Aug 3, 2026 · 39 min · 9 segments
*Content warning: This series discusses the use of explosives for terrorism. Episodes will contain sounds of explosions, discussions of terrorism, statements from victims and descriptions of injuries…
Penny StewartHost
Chris HesterGuest
Steve JohnsonGuestMikeGuest
Niamh Nic DaéidGuest
Lights go out, windows are blown in, buildings damaged, and nine people are injured, some with serious burns, having been engulfed in flames.
Just over two hours later, in the early hours of Sunday the 21st of January, while the city is still reeling from the first blast, a party of four men and two women, brothers Adam, Matthew, and Archibald Barr, George Gee, Janet Richardson, and Janet Watson, having spent the evening together at Janet Watson's house in Wigtown Street, are walking towards Springburn, northeast of Glasgow city center.
Colonel Vivian Majendie, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Explosives, takes up the story.
The following words are taken from his later report into the Glasgow bombings and from the subsequent trial papers.
On arriving upon a bridge or aqueduct which carves the Forth & Clyde Canal across Possil Road, their attention was attracted by a box standing about the middle of the bridge, a foot or two from the side of the canal.
The box was lying about one foot from the water and about the center arch of the bridge.
The bridge is only one arch.
There's a railing between the railway and the canal, and the box was standing underneath the railing.
Adam Barr, a soldier on furlough, at once went up to the box, which proved to be an ordinary oval-shaped Japan tin bonnet box, about 11 3/8 of an inch high by 17 3/4 of an inch one diameter and 12 inch in the other.
Adam Barr is said to have lifted the box and carried it a few paces.
When he laid it down and opened the lid-
When I first took the lid off, I saw that the box was full of some white or light material.
It looked like sawdust or sand.
The box was filled with this stuff to about two inches from the top.
When I opened the box, there was no appearance whatsoever of smoke or fire about it.
Put my hand forward very gently, thinking I might come in contact with something soft.
As soon as I touched the box, the thing went off.
There was rather a sort of little noise when the thing went off, like powder going off.
It was a sort of fizzing noise or puff.
There was a slight puff the first time, and then the thing fizzed afterwards.
When it began to fizz, I told my brother to run.
The second explosion was, was rather a hard sound.
It sounded pretty large to my ear.
Lights go out, windows are blown in, buildings damaged, and nine people are injured, some with serious burns, having been engulfed in flames.
Just over two hours later, in the early hours of Sunday the 21st of January, while the city is still reeling from the first blast, a party of four men and two women, brothers Adam, Matthew, and Archibald Barr, George Gee, Janet Richardson, and Janet Watson, having spent the evening together at Janet Watson's house in Wigtown Street, are walking towards Springburn, northeast of Glasgow city center.
Colonel Vivian Majendie, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Explosives, takes up the story.
The following words are taken from his later report into the Glasgow bombings and from the subsequent trial papers.
On arriving upon a bridge or aqueduct which carves the Forth & Clyde Canal across Possil Road, their attention was attracted by a box standing about the middle of the bridge, a foot or two from the side of the canal.
The box was lying about one foot from the water and about the center arch of the bridge.
The bridge is only one arch.
There's a railing between the railway and the canal, and the box was standing underneath the railing.
Adam Barr, a soldier on furlough, at once went up to the box, which proved to be an ordinary oval-shaped Japan tin bonnet box, about 11 3/8 of an inch high by 17 3/4 of an inch one diameter and 12 inch in the other.
Adam Barr is said to have lifted the box and carried it a few paces.
When he laid it down and opened the lid-
When I first took the lid off, I saw that the box was full of some white or light material.
It looked like sawdust or sand.
The box was filled with this stuff to about two inches from the top.
When I opened the box, there was no appearance whatsoever of smoke or fire about it.
Put my hand forward very gently, thinking I might come in contact with something soft.
As soon as I touched the box, the thing went off.
There was rather a sort of little noise when the thing went off, like powder going off.
It was a sort of fizzing noise or puff.
There was a slight puff the first time, and then the thing fizzed afterwards.
When it began to fizz, I told my brother to run.
The second explosion was, was rather a hard sound.
It sounded pretty large to my ear.
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