The Brighton bomber nearly killed my father. But Daddy forgave him - and invited him to breakfast

Could you forgive the man who nearly killed your father? That’s the journey Lani Charlwood has been on. As this weekend marks 40 years since the Brighton bombing, she explains how forgiveness and reconciliation are possible, even in the most painful of circumstances

Reconciliation is a word I first heard in the 90s, parading around Coventry Cathedral with 300 other Christians, singing ‘We are marching in the light of God’ as part of Reconciliation ‘97 - an international reconciliation conference.

Not yet a teenager, I knew there was something important about that moment, but I’m not sure if I understood or appreciated the critical importance of forgiveness in a world in need of healing and unity. 

Just a few years later in 1999, my parents called my sister and I into our living room to talk with us. My dad, Harvey Thomas, explained that he had been in touch with the man who had placed the Brighton bomb in the room below his, 15 years previously. He told us that he had offered his forgiveness to the man convicted. He then let us know that he was going to meet this man, who had tried to kill him. 

I remember saying to my dad, very strongly, “I don’t want you to meet him! How could you possibly want to meet the man who did this!?” Daddy had already come to a place of forgiveness and was on a journey towards true reconciliation, but I was not yet in that place. 

The blast

At 2:54am on 12 October 1984, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a bomb at the Conservative Party Conference, held at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. As Margaret Thatcher’s Communications Director, my father was directing the conference and was asleep in the room above the bomb when it went off. He was blasted through the roof, crashed down three floors and his body caught on a steel girder over a 6ft drop with rubble and icy water from burst pipes pouring down on top of him.  

He often told us that in that moment, his prayers were…