AUGUST was a particularly special month for the Mountbatten family as it was a time when every -generation left work behind for an annual summer holiday of rest and relaxation at Classiebawn Castle in Ireland. Lord Louis Mountbatten adored Classiebawn. He said he felt more relaxed there than anywhere else in the world. The estate had descended to the Mountbattens through the wife of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, a step-daughter of the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston who had the castle built in the mid-nineteenth century. When the family gathered at Classiebawn they filled the castle.

When they went there in August they invariably took the ferry from Liverpool to Dublin and drove the 100-odd miles across Ireland to the north west-ern coast of Sligo. The Irish police (the Garda) were conscious that the Mountbattens should use a less conspicuous method of travel, as it had been identified that Lord Mountbatten was a prime target for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He took these threats seriously enough to let the Garda know his time of arrival and movements on the island but he always refused to let such threats govern his lifestyle so tended to shun armed protection. He never believed anyone could con-sider an old man such as himself a target.

But in August 1979, when the family arrived in Dublin for the start of their holiday, Lord Mountbatten was met by the then British Ambassador to Ireland, who told him they had information that the IRA were threatening something during the coming weeks.

Lord Mountbatten took the situation -seriously but still refused to alter his holiday plans. He was provided with four armed bodyguards from the Irish Special Branch - one of them was assigned to his side at all times. Mountbatten found their presence an irritation but he didn't make their job any more difficult by trying to give them the slip. Mountbatten ran his holidays in exactly the same way that he organised the rest of his life - with military -precision.

The night before the bomb went off the Mountbattens had a cosy family dinner at the castle with close friends of Lord Louis. Aideen Gore-Booth, who had taken over as Lord Louis' agent following the death of her sister, Gabrielle, had been invited to dine with the -family.

Speaking in an interview for a biography on Lord Mountbatten long after his death, she recalls vivid memories of that night and her fears of a tragic event.

"I don't know what it was. There was nothing I could put my finger on, but I knew that something awful was about to happen. I had only experienced a feeling like this once before in my life and that was when my brother, Brian, was killed in the Second World War.

"During the dinner I could not touch a single thing to eat or drink and I am told I hardly spoke a word, which was most unlike me.''

She remembers how Mountbatten himself was in excellent form, even joking - iron-ically - about what he hoped the mourners at his funeral would do to enjoy themselves, at some distant date. In fact, that very evening a pre-recorded interview was shown on the BBC in which Mountbatten dis-cussed his plans for his funeral in some detail saying he wanted the event to be a "happy occasion'', not knowing that it would not be too long in coming and would be far from happy.

THE morning of August 27, 1979, dawned and brilliant sun lit up the sky. It was a Bank Holiday Monday.

Lord Mountbatten, great uncle to Prince Charles, was to spend the day -rallying a team to lift the lobster pots he had laid the previous day.

It was intended to be the last trip of the season and Lord Mountbatten was not aware how right he was.

Shortly after breakfast he called upon his crew. His grandaughter, Amanda, and her brother, Phillip, decided to remain behind and sunbathe with their cousin, Edwina.

Eventually it was decided that his eldest daughter, Patricia, her husband, John, and his 83-year-old mother, the Dowager Lady Brabourne, would join Mountbatten. Also on board were Nicholas and Timothy, the four-teen-year-old identical twin sons of Lord and Lady Brabourne and their 15-year-old pal Paul Maxwell, the son of a local man. He came along primarily to help with the boat for a little extra pocket money.

Two Garda officers were on duty that -morning. They followed Mountbatten as he wove his way through the village to the boat. Their watchful eyes missed nothing as they watched holidaymakers and locals nudge each other as he passed. Everyone knew he was the lord of the manor; he had been a familiar sight for 30 years, and his distinctive figure, six feet two and topped with a shock of white hair, was not something easily missed.

The two guards parked up while the family climbed into the boat, armed with guns and binoculars. The boat, Shadow V, a clinker-built Donegal fishing boat, released her moorings at 11.30am and the Garda's car followed on land watching closely through the binoculars.

Further along the road two more pairs of eyes were watching the boat. The belonged to the murderers, members of the Provos, the Provisional IRA.

They could see clearly the women and -children on board standing just a few inches from the bomb that would rip the boat apart. But they could also see their target, Lord Louis Mountbatten, standing at the wheel.

LORD Mountbatten was a British hero loved by people across the country, -particularly at home in Romsey where his name still brings a smile to people's faces.

He was the man who had accepted the Japanese surrender in 1945. He was the last Viceroy of India, a country which, for 150 years, was the jewel of the British Crown. He became the last Viceroy as it was during his reign that India was "given away'' and gained its -independence from the British Empire. It was through this Mountbatten made a very powerful foe in Winston Churchill. Mountbatten had an impossible task in India trying to bring together the Muslim and Hindu factions. The last Viceroy arrived in Delhi on March 22, 1947. The Union flag was lowered on August 15. Civil war raged shortly afterwards and it was here Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, came into their own. She organised relief work, aid and medical supplies, while he chaired an emergency committee as the then Governor-General. In all, the Mountbattens spent nearly 15 months in India, during which time they witnessed history being made and indeed, in his case, helped to make it. Edwina and Louis's marriage was not -conventional by any means. Both had had affairs (a trait started by Edwina shortly after their marriage). It was publicly known that each one had been unfaithful but they had a sophisticated, mutual understanding of each other's "companions''.

Mountbatten was a difficult man. He was obsessed by all things royal and would flare up should his orders not be followed to the letter. When he said dinner was to be served at 1700, he meant five o'clock on the dot and not a minute later. This authoritarian attitude stemmed mainly from his naval career which he cherished. The pinnacle of this glittering career came in 1955 when Winston Churchill, in one of his last acts as Prime Minister, chose Lord Mountbatten to be the First Sea Lord, nearly half a century after offering his father the same prestigious post. It was the proudest moment in his career, more so than his appointment four years later as Chief of Defence Staff.

Edwina's death, in 1960 after almost 40 years of marriage, came as a great shock. The pair had come to a mature understanding in their old age and were both looking forward to -companionship in retirement. But her death was to end all that and in 1965 Mountbatten retired from active duty in the Royal Navy. Shortly afterwards he was made Governor of the Isle of Wight, a position he took as -seriously as when he was made Viceroy of India.

Mountbatten was a complex character who always demanded to be taken seriously yet loved nothing better than flouncing with Hollywood celebrities and members of the Royal ensemble.

Mountbatten's list of life achievements read like a Hollywood movie. He was born a Serene Highness, was forced to change his name dur-ing the First World War because of his German background. He was a Second World War hero who had his ship blown out from under him, was married to one of the richest women in Britain, and was Viceroy and first Governor-General of India with dozens of decorations and honours to his name. His history is like scores of lives bundled into eight decades of one remarkable man.

AT exactly 11.45am, just fifteen minutes after Shadow V had left the small harbour, and when she was just 200 yards from shore, one of the hidden terrorists pressed the button which activated 50 pounds of gelignite exploding the boat into pieces.

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