The Strange Disappearance of Screenwriter Ian Mackintosh

Rewind Episode -- British screenwriter Ian Mackintosh’s plane went missing on July 7, 1979, nineteen days before his thirty-ninth birthday, over the Gulf of Alaska. What happened remains a mystery. Join us as we tell the story of Lieutenant Commander Hamish Ian Mackintosh, a British Royal Navy officer, a writer of thriller novels, and a screenwriter for British television.

Ian’s series, THE SANDBAGGERS, was groundbreaking.  The New York Times said, "the best spy series in television history."   Ian MacKintosh was among the first writers to present espionage realistically and as a sordid series of political struggles, double-crosses, and personality clashes.


If you would like to read more about Ian Mackintosh I highly recommend The Life and Mysterious Death of Ian Mackintosh by Robert G. Folsom

The PAGE International Screenwriting Awards sponsors the WRITERS HANGOUT.
Executive Producer Kristin Overn
Creator/Executive Producer Sandy Adomaitis
Producer Terry Sampson
Music by Ethan Stoller

Email: thewritershangoutpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

0:01

Hello, my name is Sandy Adamis, the social media director for the page, international Screenwriting Awards, and your host for the Writer's Hangout. A podcast that celebrates the many stages of writing, from inspiration to the first draft, revising, getting a project made and everything in between. We'll talk to the best and the brightest in the entertainment industry and create a space where you can hang out, learn from the pros, and have fun. Hi, I'm Sandy Adamis. And I'm Terry Sampson. Today Terry and I are going to tell you about the life and mysterious death of Ian Macintosh. The sources for this story are an article by Jane Ennis of the London's TV Times. A book that I leaned very, very heavy on is called the. Life and Mysterious death of Ian Macintosh by Robert g Folsom. And another article called An Unfortunate Accident, or A Daring Escape by Robin Bearfield. Born to Annie and James Macintosh. Ian Macintosh grew up in inner vests in the Scottish Highlands. His mom was the governess and his father was a naval officer. He had a younger brother named Lawry. I love that name. Lawry. Very pretty. Yes. It has been reported by the Macintosh family that while Ian's father was serving in World War ii, his ship was attacked by a German destroyer while on an arctic convoy run to Russia. A senior officer ordered James Macintosh to seal the fire doors to his engine room to prevent fire spreading to the rest of the ship, rather than leave his men trapped inside. Ian's dad knocked the officer unconscious and got his men out. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Ian was educated at the. Inverness Royal Academy. He was a boy scout and he played sports, including cricket, rugby, and soccer. At 16, Ian taught Sunday School until he left for the military college, Britannia Royal Navy College, the British equivalent of the United States Naval Academy in 1958 to train as a Royal Navy officer. Ian graduated on April 26th, 1961 and the very next day he was assigned to the Light Feet aircraft carrier, HMS Center based at Aberdeen in Scotland. While in the Royal Navy, officer Ian's exact duties are. Still unclear, but it has been surmised that Ian was a spy, an intelligent aist, and may have carried out mix of duties. Lori McIntosh said about his brother, quote. Ian frequently disappeared for long periods, was totally uncontactable, and then just reappeared with no explanation. Unquote, this wasn't the normal pattern for naval officers during this period of five years. Ian turned out five novels, crime novels or procedurals crime procedurals. That's, he wrote a lot on a weekend. In 1961, Ian went to dinner at the home of his superior officer who introduced Ian to his daughter Sharon. Ian was 20 and she was 12, thank God. Eight years later on September 6th, 1969, Ian and Sharon married. It worried me the first time I heard that, they had two daughters, Zoe and Zema Uh, Ian and Sharon eventually divorced, and I'll get into why they divorced a little bit later on. Ian made the transition from books to television Look Easy. In 1972, he suggested the idea of a naval drama to Admiral Lewin, who Ian once was an A to Admiral Lewin, served in the Second World War, commanded a destroyer. The Royal Yacht, two frigates and an aircraft carrier. This guy was just, he was the boss. He was the man. The royal yacht. The royal yacht, yes. The Queen's yacht. I'm sorry, would that be the Queen's yacht? Yes. Yes. Nice. So I guess during the war, he com commanded the destroyer and then maybe after the war, went to the yacht, then chew frigates and an aircraft carrier. Man, he was First Sea Lord. Chief of the Naval staff in the late 1970s, this man had power. Yeah. Admiral Lewin liked the idea and the BBC was brought in to produce the series that came to be known as Warship. Admiral Lewin ordered the sea command to provide a leaner class frigate and crew for the production. At the time, the Linder class was the most worthy warships. The Royal Navy possessed. Ian wrote most of the episodes all the while Ian was still carrying out naval duties. War was on the air from 1973 to 1974, and it became a hit drawing in 12 million people. He's still connected to the Navy. Mm-hmm. While writing for tv. Yeah. Huh? Yeah, with worship, the writing bug had captured Ian, but it would eventually break up his marriage. Lori Ian's brother explained quote, when Ian got involved in worship, he still had naval duties along with the extra demands of writing and supervising the production, which meant he worked very long hours. It became just impractical for him to travel back and forth to their home in Hemp Shire. About a two hour journey each way. He wanted Sharon to move up to London, but she refused, unquote because Hampshire is a much better place to bring up children than Central London. I'm still stunned at the idea that a guy who was dabbling, if you will, in makeup stuff, I'm making things up every day, right, and turning over. To another thing that might happen that day that involved actual Navy stuff. Yeah. Isn't that wild? Yeah. I can't imagine. He's in his mid thirties, I believe, at this time. I mean, he is an impressive human being. Yes. Oh. Also, I, you know, friends have episodes due. You can always tell,'cause you call them up and it's like, can't talk. I can't talk. And he is like. Okay. Got it. I got it. You got something to do. He must, he must have been like that all the time. He was like that all the time. In 1976, Ian retired from the Royal Navy and was immediately hired by the Yorkshire Television company. Ian's first venture was. Creating Wild Alliance about a crime writer and his wife who self who'd done it kind of like, um, heart to heart, I would think. Oh, yeah. Heart to, yeah. Next up was Thundercloud, a comedy adventure depicting the antics at a Royal Navy Coastal Station in World War ii. Wow. See, up to this point I was down with this guy being able to sort of take these two huge serious ideas, actual life as a Navy commander. Mm-hmm. And then writing about that. You throw funny in there. Yeah. Now. I'm really impressed. In early spring, 1977, a year into his new career as a producer writer, Ian came up with the idea of a series about a tiny cadre of secret agents. He called the Sandbaggers and wrote up an 11 page outline, the protagonist. Neil Burnside showed Ian's dissatisfaction with, uh, political interference into intelligent operations. It showed the good guys don't always win, and when they do win, it's not always because of their own actions. This was all new, I guess in those days. Also, Burnside goes to great lengths to protect his sandbaggers, but he also doesn't hesitate to risk their lives when the mission is important. The information is good, and they can cover their tracks. Why the group was called the Sandbaggers was never explained, but it may have to do with putting up sandbags as a defense against an incoming flood. To prevent erosion or something like that. Right, right. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I also looked, uh, this up and it said that if you went to the original. Idea. If you went to an old dictionary, for instance, the original first pass on this would've been, it's a person who uses a sandbag as a weapon. Now I know that we've gotten all fancy with our guns and, uh, exploding stuff. Yeah, man. A guy comes walking at you with a big, heavy sandbag. It looks like you have more time. To think out the situation, maybe call the police, feed the police dog, whatever you wanna do. You still got lots of time.'cause he is bringing a big bag to hit you with, right? Yeah. That would hurt because in the movies I've seen them drop from the theater. From the actor. Right, exactly. That's always to that. Maybe that's how it was done. Yeah. Maybe it was a big surprise. Oh yeah, yeah. I send Guy send back though he didn't know it hit him. Oh, we figured it out. We figured it out. So in golf, there are guys that hustle something. They, they act like they can't play well and then when the betting happens, they play great and win money. It's a trick, I guess though they did trick people and, oh yes. I think spy work is all about trickery. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes. The first episode of the Sandbaggers aired September 18th, 1979. It was a hit the New York Times called Sandbaggers, the best spy series in television history and the first TV series to. Espionage, realistically, a sword series of political struggles, double crosses and personality clashes. I watched the first episode I, I watched a couple mm-hmm. Of Sandbaggers. You can get it on Amazon Prime, I believe. Uh, but I did it through Brit Box. I loved it. Now. It's very different kind of viewing from what we're used to watching. And you watch some episodes? Yeah, I watched an episode. Yeah. A lot of meetings. A lot of meetings. It's um, a lot of opening doors and they just start talking. Men, men, men, men are doing all the talking. The war room was just a big room with fax machines and, uh, also I loved, they had to drop two of the sandbaggers into Russia and they literally planned the whole thing, like five guys over a map with a wooden ruler. It was amazing. We're gonna send a squad in. I want you to measure this very carefully with that ruler because every millimeter can you imagine is 10,000 miles. Yes. Yeah. Somebody's going to Finland. I don't care who they think, right where the Russians are. But if you don't measure correctly, you are in Finland. In Finland. Yeah. I searched the internet and got some free video, and, and the episode was only 38 minutes. We've now just. Discussed this when you showed up today and I, and you looked at me like, no, they're not. 38 minutes over an hour. Yeah. So yeah, so these, this one was edited ho horribly, which I'm happy to hear because I would barely follow it. A lot of jargon. Lot of sky jargon. So much chitchat too. Mm-hmm. By the way, un unbelievable. Aaron Sarkin. Without the walks, it's just they're sitting across from each other talking. It was back. Before cell phones and, and push button numbers. So rather do the dial thing. Anybody out there who hasn't put their finger in it went like that and let your finger ride back. That's a good part of it. It's good for the ride back. So this guy was dialing and there's a, and he finally stops. He looks at his watch and he puts the phone down and leaves. That's the rest of us. Now. I'm not waiting to dial I can uber over to this place faster than I can dialing this. Yes. The uh, lead guy Neil Burnside had two phones on his desk. Did you notice the red phone? Yes. And the regular phone. Yeah. And I know Brits are cool people. They don't go off the handle quite as quickly as the rest of us. No, there was not yelling at all. But still, I think when the red phone rang. Everybody except Brits would go, crap, this can't be good. This can't be good. It's never good. Exactly. The Bri phone is never good. The most famous episode, which was called The Special Relationship, was a watershed in the history of spy fiction. The character Laura Dickens, the only female sandbagger and burden side's love interest is captured and swapped. For an East German spy during the crossover on that real bridge of spies in Germany, that's a, mm-hmm. Laura is unceremoniously killed by an unseen sniper. This had never happened in television before, and the outcry for them killing off. Laura was huge. Now, this episode was supposed to be the last episode of the Sandbaggers and Ian decided to just go out with a bang because special relationship gardened so much attention. The sandbaggers was given a season. Two with one less actress, with one less. Yeah. The budget went down. Yeah. But everything Ian touches is gold. Yeah. Midway through season two, Ian got. The word that the series was gonna go for three seasons. Bravo, Ian, just good for you. By 1979, Ian had become the executive producer of the show and as a gift of appreciation to cast and crew, they were given 18 days to shoot an episode in Sunny Malta. Ian, who loved to travel along with his girlfriend of two years, is Susan. Insole decided to take a vacation while production was shooting in Malta, and upon his return, Ian had three scripts due, but he figured piece of cake, I can handle it. And it's Ian. I believe it. Good for Ian? Yes. On July 7th, 1979, just a few weeks shy of Ian's 39th birthday, he, Susan and Ian's good friend, Graham Barber, an experienced British Airways pilot, rented a single engine rally, 2, 3, 5 airplane in Anchorage. Ah, the 2, 3, 5. After a test flight, the trio flew towards Kodiak. The weather that evening was clear, but it was very windy in Kodiak at 5:45 PM while flying northeast of the Kodiak Island. Barbara sent out a distress signal saying he was losing oil pressure. The air traffic controller at the Kodiak Airport relayed the call to the US Coast Guard and searches were in the air within 10 minutes. And over the last known coordinates of Ian's plane in 30 minutes, but they saw no sign of the aircraft. The search continued for three days, but neither the plane nor the passengers. Wherever found. No sign of those three scripts either. We're gonna cut that. No, we're keeping it. Remember when you write to the Writer Hangout podcast@gmail.com. It's T-E-R-R-Y. That was Terry. Okay. Now, I mean, really. So sad. Yeah. But of course, because Ian was who he is and his previous lifestyle controversy immediately began to swirl around. And there were two major theories, well, three without a trace. Ian set up the plane crash in order to defect to Russia. I could not find it any of my research reasons why Ian would defect, other than, this is a brilliant man. He could have been a double agent, but the fact that Susan and Graham were also involved kind of negates that. Yeah, it's. That's pretty con uh, uh, convoluted. Yeah, it's pretty unlikely those three people would've also been Russian spies, right? Graham maybe. But Susan, I don't think so. Who knows? The spy who came in from the cold, even though he was retired, Ian was on a mission for the British government. This is speculated because Ian was required to report to the foreign office every time he left the country. Even though it had been four years since he retired. Ian also had high-end electronic equipment in his apartment in London. That's what Lawy has. Brother said, and it was not unusual for someone like Ian, who is officially retired, but still asked to do something while traveling. You know, nothing big. Maybe take photographs or just report what they saw. I don't even have a movie name for it. It because it's just so simple. Maybe the natural, the cap for the oil was left off. And when they got to where they were outside the Kodiak Islands, the plane stalled. Even though Graham was an amazing pilot and he probably coasted as long as he could, it went into the water. If the plane flipped the chances and I guess it had fixed landing gear and a fixed landing gear plane when it hits the water, will flip. And the three of them. Getting out of one door, the door on the right the three of them getting out, definitely a person in the back was not gonna get out. Right. And the freezing temperatures and. It is very likely that a plane could, sink that fast at half hour. Sure. And not leave an oil slick because No oil. No oil. And were we in a position to know where it went when it went down? Was there, it was if is gave the coordinates. There was some back and forth between Graham and the Kodiak airport. Also, um, I should have mentioned earlier that part of the world is filled with. Russian spy submarines. Wow. And Russian trawlers that are actually, spy trawlers that, they look like fishermen, but they're all crowded around sophisticated, listening devices. So that supports two theories that they picked him up and he's still living in, Russia. He's still living in Russia somewhere or, yeah. Uh. They picked him up and knew he was a pain in the ass and, And said no. not even 40, all those books, all those series groundbreaking series, I wish we could still be, uh, watching his movies Yeah. And TV shows. I think we could give him a couple extra things to do. I don't think it would slow him down. That's a wrap for the Writer's Hangout. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and thrive till we get to hang out again. Keep writing. The world needs your Stories.