Episode Three: The Runaway

Seventeen year-old John Bean worked as a newsvendor in London.
His disability - an acute case of curvature of the spine – meant
that throughout his life he had been the target of cruel
discrimination. In mid-June 1842, just before his 18th birthday,
and days after John Francis’s attempt on the Queen, Bean ran away
from home. Presenter Bob Nicholson finds a letter John wrote to
his parents telling them he’d run away but promising to stay on
the straight and narrow – no matter how bad things got. ‘It will
be useless to seek for me as I am determined never to be at home
again.’ We discover that he then bought a flintlock pistol that
was later described by the shopkeeper as ‘very old, rather rusty,
but it could be discharged’ – it might be falling apart but it
could fire a lethal shot. John Bean lived rough on the streets
and hung around Buckingham Palace waiting for Victoria to appear.
Dr Bob Nicholson traces John’s story, by scouring police
archives, newspaper accounts and trial transcripts. He uncovers a
tragic and gripping tale.