If you have handled a letter recently you will be aware that the current commemorative stamps issued by the Post Office feature Ernest Shackleton and the 2016 Endurance expedition, one of the great tales of Antarctic survival. I featured Shackleton in a novel about Captain Titus Oates called Death on the Ice (it was big in New Zealand, where Captain Scott is still revered). During the research for that, I came across a snippet that has finally surfaced in my new book, The Sign of Fear. Ernest Shackleton had a brother, Frank. And he was a master thief. Allegedly.

Not that the more famous Shackleton was any saint. The family seemed to have a blind spot when it came to handling money, and Ernest often set sail with creditors on his heels. But Frank took this flirting with legality one step further – he stole the Irish Crown Jewels. Or so some believe.

The Irish Crown Jewels were not like the version held in the Tower of London. They were not there for any monarch – there was no actual crown – but were ceremonial regalia mainly used when investing Irish peers (also known as the Order of St Patrick, now defunct). They consisted of heavily bejewelled star, a diamond brooch and five gold collars, and all were property of the Crown, hence the name.

This collection as held in a strong room in the Office of Arms at Dublin Castle and in 1907 they disappeared, thanks to what looked like an inside job – there was no sign of forced entry and all the doors and the safe were unlocked. Suspicion fell on Frank Shackleton who, thanks to a friendship with the Duke of Argyll, the King’s brother-in-law, held an honourary position at the castle and lived within its walls. Why Frank? Possibly because, although famously charming and witty, he was also a practicing homosexual and was deemed, according to one newspaper, to keep company unlikely “to inspire confidence among the police or the public”. In fact, there was no solid evidence against Shackleton, just plenty of prejudice, and he was exonerated by the subsequent investigation.

But Shackleton did fall foul of the law. In 1910 he was declared bankrupt, owing £10,000 thanks to some dodgy business dealings, and in 1913 he was convicted of defrauding a young woman who had foolishly entrusted her inheritance to him. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 15 months hard labour.

In fact, according to Irish historian Tomas O’Riordan, Shackleton was already badly in debt, mostly to London moneylenders, in 1907 when the jewels were stolen. He  was also implicated in the theft by Sir Arthur Vicars, the man in charge of the keys to the strongroom, who claimed Shackleton must have taken impressions when a guest at his house. However, O’Riordan suggests that Frank was immune to prosecution thanks to his royal connections – and possible knowledge of potential scandals, such as the rumoured orgies at the castle involving the Duke of Argyll and other notables – and states that “Shackleton still seems to be the most likely mastermind”.

On release from his hard labour, his brother Ernest secured Frank an office job in London and he changed his name to “Mellor”. He lived in Sydenham and subsequently Chichester and died in 1941. And the jewels? They have haven’t been seen since the night of June 11, 1907.

* The Sign of Fear, which features cameos from both Ernest and Frank Shackleton, is out now from Simon & Schuster (http://tinyurl.com/hes9taq).

The Polish Embassy (@PolishEmbassyUk) has begun a Twitter campaign to raise awareness of the role played by Polish pilots in WW2’s Battle of Britain. Using the hashtags BoBPoles and BoB75 (it is the 75^th anniversary of the battle) it will publish daily images and info celebrating their contribution to a battle every bit as decisive as Waterloo.

      For the past two years I have been working on a script, with an Anglo-Polish production company, about Jan Zumbach, one of the pilots who flew with the most well known outfit (mainly because it was the first made operational; there were sixteen in all), 303 Squadron, which operated out of RAF Northolt, not far from the Polish War Memorial. Below is part of an early funding submission.

   Like Agincourt, Waterloo and Trafalgar, The Battle of Britain has become part of Great Britain’s modern creation myth. But like all such legendary tales of derring-do, time (and a few obfuscations and exaggerations) has knocked off some of the rougher edges of the story, leaving a smooth, one-sided narrative, an easily digested piece of jingoism. The truth, as is often the case, is messier and more compelling than the usual tale of British, blue-eyed, blond public schoolboys in Spitfires fighting Nazis in the skies over Southern England (with a little help from the British Empire in the form of Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians and South Africans). Because the Battle of Britain was also the Battle for Europe, as many of the pilots were fighting for their own homelands, trying to defeat Germany so that France, Holland, Czechoslovakia and Poland could be free.

         The members of 303 Squadron had fought over their own country, and in France before it was overrun, and then made a last stand with the RAF. Older and more experienced than most of the pilots that the host country could provide, they were fighting on several fronts at once – against the Luftwaffe, against unfamiliar planes (the controls were reversed; they were not used to using R/T) and protocols, and against the British prejudice that saw them as demoralized and defeated at best, uncivilised savages at worst. They were also lonely and homesick, as well as constantly worried about what was happening to their families back in Poland. They overcame all those adversities to become the highest scoring squadron in the Battle of Britain, even though the RAF’s reticence to deploy them meant they entered the fray relatively late.  And they did this not in the sleek, graceful Spitfire, but the more quotidian Hurricane, the Shire horse to the Spit’s thoroughbred.

       Like all the Polish squadrons, 303 initially had RAF commanders – ex-stockbroker Ronald Kellett was Squadron Leader – he famously who fitted the men out with uniforms from his Savile Row tailor and paid their wages when the government didn’t – and under him Flight Lieutenants Johnny Kent and Athol Forbes. To make matters even more complicated, the highest scorer in the squadron was not a Pole, but a Czech, Sgt Josef František. He ended his career with 15 kills, but died just as 303 was stood down for rest and re-equipment in October 1940, ploughing his plane into a hillside for no apparent reason. It is possible he was suffering from the sort of combat stress Geoffrey Wellum described so well in his memoir ‘First Light’.

        The squadron was stuffed with interesting characters, but I decided to concentrate on Jan Zumbach, because he began the war as an idealist with an adventurous streak and ended it as a cynic, with mercenary tendencies (he was a gunrunner, diamond smuggler, and one-man airforce for various African rebel groups). It was an understandable arc for a man who felt the contribution of his countrymen was undervalued and who, after all the fighting for its liberation from Germany and Russia, saw his country ‘gifted’ to Stalin at the end of the war.

Jan Zumbach, who went on to become 303’s Squadron Leader later in the war and later the one-man Biafran Airforce.

          The story of 303 also has a powerful contemporary resonance, in that, as “immigrants”, the Polish pilots were faced with prejudice on arrival in the UK, followed by, eventually, acceptance when it transpired they were simply people, with the same hopes and fears as the Brits, who happened to be very good at shooting down Germans. Yet when the economic and political circumstance changed at the end of the war, as outsiders they become convenient scapegoats once more (and accused, in all-too-familiar rhetoric of “taking our boys’ jobs”).  The tale of Britain’s treatment of the Poles who served and of those who came as refugees during and after the war is not very edifying. We didn’t even thank them properly before pushing them off to Canada or Rhodesia or Poland or corralling them into camps.

The script opens with a radio announcer commentating on the Victory Parade that took place in London in June, 1946. It is taken almost verbatim from the broadcast at the time:

“I can see the Allied marching columns approaching now and what a sight! A two-mile procession made up of units from every corner of the globe, of every colour, race and creed, over 21,000 fighting men and women. The representatives of Allied forces are led by the United States, whose contingent includes the Marine Corps. After the American contingent come the troops of China and behind them a bewildering variety of flags and uniforms – France, Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway and Transjordan. “

But no Poland. The reason being, Stalin was busy subjugating the East and did not want ‘Free’ Polish forces celebrated and he put pressure on the British to make sure they were not represented. I think I am right in saying that the RAF Polish squadrons were invited to take part, but declined once they realised the other Polish services were forbidden from participating. 

           This is the ‘card’ (or end caption) that finishess the script.

The 147 Polish pilots who served in the Battle of Britain claimed 201 aircraft shot down, around 20% of all Luftwaffe bombers and fighters destroyed.

      After the war an opinion poll showed that 56% of the British public thought the Poles should repatriated.

      Many of those who did return were persecuted, executed, imprisoned or deported to work camps.

       Not until 1992 was the contribution of the Poles serving with western forces recognised in their home country.

I have a soft spot for Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, which was built between 1934-36 and mothballed seventy-odd years later. Yes, it is a symbol of Nazi Germany but, even though its pedigree is suspect, the audacious sweep of the curved building, the 50m-wide canopy to cover the aircraft and its intimidating scale – like all Nazi-era public buildings it was intended to make you feel very small indeed – was and is very impressive.

Souce: Berliner Flughäfen/Archiv

Sir Norman Foster called it the ‘mother of all airports’ – after all, the main terminal building is a stunning 1.2 kilometres long. It also featured in my novel about the Berlin Airlift of 1948, Dying Day, re-issued this week by Open Road as an e-book in the USA (see http://www.openroadmedia.com) and I spent a fair amount of time back in 2006-7 poking around the airport.

So I thought it was a shame when Tempelhof closed to air traffic in 2008. Since then it has entered a twilight phase – the main runways have morphed into a popular public park, but the vast and iconic terminal buildings are only used for ad hoc fashion and music events. A recent conversation with Burkhard Kieker, CEO of Berlin Tourism, however, suggested that there might be an interesting future for the building.  ‘A long section of the roof was designed to support a hundred thousand people – so they could welcome Hitler when he landed and listen to his speeches. My vision is to turn that into something like the High Line in New York – an aerial park, with trees and shrubs and cafes.’

It’s a great idea. Much is being made by Berlin of the 25th anniversary of the wall coming down in November. 2018, though, is the 70th anniversary of the  Airlift, an almost equally important bookmark in the city’s history. It would be very apposite to have something opening on the roof of Tempelhof by then, overlooking the field where the constant flights saved the city from starvation.

The American company Open Road is to publish most of my backlist as e-books only in the USA. All have new covers, but I particularly like this one for The Last Sunrise because it finally gets a Flying Tiger on the front.

This from Marcel Berlins’ crime round-up:

The Dead Can Wait by Robert Ryan
Dr John Watson was not, it seems, quite as dim as he’s portrayed in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Robert Ryan (with the consent of the Conan Doyle estate) reveals his true mettle. The Dead Can Wait is in no sense a pastiche, but a seriously good, very readable, well-researched novel incorporating the First World War, detection and espionage. It is 1916. Watson has become an expert on the injuries and mental traumas suffered by soldiers in battle. The British are secretly developing a new kind of weapon. But, in its first test, seven men involved become insane, then die spectacularly. The sole survivor is rendered mute. Watson is commanded to discover the causes of the tragedy, but there are foreign spies around and enemies within.
The Dead Can Wait by Robert Ryan, Simon and Schuster, 463 pp, £18.99. To buy this book for £14.99, visit thetimes.co.uk/bookshop or call 0845 2712134

The novel is partly set on ‘the most lethal road in England’, of which more later:

The Winter Games at Sochi is the fiftieth anniversary of Britain’s greatest ever bobsleigh victory, when Tony Nash and Robin Dixon (above) took on the mighty Eugenio Monti of Italy and grabbed the Gold at Innsbruck ’64. It is tale full of daring, drama, drinking and exemplary sportsmanship. You can read the full story here: http://tinyurl.com/oq8l4t4

The BBC has released the first trailer (below) for the two-part Great Train Robbery film, ‘inspired by’ (as the credit have it) my novel Signal Red (as in ‘kickstarted’, which was its actual role; the finished product isn’t a film of the book). The first of the pair, A Robber’s Tale concentrates on Bruce Reynolds (Luke Evans); the second, A Copper’s Tale, centres on the dour but dedicated policeman Tommy Butler (Jim Broadbent). The screenplays are by Chris Chibnall (Dr Who, Camelot, Law & Order, United, Broadchurch), but with different directors, DOPs and editors, each has a strikingly different feel, although they both have at their core a powerful central performance from the lead actor. They are scheduled to be shown ‘soon’ – most likely before Christmas. STOP PRESS: Films now due to be shown on December 18th and 19th.