Page "Stone of Scone" Paragraph 21

On Christmas Day 1950, a group of four Scottish students ( Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson, and Alan Stuart ) took the Stone from Westminster Abbey for return to Scotland.

In the process of removing it from the Abbey the stone broke into two pieces.

After hiding the greater part of the stone with travellers in Kent for a few days, they risked the road blocks on the border and returned to Scotland with this piece, which they had hidden in the back of a borrowed car, along with a new accomplice John Josselyn.

Although an Englishman, Josselyn, then a student at Glasgow University, was a Scottish Nationalist.

And rather ironically and probably unknown to him at the time, Edward I ( who captured the Stone in 1296 and took it to Westminster Abbey ) was his 21st great grandfather.

The smaller piece was similarly brought north a little while later.

This journey involved a break in Leeds, where a group of sympathetic students and graduates took the fragment to Ilkley Moor for an overnight stay, accompanied by renditions of " On Ilkla Moor Baht ' at ".

The Stone was then passed to a senior Glasgow politician who arranged for it to be professionally repaired by Glasgow stonemason Robert Gray.