In some instances, the money has been spent buying log burners for properties owned by the king and rented out by his estate, or to pay surveyor, planning or architecture fees. A garden wall on a farm in Lancashire has been identified as eligible for an upgrade using bona vacantia.

In 2014 Tom returned to Lancaster to reopen Atticus as a not-for-profit shop supporting Tasikoki Animal Rescue Centre in Indonesia where he had spent time doing voluntary work. The human cost was staggering. Of the 125,000 men who served in Bomber Command, over 55,000 were killed and another 8,400 were wounded. Some 10,000 survived being shot down, only to become prisoners of war. In simple, brutal terms, Harris's aircrew had only a 40 per cent chance of surviving the war unscathed. From John Nichol, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Spitfire, comes a passionate and profoundly moving tribute to the Lancaster bomber, its heroic crews and the men and women who kept her airborne during the country's greatest hour of need.

The library towards 2025

Properties identified in other leaked documents as eligible for use of the funds include town houses, holiday lets, rural cottages, agricultural buildings, a former petrol station and barns, including one used to facilitate pheasant and partridge shoots in Yorkshire. Coming home late one evening after a few drinks Grant finds a woman in his bed. Whilst he doesn’t know who she is, he isn’t surprised that there is one there knowing that it is probably a surprise from his brother – a somewhat silly tradition between them. Sliding into bed he rouses the woman and finds her responsive to him, although there is something familiar about her. West doesn’t make my time here easy. He’s arrogant. Crude. Insufferable. He torments me in the worst way, to the point that I can’t stand him. Yet he’s the only boy I’ve ever let touch me… Jill McArdle helped to run Atticus after it moved to Hardman Street and organise all the major events.

Nichol, as an ex-RAF man perhaps, is staunch in defence of his bombers, giving voice to their certainty that they had done a good and necessary thing, that they had fought the war the best way they could, any many of their fellow aircrew perished in the attempt. Sir Arthur Harris, the controversial chief of Royal Air Force Bomber Command, described the Lancaster as his 'shining sword' and the 'greatest single factor in winning the war'. RAF bomber squadrons carried out offensive operations from the first day of the Second World War until the very last, more than five and a half years later. They flew nearly 300,000 sorties and dropped around a million tons of explosives, as well as life-saving supplies. Over 10,000 of their aircraft never returned. Of the 7,377 Lancasters built during the conflict, more than half were lost to enemy action or training accidents. The epic story of an iconic aircraft and the breathtaking courage of those who flew her' Andy McNab, bestselling author of Bravo Two ZeroThere are not many of us left, most of us who survive are over 95 and this is a story of young men. We were the cutting edge of the ‘ Shining Sword ’ that Bomber Harris dubbed the Lancaster. We survived the Bomber Offensive in which 55,573 — almost half — of our friends and colleagues gave their lives to stop Hitler ruling the world. We are now a whole generation older than the young men and women who serve today and in a few years we will all be gone. Historians will then be able to throw around their insouciant opinions about what we did with no contradiction by those who were there. When we are gone our stories of flying and fighting the Lancaster should not die with us. We are the last witnesses to the legend of the Lancaster and those who fought and died within its metal body.’ - Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Beetham The document also indicates who ultimately approved of the use of dead people’s money in this way. It states: “The authority for the use of special costs in this connection is found in a royal sign manual dated February 1987 as supplemented by a further [royal sign manual] dated October 2019.”