Geoffrey Abbott served in the RAF for 35 years before becoming a ‘Beefeater’ at the Tower of London. He wrote more than 24 books on torture and execution, appeared in numerous TV documentaries as consultant or executioner and, by invitation, wrote entries on torture and execution for the Encyclopedia Britannica. He once stood on the ‘drop’ trapdoors in the execution chamber of Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow (as a fact-finding author, not a convicted criminal!) and also experienced having a noose placed around his neck by a professional hangman – the late Sydney Dernley, a man endowed with a great, if macabre, sense of humour!
