My Road to Kempton Bunton
by Richard Voyce
Back in 2012 I was I was looking for a story I could turn into a musical, and came across the tale of the principled Tyneside man, Kempton Bunton, who was tried in 1965 for the theft of Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from The National Gallery, the first theft they’d had in the 136 years of their existence.
Bunton claimed he’d stolen the painting because he was incensed that public money had been wasted on its purchase when there were much more deserving causes, such as his own campaign for ‘Free Television Licenses for the Pensioners of the North East’.
It’s an amusing story, but something about it really didn’t ring true for me.
It just didn’t seem likely that this rather ungainly, overweight pensioner – no matter how well intentioned – could have balanced on a parking meter, got over an eleven foot wall and through a second floor lavatory window, into The National Gallery – and out again in the early hours of 21st August 1961 – without being seen or setting off any alarms in what was, and remains, one of the most secure buildings in London.
So I did some digging and found that there was a file in the restricted section of The National Archive in Kew marked as closed until 2031 with the name ‘John Bunton’ on it. I didn’t know if the file was anything to do with the theft of the painting, but knew that Kempton had a son called John – known to everyone as Jackie – so applied for a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to know what it contained, but was refused. Needless to say, that only spurred me on more to want to know what was so sensitive that it couldn’t be revealed until 2031.
In the end it took me almost seven months, and the intervention of my then-MP, Sarah Teather, before a redacted version of the file was eventually placed into the public domain.
My hunch was correct. The file contained the missing pieces of the jigsaw.
And that’s where our story lies.
Kempton Bunton The Musical 