for itself, unfortunately he had made contact with another car and had rolled it, luckily he was OK but the car now needs a total rebuild due to a bent chassis, it really was horrible to see this, in the end though I had a great race with one of the front engined Juniors, I felt I was a fair bit quicker than him but didn’t want to force anything so followed him home to finish 38th so at least we had moved forward.

Unfortunately the Nascar demo run was cancelled due to rain which was a shame but it was the right decision as they really are a handful in wet conditions, every event we took the 24 this year had session cancelled due to rain, really sums up the summer of 2023 I guess.

Sunday.

Feeling Racey!

Here we are at the last day, driving in I had to smile as most people have a nice lazy start to a Sunday but my alarm went off at 5.30am, I then drive an hour to Silverstone then get strapped into a race car at 8.30am and am then straight into a race at 9am, certainly a great way to wake you up, luckily the adrenaline kicks in and once the lights go green you are in the zone.

I felt much more relaxed for race 2 having already got one race start successfully under my belt and it was bone dry today so I was keen to really attack for the 20 minute race. Unfortunately we had a full course yellow for a couple of laps after the first lap as someone was off at the side of the track so the race only lasted for around 10 mins but I had another great race with front engined Junior where we kept swapping positions and I ended up coming out in front and I actually got my lap time down to a 2min 37sec in the race, so over the course of the weekend we had gained around 11 seconds so I am confident we can find a lot more time with more time in the car, in the end we bought her home in 33rd so around mid pack which I was really happy with for a first weekend. It is funny as before the weekend started I just wanted to get through it with no issues and to make sure the car was OK, basically use it as a glorified shake down but once that visor drops all those thoughts go out the window and all you want to do is beat the person in front.

Next up at the end of the day was our last run in the Nascar, this time without a safety car so we could give it maximum attack and this was the first time that I felt that I was really driving the 24 rather than just holding on for dear life, such an amazing car, I feel more comfortable driving the Junior but what an experience the Nascar is, the noise and power really is something else.

So there we go, what an amazing 4 days with some incredible memories and experiences, I just can’t wait to get out and race the Junior again, I didn’t know what to expect to be honest but after race 2 I was buzzing, it wasn’t the best finishing position but I had a brilliant race and that is all that matters to me and with more seat time I think we could be reasonably competitive.

I’m hoping to make the final race meeting of the year in the Junior then do a full season next year, watch this space for more updates.

Cheers,

Paul.

[f1]

Schumacher wouldnt say no to another McLaren test as he completes first laps during private run

Mick Schumacher has insisted he wouldn't say no to another test with McLaren after getting behind the wheel of one of the team's F1 cars for the first time. The Mercedes reserve driver carried out a test at the Algarve International Circuit in Portugal earlier this week for them. It was announced back in February that Schumacher – who raced for Haas in 2021 and 2022 before taking on his current Mercedes role – had been added to McLaren’s pool of reserves for the 2023 season, via an agreement with the Silver Arrows. READ MORE: Schumacher joins McLaren’s reserve driver pool ahead of 2023 season That means, should regular McLaren drivers Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri be unable to compete, the Woking operation could call upon Schumacher, the son of seven-time F1 world champion Michael. As such, Schumacher was given the chance to test the team’s 2021 Italian Grand Prix-winning MCL35M during a private session in Portimao, helping him prepare for any potential stand-in duties. Ahead of the test, Schumacher spent time in Woking to undergo a seat fit and set out a run plan specifically tailored to him, while meeting team boss Andrea Stella, who worked with his father’s Performance Engineer at Ferrari between 2002 and 2006. “My first test with McLaren was great, we did so many laps out there,” Schumacher said. “It has been really good to get that experience with the team. It is a great team and a great bunch of people. DRIVER MARKET: Lawrence Barretto assesses the chances of a return to the grid for Schumacher in 2024 “We went through the whole schedule beforehand when I was at the factory. We were trying to focus on the things that I think are important for me, in terms of my development, and for the team to get to know me. “We ran through some different projects, it was mainly about driving style and getting to understand the tyre. The tyre we used is an academy tyre, so it is a little different, but it is a great one to learn on and improve my skills, and that is what we were really focused on. Schumacher is carrying out reserve driver duties for Mercedes this season “It was good to get a feeling for driving a race-winning car, as this car won in Monza. It was great gaining the knowledge of how to drive this car and how to get around in it quickly.” Having made his F1 debut with Haas and spent two seasons onboard, Schumacher was replaced by fellow German Nico Hulkenberg for the 2023 campaign, with Mercedes subsequently handing him a reserve role that has included plenty of simulator time and some on-track running. READ MORE: ‘There will be many emotions’ – Mick Schumacher preparing for ‘special’ drive in father Michael’s Mercedes at Goodwood “I did the Pirelli test with Mercedes in Barcelona, so it is not like I was coming into this test super, super fresh,” he added. “It is good for me to get as much driving in as possible, and that is why this day is an amazing opportunity for me. I wouldn’t say no to another test with McLaren.” Schumacher will sample another F1 car this weekend as he jumps into the cockpit of the Mercedes W02 driven by father Michael during the 2011 season. via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

[bookloversofbath]

Roads to Falaise: ‘Cobra’ and ‘Greenwood’ Reassessed :: Ken Tout

Roads to Falaise: ‘Cobra’ and ‘Greenwood’ Reassessed :: Ken Tout

Roads to Falaise: Cobra and Greenwood Reassessed :: Ken Tout soon to be presented for sale on the inspired BookLovers of Bath web site! Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2002, Hardback in dust wrapper. Includes: Black & white photographs; Maps; References; From the cover: The twin armoured advances of Goodwood and Cobra, unleashed six weeks after the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944, were…

[grandmaster-anne]

Gyles Brandreth's Exclusive Extract Part 1

The Mail Plus | Published 25 November 2022

SATURDAY and Sunday, ­September 3 and 4. It is the weekend before the Queen’s death. The Right Reverend Dr Iain Greenshields — who is staying with her at Balmoral — finds her ‘in fantastic form’.

He has dinner with her on Saturday evening, gives the sermon at Braemar and Crathie ­Parish Church on Sunday morning, then has lunch with her on Sunday afternoon. They talk about the Queen’s childhood, her horses, church affairs (she is ‘well up to speed’) and her sadness at what is happening in Ukraine.  

This is quite typical. The Queen is good at living in the present but often draws on her memories of the past, grateful for the lessons it has taught her.  

‘She was so alive and so engaging,’ recalled Dr Greenshields later.

Tuesday, September 6. Clive Cox, one of Her Majesty’s favourite racehorse trainers, gets a call from the Queen at 10 am. She wants to chat to him about the prospects for her two-year-old, Love Affairs, who is running in the two o’clock at Goodwood.

‘We talked about the filly,’ he said, ‘how the race might pan out, how another horse of hers was doing in my stable, and about a couple of other things. She was sharp as a tack.’

It is a busy day. Not only does the Queen present her outgoing Communications ­Secretary with an honour, but she also spends time with her fourteenth and fifteenth prime ministers.

Boris Johnson said: ‘She could not have been kinder, more sympathetic or personally ­encouraging.’ Moreover, she was full of ­‘characteristic humour and wisdom’.

Wednesday September 7. Every newspaper is carrying pictures of the Queen at Balmoral yesterday. She appears old, yes — she is 96 — and frail. There is a dark bruise mark on the back of her right hand but she looks alert and very much alive.

She is smiling, looking over the tops of her spectacles at the camera. There is a definite, mischievous twinkle in her eye.

For other royals, today is business as usual. Prince Charles spends the day doing good works in Lanarkshire. Tonight, he is hosting a dinner at Dumfries House in Ayrshire.

Edward and Sophie, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, are at events across Lancashire. Princess Anne is visiting the Isle of Skye and the Isle of Ramsay.

By late afternoon, however, rumour is rife. I have a call from my son-in-law (a former Coldstream Guards officer) to say that he is at the Cavalry and Guards Club in Piccadilly, where groups are gathering to discuss the detail of Operation London Bridge — the codename for the action-plan that comes into being the moment the sovereign dies. What has ­happened? Has she had a fall? Has she had a stroke?

Thursday September 8. Rumour had swirled all morning. At 12:32 p.m. Buckingham Palace issued a statement saying the Queen’s doctors were concerned for her health and, though she was ‘comfortable’, recommended she remain under medical supervision while family members were informed. The Queen’s helicopter left Windsor Castle at 6:48 a.m. to collect Prince Charles from Dumfries House where he had spent the night. He reached Balmoral at 10:27 a.m. Camilla had spent the night at Birkhall on the Balmoral Estate and was driven by car to join him.

Charles leaving Dumfries house to rush to the Queen's bedside

The Princess Royal was already there — at her mother’s side to the end. Andrew and Edward, the Queen’s younger sons, and Sophie, Edward’s wife, and Prince William and Prince Harry were reported to be on their way.

There was confusion about whether or not Harry’s wife, Meghan, would go up to Scotland with him. When it became clear that Catherine was not going because she would be collecting her children from school, it emerged that Meghan was not going, either.

Andrew, Edward and Sophie, and Prince William arrived at Aberdeen airport in an RAF executive jet at 3:50 p.m. and William drove the four of them to Balmoral, 45 miles away. They arrived at 5:06 p.m. Queen Eli

The formal announcement of her death came from Buckingham Palace at 6:30 p.m. while Prince Harry was still in the air. His flight from Luton airport to Aberdeen was delayed. He was the last of the family to arrive at Balmoral, and the first to leave. Travelling to a BBC studio in London in the early evening, I saw a double rainbow in the sky above Buckingham Palace.

And I found out from a friend in the racing world that the Queen’s horse, Love Affairs, comfortably won the two o’clock at Goodwood on Tuesday: ‘led field centre, made all, ridden and stayed on gamely final furlong, unchallenged’.

The truth is that Her Majesty always knew that her remaining time was limited. She accepted this with all the grace you’d expect. 

‘Her faith was everything to her.  She told me she had no regrets,’ said Dr Greenshields, referring to the last weekend he spent with her at Balmoral.

I had heard that the Queen had a form of myeloma — bone marrow cancer — which would explain her tiredness and weight loss and those ‘mobility issues’ we were often told about during the last year or so of her life. The most common symptom of myeloma is bone pain, especially in the pelvis and lower back, and multiple myeloma is a disease that often affects the elderly.  

Currently, there is no known cure, but treatment — including medicines to help regulate the immune system and drugs that help prevent the weakening of the bones — can reduce the severity of its symptoms and extend the patient’s survival by months or two to three years.   

Was the Queen given steroids to help get her through that important final day of duty two weeks ago? Was that bruise on the back of her hand that we saw in the photographs of her with Liz Truss the mark left by an intravenous cannula? Or was it simply the kind of accidental bruise that comes with old age?  

All I do know is that ‘cause of death’ on her death certificate will be given simply as ‘old age’ — just as it was for the Duke of Edinburgh last year.  

‘Old age’ is a quite commonly listed cause of death when a patient is over 80 and their doctor has cared for them over time and seen their gradual decline.

(When the Queen’s death was registered on 16 September my prediction proved accurate. The death was certified by Dr Douglas James Allan Glass, a local GP and official apothecary to the Queen who had been looking after her in Scotland for more than 30 years and who was with her when she died. Dr Glass said: ‘We have been concerned about the Queen’s health for several months. It was expected and we were quite aware of what was going to happen.’)

When Prince Philip retired in 2019, the Queen very deliberately left him to it. She carried on with her royal duties at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor Castle while he lived out his days at Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate.

They would speak regularly on the phone, but weeks could go by without them seeing one another. That shocked some people, though not those who appreciated how well the Queen understood her husband — understood his wish to be left to his own devices, ‘not to be fussed over’, to be allowed, after more than 70 years of duty, to see out his days in his own way.

When the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world in 2020, however, Prince Philip decided to spend ‘lockdown’ with the Queen, and a small retinue of staff, at Windsor Castle.

And when lockdown was lifted, Philip and Elizabeth, having spent more time close together than they had done in years, decided it rather suited them. They left Windsor together and travelled up to Balmoral together for their traditional summer break.

When that was over, they went back to Sandringham — but not to the big house. Instead, together they went to live at Wood Farm, Philip’s bolthole, the un-grand, unpretentious place he regarded as his home on the estate.

It’s where he wanted to end his days, and the Queen wanted to be with him to the end. But on February 16, 2021, the Duke was admitted to hospital in London as a precautionary measure after feeling unwell.

On March 3, he underwent a successful procedure for an existing heart condition. He was discharged 13 days later and returned to Windsor Castle.

Three weeks later, his death was announced at noon, April 9, with the release of a statement saying he had ‘died peacefully’ that morning at Windsor Castle.

His daughter-in-law, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, described his death as ‘so gentle. It was just like somebody took him by the hand and off he went’.

The Queen was reported to have been at her husband’s bedside when he died on the morning of April 9, 2021. In fact, I don’t believe she was.   

The Duke of Edinburgh had been in a hospital bed, set up in his dressing room at Windsor Castle. That morning, he went to the bathroom, helped by a nurse.  

When he came back, he said he felt a little faint and wanted help getting back into bed.  The nurse called the Duke’s valet and the Queen’s page, Paul Whybrew, for help — and he died before the Queen could be called.

The Queen wasn’t yet up. And she wasn’t called until after a doctor had come and pronounced the Duke dead.   

He was being laid out when the Prince of Wales arrived. Charles waited and had a cup of tea, but went away without seeing his father.

Prince Edward did see him and then, gradually, the rest of the family began to arrive. As they tried to comfort the Queen, the Queen was comforting them.

It helped that Elizabeth was accustomed to her own company. Even when her husband was alive, she had so often spent evenings on her own.

Immediately after Prince Philip’s funeral, she returned to her apartment in Windsor Castle in silence.

‘I helped her off with her coat and hat,’ her dresser, Angela Kelly, remembered, ‘and no words were spoken. The Queen then walked to her sitting room, closed the door behind her, and she was alone with her thoughts.’ When Prince Albert died, Queen Victoria retreated from the world. When Prince Philip died, Queen Elizabeth II went towards it.

She knew it was her Christian duty to carry on as best as she could. ‘There is no magic formula that will transform sorrow into happiness,’ she said, ‘but being busy helps.’

In the immediate aftermath of Prince Philip’s death, Vice Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt, the cheery Master of the Household, told me: ‘My principal duty with HM has been to keep her spirits up — so I’ve been watching Line of Duty with her . . . I’m “the Explainer”! It’s very funny.’

The 95-year-old widow of Windsor laughed as she struggled to understand the convoluted plotting and sometimes incomprehensible dialogue in the popular ‘police procedural’ television series.

She enjoyed watching television, she told me: ‘It keeps me in touch — when I can understand what’s being said. There’s an awful lot of mumbling on television now. It’s not my hearing. They just don’t seem to speak as clearly as they used to do.’

Her grieving was private, but in public the Queen was determined to carry on as normal. ‘Life goes on,’ she said. ‘It has to.’

That first summer after Philip’s death, she chose to dress — as she herself put it — ‘as cheerfully as possible.’ With the help of Angela Kelly, she opted for yellow and pink and powder blue, in summery dresses with pretty floral designs.

Her closeness to Kelly, the daughter of a Liverpool dockworker, did not always go down well; the ladies-in-waiting found her a nuisance at times. The dresser was from a quite different background to theirs, and irritated some at court with her no-nonsense Northern manner, her easy access to the Queen and her effortless familiarity with her.

They particularly resented the way Kelly felt able to step out of line to adjust the Queen’s clothes or drop a word in her ear at what they considered to be inappropriate moments. But they could do nothing about it because the Queen regarded Kelly as one of her true friends.

She was dazzling in green when she opened the Scottish Parliament on October 2, 2021. A few days later, all in pink this time, she opened the Welsh Senedd in Cardiff.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were also on parade for both visits. ‘We weren’t required,’ the Duchess said to me soon afterwards, laughing. ‘We were there to help out if necessary. It wasn’t necessary. The Queen did it all. She wanted to. She’s unstoppable.’

For six months following Prince Philip’s death, the Queen did so much, so purposefully and with such a determination not to give way to any form of self-pity (which, she said, ‘My husband would certainly not have approved of’), that she probably did too much.

In the autumn of 2021, she had a sudden ‘energy low’. She felt exhausted. Her ­doctors ordered her to ‘rest a bit, not to push herself so much, to take it easy.’

She had planned to attend ‘COP’, the climate change conference in Glasgow, in person on November 1 but, in the event, had to record a video message instead.

She had also hoped to attend the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall and the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph — fixtures in her calendar — but was persuaded not to. ‘I’ve got to be sensible,’ she said. Until then, her energy had been little short of astonishing. Over her final decade, she’d not only continued her work as monarch but actively engaged with modern life.

She had her own mobile phone, and obliging grandchildren ready to show her how it worked. She understood ‘texting’ though was rather defeated by ‘apps’. And she did not allow her grandchildren to bring their ‘devices’ to the dining table, under any circumstances.   

Believe it or not, I think I once heard Her Majesty refer to the lavatory as ‘the toilet’ — in a concession to the vocabulary of the younger generation.  

She had loved the early James Bond films — ‘before they got so loud’, she said.

And it was thanks to Bond that she famously made a truly dramatic entrance when the 2012 Olympics were staged in London, in a filmed sketch with Daniel Craig. Craig was seen running up the red-carpeted stairs at Buckingham Palace, meeting two of the royal corgis, being greeted by the Queen’s page and ushered into the royal presence.

It was the Queen’s own idea to keep Bond waiting a moment as she signed off a letter, before turning around to say: ‘Good evening, Mr Bond.’

Her line delivered, the Queen, accompanied by Bond and her page and her corgis, walked with purpose to the waiting helicopter that transported her past the statue of Winston Churchill in ­Parliament Square (Churchill looked up and gave Her Majesty a wave —she especially liked that touch), along the course of the river Thames, to the Olympic park in East London.

 ‘She was a natural,’ said Daniel Craig. ‘I was definitely more ­nervous than she was.’

Lord Janvrin, the Queen’s former private secretary, told me he was sure the Queen wouldn’t have done the stunt during the Queen Mother’s lifetime. ‘Why?’ I asked him.

‘Simply because she would have felt her mother wouldn’t have approved — that it would have been a bit undignified.

The Queen became less inhibited in several ways after her mother’s death [in 2002], less constrained, more relaxed.’

There was a different Bond connection when it came to the Queen’s next dramatic outing. In 2022, for the Platinum Jubilee long weekend of celebrations marking her 70 years on the throne, the Queen played herself in a delightful sketch with Paddington Bear, the creation of author Michael Bond.

In the scene, Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) is taking tea with Her Majesty at Buckingham ­Palace and offers her one of his marmalade sandwiches — which it turns out the Queen doesn’t need because she already has her own marmalade sandwich, hidden in her handbag.

This time, much more in terms of acting was asked of the Queen than had been at the time of the Olympics — and she delivered in full measure. I happened to be working with Britain’s most honoured film and stage actress at the time, Dame Judi Dench, and she said to me the day after she had seen it, ‘Wasn’t she good? I mean, really, really good.

‘Her timing was perfect. Every look, every line was just right. It was completely on the money — none of it over-stated. Just wonderful.’

She added, laughing: ‘I’m quite worried. She’s going to be offered all my work now.’

What did the Queen make of it? ‘Great fun,’ she said. She marvelled that such a large crew had appeared at the palace to film such a short sequence, and she was truly amazed that word of it didn’t leak out before the day of transmission.

‘Everyone kept the secret,’ she said, delighted. ‘That was lovely.’

IN ROYAL circles the Duke of York is now someone — like Harry and Meghan —whom it’s better not to talk about.

There is no doubt, however, that the Queen loved her second son to the last. When she died, each of her children published a personal statement about her. Part of Prince Andrew’s read: ‘Mummy, your love for a son, your compassion, your care, your confidence I will treasure forever. I have found your knowledge and wisdom infinite, with no boundary or containment. 

‘I will miss your insights, advice and humour. As our book of experiences closes, another opens, and I will forever hold you close to my heart with my deepest love and gratitude, and I will tread gladly into the next with you as my guide.’

Some of the turns of phrase could have been written by his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, who still shares a home with the prince, but the part of the message he very much wanted the rest of us to take note of was where he spoke of the ‘confidence’ the Queen had shown in him. 

Prince Andrew stepped down from public life in 2019 over his friendship with the ‘billionaire paedophile’ ­Jeffrey  Epstein. He was stripped of his honorary military roles, including Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and obliged to give up his HRH style in public. But his mother stood by him. She loved her boy. She retained her ‘confidence’ in him. 

That said, there had been a cloud hanging over his reputation, and the Queen was a realist. She essentially fired her own son. A senior courtier said to me, ‘There was a lot of nonsense talked about no one being at the helm, but the Queen took a firm grip of things. To use the military jargon, there was only a few days between flash and bang. Action was called for and the Queen took it.’

The day after firing Andrew, however, she showed us how much she loved him by taking him riding with her through Windsor Great Park in the rain and ensuring that there were photographers on hand to capture the shot. She was also glad to have him at her side as she travelled to her husband’s memorial service.   

The rest of the Royal Family was less happy to see Prince Andrew taking centre stage — not because of any personal hostility, but because they feared the pictures of him side by side with Her Majesty would dominate press coverage of the memorial service. And so it proved.The Duke of York, of course, told his mother the whole story of his long relationship with Epstein, all the ins and outs of it, and the details of the accusations made against him.

The first time he gave her the full account of the whole sorry saga, she listened carefully. Then the Queen, who never said more than was necessary, responded with just one word: ‘Intriguing.’

I chair ‘The Oldie of the Year Awards’ where we honour people of a certain age who still have what might be described as ‘snap in their celery’. So last year, post the pandemic lockdown, I wrote to the Queen’s private secretary to ask whether Her ­Majesty might consider accepting the Oldie of the Year Award.  

A witty reply was sent to me from ­Balmoral Castle on August 21, 2021: ‘Her ­Majesty believes you are only as old as you feel. As such The Queen does not believe she meets the relevant criteria to be able to accept and hopes you will find a more worthy recipient. 

‘This message comes to you with Her ­Majesty’s warmest best wishes.’

After the birth of Prince Andrew, the Queen — according to one of her ladies-in-waiting — ­suffered ‘post-natal side effects’ because the baby had been born using the now-discredited method of ‘twilight sleep’. 

‘Dammerschlaf’ was a form of childbirth ­pioneered in Germany in the early twentieth century in which the adminstration of drugs (morphine and scopolamine) puts the patient into an amnesic state during labour. The mother remains semi-conscious but apparently pain-free and has no subsequent recollection of the experience. The baby is delivered by forceps. 

In fact, Charles and Anne were also delivered via the ‘twilight sleep’ method — and Prince Edward’s was the first birth not to involve it. The difficult aftermath of Andrew’s birth may possibly have put the Queen off that delivery method for good.

2ND EXTRACT

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

“Gerry had fallen victim to the “Rolex Rippers”: well-dressed young women with European accents, operating singly or in pairs, who are targeting older men for high-value watches, mainly Rolexes. In the past year there have been more than 60 near-identical incidents, though the exact number is unknown. The women tend to strike in the middle of the day outside golf courses or supermarkets and in affluent high streets in Dorset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Surrey and Sussex. They often pretend they are collecting signatures on a clipboard for a charity and often wear surgical Covid masks — which conveniently hide their identity. They offer a hug, a kiss, even sex, throwing themselves on the man, who goes from being relaxed to flattered to embarrassed. Amid all the fluster and confusion they unclip his expensive watch. Most of the men don’t realise their timepiece is gone until the women have disappeared.”

The Ferrari was new. That was the problem. Normally, Gerry, 71, programmes the passenger doors of his Ferraris to lock when he is in the driver’s seat for safety reasons. But he had only owned the 458 Italia for a few days and he hadn’t set it up properly.

It was a Sunday morning in May and it was one of his first outings in it. Gerry and six of his friends had driven in “a number of high-value cars” to meet for a light breakfast. It was their weekend ritual. That day their destination was the Goodwood Kennels in West Sussex, a private clubhouse on the South Downs, and the weather was glorious.

After their coffees, at about 10.30am, Gerry walked back to the car and lowered himself into the driver’s seat. It was the perfect morning to take the roof off, so he fired up the engine, clicked the button and waited for the roof to come down while his friend Peter reversed his Porsche out of the space next to him and drove away. In Peter’s place appeared a woman. She was young, in her twenties, leaning down into Gerry’s car from the passenger side through the open roof, proffering a clipboard. She said it was a campaign for deaf and blind people and she wanted him to sign it.

“To my surprise,” Gerry says, “she opened the passenger door” — the automatic lock function was not on — “and started this performance of pleading with me to sign the paper. She grabs hold of both my hands, literally throwing herself on top of me. While I was trying to push her away, without me realising she released the clasp on the watch.” It was a Rolex Submariner — mixed gold. Worth about £15,000.

After about ten seconds he managed to push her off and out of the passenger door, and straight away she got into a nearby car. That was odd, Gerry thought. “But I needed to get off after the other guys and catch them up, so I drove out of the car park and after about 100 yards I thought, ‘My left wrist doesn’t feel quite as heavy as it should.’ I looked down and the watch was gone.”

Gerry had fallen victim to the “Rolex Rippers”: well-dressed young women with European accents, operating singly or in pairs, who are targeting older men for high-value watches, mainly Rolexes. In the past year there have been more than 60 near-identical incidents, though the exact number is unknown. The women tend to strike in the middle of the day outside golf courses or supermarkets and in affluent high streets in Dorset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Surrey and Sussex. They often pretend they are collecting signatures on a clipboard for a charity and often wear surgical Covid masks — which conveniently hide their identity. They offer a hug, a kiss, even sex, throwing themselves on the man, who goes from being relaxed to flattered to embarrassed. Amid all the fluster and confusion they unclip his expensive watch. Most of the men don’t realise their timepiece is gone until the women have disappeared.

It’s unclear whether the same two women are responsible for all the thefts or whether they are part of a wider gang. In November Surrey police warned that such incidents may be “part of a national series being committed by an organised crime group”. It could even be a gang with international reach: similar thefts have plagued Spain, in particular Barcelona, Malaga and Ibiza, where last year Europol arrested 42 Romanian suspected thieves, recovering 66 luxury watches, including 25 Rolexes.

In the UK the Rolex Rippers are likely to have stolen more than half a million pounds’ worth of watches in the past year. Their success is helped by the booming preowned market. Rolexes are now so sought-after and the supply so limited that new ones are difficult to get hold of. As a result some second-hand watches have doubled, perhaps even tripled in value. A Rolex is the ideal crook’s currency. It retains its value wherever it is in the world, can be transported over borders on someone’s wrist and, with the help of social media, is easily shifted to customers so desperate to get their hands on a blingy timepiece that they are willing to deal with dodgy sellers.

The retired businessman Robin Haycock, 75, had just played a round at Ferndown Golf Club in Dorset. It was midday on a Wednesday in July and he was driving his buggy to his car to drop off his kit. A woman in a dark dress and dark glasses approached him. “Having been a past captain, past chairman and a trustee of Ferndown, I thought she was a new member coming over to introduce herself,” he says. “She said, ‘Hello, nice to see you again,’ and the next thing I know her face is right in my face, two hands around my left arm and she wrenches the watch off, catching my little finger, and she was gone. Leapt into the back of a black Ford Focus, disappeared.”

The police traced the numberplates to an address in Hampshire, but the plates were false. From what Haycock understands there were no further leads. Dorset police say they have assigned a dedicated officer, who is looking into a series of similar thefts, but can share no further information. There have been at least 15 cases reported in the county.

“Ferndown is one of the most prestigious golf clubs on the south coast,” says Haycock. “It’s a £2,000-plus-a-year club, more than 100 years old. I’m not the only one here to wear a Rolex. In the past there has been the odd golf club stolen, an incident of youths damaging some buggies overnight. But you wouldn’t expect this sort of thing.”

Until then Haycock had never been the victim of an attack — and he had certainly never felt vulnerable to one. “When you’ve had nothing really happen to you in all your life and it happens you suddenly feel . . . It shook me up. I was a bit jumpy, a bit insecure, didn’t sleep very well for a few days.” He doesn’t want to buy another Rolex, he says. “I don’t like the thought of someone trying to attack me for one.”

Haycock was wearing a Rolex Daytona, one of the most desired models, which he had bought for £7,500. On the preowned market they are generally selling for between £20,000 and £30,000.


Today more than ever watches are a show of status, one of the few bits of “masculine” jewellery a bloke in a suit can wear. Rolexes, in particular, are so heavily branded that they are immediately recognisable and so too is their value. High-end watches are all over YouTube and Instagram — there are thousands of watch influencers — and there is a whole section dedicated to the watch market on the GQ website.

“Now there is a lot of young money, a lot of media attention, people are thinking if I make money I want to buy a watch,” says David Khalil, a dealer at Watch Collectors in Mayfair. “As a brand, Rolex is king. You can be anywhere in the world and have one on your wrist and you can cash it out. Cryptocurrencies, for example, are highly speculative. If you want to retain your money in something that is tangible and stable: a Rolex.”

The watch company was founded in London in 1905 by Hans Wilsdorf, who chose the name Rolex because it sounded expensive and was easy to pronounce. After the First World War Rolex moved operations to Geneva and today it is owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, estimated to be worth about £7 billion. Approximately one million watches are produced by hand each year at four industrial facilities in Switzerland. Demand certainly outstrips supply.

“The reality is,” says Luke Stafford, a watch specialist at the Charles Fish chain of jewellery shops, “if you want a new [Rolex] Daytona in the current market, and you walk into a Rolex dealership as Joe Bloggs with no spending history with them, they’re going to laugh you out the door. You’re not going to get one.”

As a result the preowned market is booming — making high-end watches the perfect target for crime.

In hindsight, says Peter, 75, the Waitrose car park at Wimborne Minster, Dorset, has an ideal escape route. There are steps that lead down into the town centre — handy if you’re looking for a speedy getaway on foot. It was Monday, May 10, last year and he was meeting a friend for lunch. “On my way I thought I’d just pop into the shop.” He bought a few items and returned to his car. “I normally drive what I call a high-value BMW, but I’ve got racehorses, so on that day I was driving a scruffy Ford Fiesta that is years old. I certainly didn’t look like a man of means.”

He was approached by “two eastern European ladies, very pleasant girls, good looking”. They asked him to sign a form for their charity, which he did. “Then they started to get tactile and while one of them was holding my hand saying, ‘Oh yes, it’s so kind of you,’ the other suddenly started to hold my sleeve. I didn’t think anything of it, but they talked so quickly and constantly, so I was totally engaged. In the meantime the one girl ran her hand down my arm and unclasped the watch. Simple as that. It’s so quick you don’t notice.”

The last thing he was thinking about was his Patek Philippe Annual Calendar watch, yellow gold case on a brown leather strap, which he bought for £14,500. They sell on the second-hand market for between £20,000 and £45,000, sometimes even more. “It’s not like these big chunky Rolexes; I’ve got one of those and you can recognise it from a mile away. These, from a distance, look conventional, unremarkable.”

Peter used to work in the City and, with no children or family, he will leave most of his money to a local hospice. For now, though, watches are his passion — he has a history in engineering. He understands why some people think it’s extravagant, but he likes them. He hasn’t really told his friends about the mugging, perhaps, he says, because he is a bit embarrassed.

“My instant reaction was, how the hell did I let that happen? Stupid. You kick yourself. How on earth could I have fallen for it? If you live in [a city], you’re always on your guard, but I didn’t expect this to happen in Dorset. Maybe that’s why they’re doing it here.”

The police registered it as an offence but he hasn’t heard anything since. “And, sod’s law, Waitrose’s CCTV was shut down.”

The easiest victims are the ones who say, “It would never happen to me,” says James Freedman, a magician and theatrical pickpocket. Not many men, he says, see themselves as being vulnerable when they are in public spaces. “I’ve never been the victim of a pickpocket but I know I could be. That’s what protects me.”

First the criminal must identify their target, who should be relaxed, with their guard down. It makes sense that the Rolex Rippers choose people who are in their home towns midmorning or leaving their club after a round of golf. Then they need physical closeness. “If a 50-year-old bruiser bloke approaches you with a clipboard, you would be a lot more suspicious and they wouldn’t have been able to get so close,” Freedman says. “So the thieves being female is part of it.”

Next comes the distraction. “Magicians call it misdirecting. You want to overload the victim with confusion so they’re thinking, what the hell is going on? Then they’re not thinking about their valuables. And if a girl in her twenties is throwing herself at you and she’s shouting ‘sex’, you are embarrassed, which distracts you even more. You’re looking around to see if people are watching.”

Finally you need a prop: the clipboard. “It’s a shield. So they can take the watch without you seeing.”

The man who taught Freedman how to pick pockets looked like a “Mayfair gent”. He wore handmade suits and shoes and his shield was a copy of the Financial Times. No one looked twice at him in Knightsbridge, the patch where he worked his whole life as a career criminal.

A Rolex watch looks difficult to unfasten: you have to undo a main clasp, then an overlapping security clasp and slip the whole thing off the hand. “But that just leads to a false sense of security because people feel that no one can steal this. And that leads to complacency,” Freedman says. “I could teach you the technique behind stealing a Rolex in an hour, but it’s more about choreography and understanding the victim’s mindset. And that takes much longer to learn.”


It was a weekday morning in July and Michael Parry, 84, had just been shopping at his local supermarket in Bourton-on-the-Water, a Cotswold town so picturesque it is the punchline of middle-class jokes. “I may be a bit old,” Parry says, “but I can assure you I’m not in any way doddery. I can fly aeroplanes and still do. I can drive fast cars and still do.”

As Parry was getting into his car a young woman approached him in a surgical mask and baseball cap, a second woman behind her. He signed their charity petition and handed it back when suddenly “she started yelling at the top of her voice this one word”, Parry says. He lowers his voice. “Sex. Sex, sex, sex. And launched herself at me. I thought she’d gone mad or she was having a fit or something. It was so unexpected. She was pressing her body against mine, arms around me, scratching at both my arms. That was the way it worked. You wouldn’t come to assist me; you’d come to assist her. It looked like I was attacking her.”

It wasn’t until the women had disappeared in a getaway car, parked a few yards away, that he realised his Rolex GMT Master (about £20,000) was gone. “I didn’t have it fully insured on the basis that I don’t go to the sort of places where I am going to get it stolen,” he says. “I was completely taken aback by this incredible change from a sweet young girl into a raving lunatic.”

The whole thing was caught on CCTV. He says the police tracked the numberplates but again they were false. Wherever the women went and whoever they were, he says, he is convinced it was a planned attack. Gloucestershire police made a public appeal for information about the theft but declined to comment further.

The day before, two Rolexes were stolen in Hampshire within the space of four hours, one from a 77-year-old man and another from an 86-year-old man. In fact, in the ten-day period between July 7 and July 17, which includes Parry’s incident, there were eight high-value watch thefts with the same modus operandi.

It is likely the women are part of an organised gang. In Spain police tracking Rolex Rippers there noted the thieves would typically stay in an area for about five days, operating in the surrounding towns, then moving on.

What happens to the stolen watches remains unclear. All Rolexes have a unique serial number. If your watch is stolen you can report it to the Watch Register, an organisation that tracks watches. When a legitimate dealer is offered a preowned watch, they can run the serial number through the register’s database. If it is stolen, it comes up on the system and is reported to the police. The register says it recovers about two to three lost or stolen watches each day.

Criminals can try to get around this, though. To avoid coming up on the register, some of the stolen Rolexes will be immediately renumbered, one dealer tells me. The unique serial number is erased and a new one is applied. Other times it might be dismantled and sold for parts or put back together, half real and half fake, like a cut-and-shut car.

Despite such ruses, stolen watches are usually difficult to sell via a legitimate jeweller. But these days there are other ways for crooks to cash in. Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp are full of unqualified individuals trading high-value preowned Rolexes. Often it is difficult to find an address or a company behind these pages. Customers may be so desperate to get their hands on a Rolex they are willing to overlook shoddy practice. Other times watches will be sent immediately to eastern Europe or the Middle East, where the Watch Register is less established and customers do not expect the same checks.

“Some [dealers] don’t bother using our register because they don’t want to pay the money [to be a member],” says Katya Hills, the managing director of Watch Register. “Others don’t want to know about the problem if it’s a stolen watch.” It’s a trade where transactions are often fast-paced and in cash, Hills says, which makes it hard to track stolen items.

Alan Bruce, 63, has no idea where his Rolex is. He was in his local town of Wimborne, Dorset, for an eye test, but he was a little early, so decided to look round some clothes shops. “I like to keep myself trim. I like to think I dress well,” he says. “I had my watch on, I had aftershave on. Just because you’re a bit older doesn’t mean you can’t be presentable.”

Two women approached him with a clipboard, one making out she was deaf, asking him to sign a petition for a local deaf centre. The women were flirtatious and said they were from Bulgaria, chatting about what life was like there and the charity they were raising awareness for. “The younger out of the two — they had masks on — said, ‘Oh, you smell so nice, what’s your aftershave?’ And I said, ‘Tom Ford,’ and she said, ‘Give me a hug, give me a cuddle,’ and I said, ‘No way! Get away.’ ” He put his left arm out to fend her off, but she grabbed his body and pulled him into her, tight. “The other one comes in behind and says, ‘You smell so nice. I want to have sex with you.’ Of course that was when I realised something wasn’t right.”

When they disappeared he checked for his wallet and his phone — they were both there. He was in shock. Moments later he realised he had been “dipped” for his watch. “I did not feel a thing,” he says.

The National Police Chiefs Council has no specific intelligence on the 60-plus Rolex Ripper attacks, but offers general advice: “Distraction techniques such as this are often employed by pickpockets and opportunistic thieves to steal valuables from unsuspecting victims.”

Women are targeting victims who do not think of themselves as being victims, in places where they feel totally safe. It is daylight robbery — and that is why it works.

“This was a professional operation,” Bruce says. “They were good. They were really good.”