Close England!

Close England! was the terse instruction sent to Special Branch after officers defused a powerful car bomb in London on 8 March 1973. The phrase converted the discovery of a ticking bomb into an urgent effort to prevent the suspected bombers from leaving the country before other devices detonated.

The instruction

The command followed the discovery of a Ford Corsair containing nearly two hundred pounds of explosives. The bomb squad severed the cord to its timing device, and investigators estimated that it might have detonated at around 3 p.m., although the missing minute hand made the precise timing uncertain. The long fuse suggested that the bombers might be trying to flee before the explosion. A bulletin therefore went to Special Branch officers at every port and airport: “CLOSE ENGLAND. Lock down all the exit points. Question any Irish people looking to leave.”

The warning behind the order

The phrase belonged to a day already shaped by a warning call. Shortly after 2 p.m., a man telephoned The Times, rapidly listing descriptions and locations of cars before warning that the bombs would go off in an hour. The police’s ability to act prompted later questions about whether they had advance notice. The Price sisters believed an informant had betrayed the operation, and Hugh Feeney later said, “We were set up.” Decades afterward, a retired Special Branch officer disclosed that he had received a tip fourteen hours before the bombs were due to explode. The source was a senior member of the Provisionals, who had told him there would be four bombs rather than six and that the team included Gerry Kelly and the Price sisters. In that later account, the order to close the exits sits within a larger story of prior intelligence: the bulletin records the response to the danger, while the eventual disclosure changes what that response may signify.