The National Gallery
Free art museum on Trafalgar Square housing over two thousand Western European masterworks from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries.
This guide to The National Gallery in London tells the story of Kempton Bunton, a retired bus driver from Newcastle who climbed through a lavatory window in the summer of 1961 and walked out with Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington. It follows his anger at the sum the government had just paid to keep the painting in Britain, his makeshift hiding place at home, and the ransom notes he sent demanding free television licences for pensioners. You'll hear how the case reached the courts and what the newspapers made of it. Room thirty-four is where the portrait hangs today.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.