Legendary mail train robber Ronald Biggs laughing while holding a flower next to his face in front of his house in Santa Tereza, Brazil. Photo: dpa/picture alliance
A million Pound theft, fingerprints lifted from a Monopoly board and an escape to Copacabana: Sacks of cash stolen from a British postal train became the legendary Great Train Robbery, capturing the country’s imagination.
The story, of a spectacular heist, but also of betrayal and opaque connections between the police and the underworld became the stuff of films, songs and radio plays and lives on, though it was committed 60 years ago.
A gang of 15 men lay in wait at a railway bridge in Buckinghamshire, England, on the night of Aug 8, 1963. They had meticulously planned the operation, having discovered the postal train from Glasgow to London was carrying sacks of banknotes that today would be worth £45mil (RM262.5mil) to £60mil (RM350mil).
They made a simple adjustment to the railway signals, covering up the green light and lighting up the red using a simple battery, leading the driver to bring the train to a sudden halt.
The gangsters entered the train, overpowering the driver with a blow to his head.
Next, they loaded the sacks of cash into vehicles that were waiting and made off with the money.
They chose an old farm not far from the scene of the crime as a hideout and divided up their takings.
The swift and successful heist became legend overnight, and though the driver never recovered from the trauma of that night, the robbers soon gained Robin Hood status, said former detective Steve Gaskin.
Ronald Biggs as a young man. He and 14 other men robbed the mail train from Glasgow to London on Aug 8, 1963, capturing £2.6mil. After his conviction, he fled prison and did not turn himself in to British justice until 2001. The mail train robbery went down in history as the Great Train Robbery. Photo: dpa/Erich Braunsperger
Gaskin, a former Scotland Yard detective, describes the events involved in the “Great Train Robbery” at evenings in the Star Tavern, a pub in London’s Belgravia district.
Gaskin picked the pub as he fervently believes the train robbers used to meet there.
The story of the daredevil thieves, some of whom were very attractive, also made waves around the world.
Three years later, the heist even became the centre of a television series in Germany. It even sparked audiobooks and the BBC created a remake to mark the half century.
But the story did not last as long for most of the men involved.
Twelve of them were soon caught by the police and some received sentences of up to 30 years in prison. A Monopoly board with a few fingerprints left behind at their hideout was a crucial clue for the police. But most of the money was never recovered.
Later, some of the men managed to escape from prison, most notably Ronald “Ronnie” Biggs, who was handed a 30-year sentence even though he only played a minor role in the theft.
In 1965, he fled Wandsworth prison by jumping over a wall using a rope ladder and landing in a furniture van with a hole in the roof that was waiting for him.
He had plastic surgery in Paris, then fled to Australia with his family. Once he was tracked down by the authorities, he escaped, alone, to Brazil.
In Rio de Janeiro, Biggs cultivated the image of a bon vivant who flaunted his escape while sipping cocktails – a stance that landed well in the world of punk. The Sex Pistols recorded the song No One Is Innocent with him in 1978.
By the early 1980s, Biggs was kidnapped by former British soldiers and brought to the Bahamas – but the absence of extradition treaties meant he was able to return to Brazil.
His rebel image even inspired Germany’s Toten Hosen band, who released the song Carnival In Rio that they recorded together with Biggs in 1991. In the music video, Campino and other members of the band can be seen with Biggs playing football and carousing on the Copacabana.
Drummer Michael Breitkopf, known as “Breiti”, remained friends with Biggs until his death. In an interview with dpa, he said Biggs forced himself into the public eye mainly because he was not allowed to work in Brazil.
“That always made it look to the outside world as if he was giving the British authorities the finger in addition to them not being able to get to him.”
Shortly after Biggs’ death, however, he told the Spiegel news magazine that sometimes, the Briton could not resist a provocative remark. “He was always up for a stupid line.”
Although he was safe from the British police in Brazil, Biggs returned home in 2001, hoping for a pardon.
“I remember that Biggs said: ‘I just want to come back to the UK and go into a pub in Ramsgate and have a pint as an Englishman’,” Gaskin says. “And I was with a load of police officers when we heard this. And we said ‘the only place you’re going, mate, is back into prison’.”
One of Gaskin’s friends arrested Biggs immediately when he landed in Britain. “The police attitude was they were organised criminals. So there was not the sort of fanfare. None of that at all.”
Biggs was only released from prison in 2008, following a serious illness.The robbery may have given the British public something to obsess over amid a post-war recession but for the robbers themselves, it was barely worth it, says Gaskin. – dpa
