THE DUKE IN THE CUPBOARD

The story of the Duke in the Cupboard is both quirky and true: the theft, in 1961, of Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery, not by a gang of art thieves out to make a fortune for themselves but by an ordinary (but in some ways extraordinary) man of principle from Benwell in Newcastle. His motivation? Disgust that the government would pay £140,000 to prevent a painting from being taken abroad but that pensioners had to pay the full £4 TV licence fee.