UK NEWS

MAN WHO 'STOLE' THE STONE SNUBS MOVIE SCREENING

Robert Carlyle: Will play Alan Stewart in the film

Thursday May 8,2008

By Rod Mills

WITH a £6million movie of his book tipped to be a box office smash, the man who masterminded the “theft” of the Stone of Destiny could expect the red carpet treatment at its premiere.

A major film of Ian Hamilton’s 1952 book, The Stone of Destiny, starring Robert Carlyle, will open at the Edinburgh International Film Festival next month.

But the modest 82-year-old QC, who helped remove the 336lb sacred coronation stone from London, will shun the celebrity screening and after-party.

Instead he plans to host a more modest event, which he is calling the Uninvited, for crew and technicians not considered important enough for the list bash.

And he will hold it at the one-time Edinburgh offices of the firm that refused his manuscript 55 years ago.

I’m having my own wee party

Ian Hamilton

Mr Hamilton, right, said: “I was invited to the screening and the VIP dinner afterwards, I’m not going. That’s for toffs, I‘m just an ordinary person. I’m having my own wee party.

“When you look at the credits at the end of a film, the names no-one looks at, I’m having a party for them.”

On Christmas Eve 1950 Mr Hamilton, together with Alan Stewart, Gavin Vernon and Kay Matheson, took the stone from beneath the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey.

The gang were never charged as the Crown wanted to spare the establishment the embarrassment of proving ownership.

Charlie Cox – last seen in the movie Stardust – will play Mr Hamilton, while Robert Carlyle will play Alan Stewart.

Mr Hamilton insisted he had no interest in the current debate over independence, but said: “We cannot always be governed by the English, I know independence will come, I hope independence happens in my lifetime.”

Birlinn Ltd will publish a new edition of Mr Hamilton’s book, with a foreword by Alex Salmond, in June.