Talking to Terrorists by Robin Soans
Extract from Act Two
IRA: I didn’t sleep when i was on operations. You get worn down…..i drank every night to help me sleep. Four or five cans ended up fifteen, just to get to sleep.
Caroline: I still think about it….What is it? Twenty years later….
IRA: You have to take on a new role til it becomes second nature. If your in a hotel and you think somoenes paying you attention, the last thing you do is react. Never panic
Caroline: Don’t think Jacks ever been the same again… it affected his nerves….little things, you know, anything sudden…
IRA: One of the first things I did when I got to a city was find the big deprtment store… anywhere with a side door or a back door, so you can loose a tail. It means you always have a plan in your head. I had an idea I was being followed in Birmingham one day…Mt best store for losing people was in Manchester. Got a train to Manchester, used my store, lost the tail.
Caroline: We were having a good conference ,except on the drive done, I shall never forget it, it was pelting with rain. We had to take our best clothes I was in a hurry, didn’t have time to pack properly, I got out of the car at the hotel with lots of things still on hangers which I dropped in the mud.
IRA: It wasn’t anyone individual that bombed Brighton, it was the organisation
Caroline: Thursday.. We finished the conference about five thirty and went out to dinner.
IRA: I booked into the room three and a half weeks earlier
Caroline: We went to a very expensive restaurant in Brighton. Everyone was really good friends , a lovely evening, I remember looking round the table at the smiling faces . Six hours later half of them were dead.
IRA: I used a standard camcorder
Caroline: We went back to the hotel had a drink, must have been one in the morning.
IRA: The mechanism had to be as simple as possible. A safety circuit, a main circuit…..I set the timer….Put it in the panel of the bath
Caroline: Three…quarter past three…. Id don’t think we realised it had happened until the chimney came down. Jack said ‘ It’s a bomb’ people stated shouting and there was glass everywhere. We went out an emergency door onto a fire escape.