A Very Big Job - Part 2

Welcome to Red Herrings!

This week, Joccoaa tells us the tale of a very big escape...

Hosted by: Brittany Warren & Joccoaa Gray
 
Sound Engineer & Co-host: Christopher Brown
 
Edited by: Joccoaa Gray

If you would like to get in touch, please contact us at redherringspod@gmail.com.

Sources:

The Independent

Inews.co.uk

Wikipedia

Bankofengland website

Ronniebiggs.com

The Birmingham Daily Post

The British Newspaper Archive

Theoldie.co.uk

Bbc.co.uk

The British Archives

The Cheshire Live Gallery 

The Telegraph

Historyexpose.com

The Metro

The Autobiography of a Thief by Bruce Reynolds

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to Red Herrings. I'm Jacoa, Master's student in Law and Human Rights, host of True Crime Club Newcastle, and creator of True Crime Forum Newcastle.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Hi, I'm Brittany. I have two degrees in history and 15 years experience in genealogy. We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two red herrings and the catch of the day. Don't forget about me.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hi Chris! We're the red herrings.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

And Chris.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Last week we went through the story of the robbery, mostly told by train driver Jack Mills, who was awarded for his bravery during the raid.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

But only with like a tie, so And twenty-five guineas.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

What is it? And what is that?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I thought that was a bird.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

It's like guinea fowl.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Ah, so we got twenty-five guinea fowl.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

It's like twenty quid, I guess, or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Well I actually did look it up as well, and it was like so small and insignificant I didn't even bother.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Is a guinea a pound and a penny or a pound and a shilling or something? Both. I made that up.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

We'll go with it. Then we went through a timeline of many men suspected on the run and subsequently found and arrested through a strategic investigation by London police using fingerprints found in the gang's cheeky hideout. Twelve men in total were convicted for their part in the robbery, with seven of them serving thirty-year sentences. That was until some of them started escaping. And here we begin the second leg of our story. I love it. Charles Wilson escaped from Winson Green Prison, Birmingham, after just a hundred and seventeen days into his thirty-year sentence. You can see a photo of Charles during his trial on page 17.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Damn, they they definitely found some handsome men to do their to do their dirty work.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

I mean it's not a bunch of ugles by any means.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

It's really not.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Like the normal people we get on this podcast. Like the benders.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Well he had a gang on the inside willing to help out, possibly promising them a lot of money if they got him out. Not sure. The gang struck a prison officer unconscious and tied him up. Then they skirted a paved courtyard and entered the prison block that Wilson was being kept in. According to an official investigation into the escape called the Mountbatten Report. Mountbatten report.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

We know what's on Chico's mind.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Called the Mountbatten Report, Wilson's clothing was left outside his cell each night because he was on the escape list. This meant that the men who freed him did not have to search far to find him. So he was just naked then. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

How does that stop him escaping?

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Well, because you don't want to escape naked. They used it as a deterrent, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So weird.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

I'm not saying it was a good one. They released Wilson from his solitary confinement with a master key and then returned to the courtyard where they all climbed a ladder and went over the 15-foot prison wall and dropped down a rope ladder that had been established there for him on the other side.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

A police theory, according to the Birmingham Birmingham Daily Post, 1966, was that the gang had an Oster Oster aircraft standing in a field at Romsley near Hales Owen, to which they drove and left the country immediately.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

But this all seems so well planned. They had without even being you know, from a prison cell, they've managed to organise a jailbreak and an aircraft to be on standby to immediately take you out of the country. That's that's pretty impressive. Am I the only one that's impressed by that?

SPEAKER_02 3:44

So it wasn't the cell mates or prisoners that had organized the plane. It was the gang. It was the people that Wilson had on the outside.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Right, but still he was able to mastermind it from his prison cell.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Or maybe maybe he didn't mastermind it. Maybe the his mates masterminded it and just told him where to be at what time.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Possibly.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

But they By the way, that's pretty impressive. I mean, yeah, I'm not saying yeah, it is it is very impressive.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

I think he deserves to get away, personally.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Me too. I don't think we're allowed to say that.

unknown 4:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

So if they did escape that way, they were looking at about a 25-minute drive from the prison to that aircraft. Wilson's breakout strengthened the theory that he held the secret of the missing two million of the unrecovered money. Just on that Mountbatten report, the report was an urgent inquiry into the prison system after these escapes and after the escape of the spy George Blake. The inquiry was led by La Lord Mountbatten, hence the name, and was a ninety-three page report containing fifty-two recommendations. According to the report, it was around six or seven escapes from closed prisons per month. So there was quite a bit of a problem with the security in prisons at the time, it would seem per month.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Six to seven.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Oh, six to seven. That's quite that's still quite a lot. That's that's over no well, that's about it's about ninety a year, isn't it? Crazy.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

But after the report, this went down to only one in a year. The report was commended for its speediness at tidying up the dire situation. So six or seven escapes per month down to one a year.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

It needed reform, didn't it? Yeah. I wonder how many of those people escaped they actually caught. I wonder. Ronnie Biggs and three others escaped Wandsworth prison in broad daylight after serving around a year of his 30-year prison sentence. During an exercise break in the prison yard, Biggs and eleven other prisoners were walking the yard. Around halfway through the prisoner's outside break in the yard, a red removal van backed up against the outside of the prison wall at around 3 pm, followed shortly by a getaway car. This escape took only a few minutes to execute. A rope ladder was thrown up and over the twenty-foot prison wall. As soon as it landed, Biggs and three others sprang to climb it as a prison officer sounded the alarm bell. Other prisoners then tackled officers who tried to get to the climbing escaping. Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Okay, so were they being paid or what? Must have been. Or do you think it was just like a camaraderie thing?

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Craadery, yeah. That's immediately what I thought. Who knows? All four managed to scale the wall, jump onto the red van roof, and climb into the getaway car. The red van was left abandoned, and police later found a loaded shotgun inside. The newspaper said that police thought Biggs might be being held prisoner for his money, which didn't make too much sense to me if Biggs voluntarily scaled the wall and they left the shotgun in the van. But they may have the police may have had more evidence to that fact. Five men were later arrested and charged with conspiring to aid Biggs' escape. Turn to page 18 and 19 for a refresher photo on Ronnie Biggs and Bruce Reynolds. Ronnie doesn't look so fit there.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

No, but he does look pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, he looks cool, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah, I mean I'm not loving is that a double-breasted suit? I can't see from here.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

I don't even know that really looks like it's like when the when one lapel goes over the other rather than meeting in the middle. No, it's not, he's just got a waistcoat on, but it's it does look very cool. He had a good tailor. I suppose if you've got two and a half million, you probably the first thing you do is go and get yourself a good suit for court.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Oh obviously, yes. Ronald Biggs was born on the 8th of August 1929 in London. He was one of four surviving children. At the age of eleven, he was evacuated to Devon during the Second World War and then on to Cornwall. According to the Independent, he turned to petty theft during this time. He arrived back in London at the age of thirteen in 1942. Only a year later his mother died. By 1945, Ronnie Biggs made his first court appearance for shoplifting, but a couple of years after that he joined the Royal Air Force where he qualified as a chef.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Oh, I thought you were gonna say like fighter pilot or something.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Nah, not that quite a bit. How do you qualify as a chef in My Granddad was a chef. Was he? Was he in the war?

SPEAKER_03 8:17

I don't know that.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah. However, this didn't exactly put Ronnie on the straight and narrow. In 1949, he was served his first prison sentence for shop breaking, housebreaking, stealing, and using a fake ID. At the same time, he was dishonourably discharged from the RAF. Later that same year, he received another custodial sentence of three months for stealing a car. This is where he met Bruce Reynolds. Bruce Reynolds was born in 1931 on the 7th of September in London. He was the only child to his mother, Dorothy, who was a nurse, and his father Thomas. It was a difficult life in the early years. Thomas struggled to find work until he found a job being a metal pourer at a zinc smouldering plant in the West End, that's his dad. This was a really hard, laborious and tiring job. Bruce alludes to the fact that slowly after getting this job, his dad turned to alcohol to get him through, but eventually he got a much better job working at the Ford plant in Dagenham. They were expanding their family. Bruce was four, and Dorothy went into hospital to give birth to Bruce's sister and died. And then shortly after the baby girl died too.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

His father remarried a woman called Amy. Amy didn't take to little Bruce, showing him little affection. However, much later on, Bruce and Amy would grow more fond of each other, especially sharing in a similar sense of humour. Reynolds was evacuated to Suffolk during the Second World War at around the age of eight or nine. He returned to London after the war and tried to join the Navy at just fourteen, but wasn't allowed due to his poor eyesight. Instead, after finding his place in a cycling club in South London, he joined the cycle manufacturer Claude Butler, where he had a steady job and income. This was where he met a young lad who went by the nickname Cobbie. Cobbie was a bit of a petty thief in his spare time and nothing too rambunctious, but Reynolds loved the thrill that theft gave him, and soon the two were out robbing warehouses and shops on the reg. Reynolds would later go on to tell the Aldi magazine that the life of the young outlaw appealed to him tremendously. By the time he was seventeen, Bruce went back to prison, and this is where he met Ronnie Biggs.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Damn. So these were proper, like, you know, they had lots of contacts, they knew what they're doing, they'd been around the block.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get there as well, and I'm gonna tell you a bit about Bruce's story particularly, and it's it's wild. Really funny and wild. Okay. Quick note that the actual prison where Ronnie Biggs and Bruce met was HMP Wandsworth. That is confirmed by Bruce in his book, although you'll probably see differing reports out there. I saw a lot of other sources say a lot of other prisons until I read the book. Is it good?

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Would you recommend it?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

I would recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Okay, we need to get a crime shelf, I think.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

Oh, we have all those new bookshelves downstairs.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Bruce took Ronnie under his wing, and the two apparently shared romantic notions of adventure.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

To each other?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Um maybe. You can write a fanfic. Romantic notions of adventure, according to Bruce, and shared delightfully in their love of jazz and literature. Oh love it. These bad boys are just softies really.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

They really are.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Love a bit of Monopoly, love a bit of classical literature, a bit of Jane Austen, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

I love it. They don't make them like this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

I know, I know. It's so true. It's so true. Before we had bad boys like this, and now we have fucking Elon Musk and Andrew Tate. It's just not the same anymore, guys.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

It really isn't. Do better, criminals.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Do yes, thank you. Oh, I thought you just meant all men. Men.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Well, that too. In 1958, so around five years before the robbery, Ronnie Biggs eloped with his young love, Charmian Powell. It's a weird name. C-H-A-R-M-I-A-N. Charmaine?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

That's my Chinese order. Wow, that took a good two seconds.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Love it. It's just way too quick for me. Charmian. Sorry. Charmin. Charmaine. But it's not A-I-N. C H A R M I A N. Oh no. Charmin, Charmin. Shaman Powell. The year before, Shaman and Biggs got to talking and he asked her out for coffee. She accepted, and the two swiftly fell in love, even though Ronnie was already living with another woman. Shaman's family were horrified by their daughter's debauterous affair with Ronnie Biggs and cut her out of their life completely.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

That's harsh.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

So the pair ran away together to Dorset. According to the independent, the elopement was paid for by a stolen £200 from Shaman's place of employment for which they were both caught and sentenced. God yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, it's it's pretty grim.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Depends how you do it. I think we low bought a lot of stuff. Like we went.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, we've we've we've gone pretty low on the on the cash for what we're getting, I think.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yeah. We've done well. You've done well. We've done it very economically. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

We've spent the rest on wine.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Did we tell you about the cakes? No.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

And we bought double the amount of cake that we actually need.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

More than double the amount of cake. We got very excited for a little bit. We were like, right, we're gonna plan this wedding. And we're like, right, well, let's just buy the cakes. Let's just buy it. Three cakes. Three cakes. Um, and then we saw the serving suggestion just recently. Each cake serves 60 to 80 people.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

It's not a bad problem to have, guys.

unknown 14:12

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Brittany's just gonna be in the corner eating a cheesecake.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

No one else gets it.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Can I take some home?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Absolutely. Take as much as you like.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

Seriously, take as much cake as you want.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

It's gonna be well, we have Black Forest, Raspberry, and Key Lime Pi.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Amazing. Charmin got probation, and Ronnie got two and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

That is sexism at its finest.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

She nicked the cash.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Well, that's actually fair. I was gonna say Ronnie obviously had a track record and it was Charmaine's first offense, most likely.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

He didn't even do anything.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

You're very passionate about that. In 1963, the two were married with two children. Sharmin told a newspaper that when they got married, she made Ronnie promise to never partake in any criminal activity ever again. But he held on to that promise. She said she trusted him.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Red flag.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Oh dear. But Ronnie found he was having some cash flow issues, like there wasn't any flow to that cash. So he reached out to his good old friend, Bruce, for a loan. Bruce had other ideas. He had been in and out of Wandsworth prison over the years. The prison was like a boys' club for elite criminals, according to Bruce. And the more time he spent there, the more he realized he liked these people. They weren't layabouts or idiots, they were professionals. He even met the Krays way before they became the biggest boys around. He said even then he could tell they were always looking for a fight. Bruce had been spending the years listening and networking. He was now quite the established criminal, up and coming in the underworld. He was robbing country houses, joining gangs for meticulously operated highway robberies, hijacking vans, and stealing safes and learning how to blow them up. Everything you can think of, Bruce Reynolds was at it, and with a cohort of mischief around him. He was with an older, more glamorous crowd of criminals who had expensive cars and dressed well. He said he had some excellent mentors. Bruce had even been able to buy himself an Aston Martin. He was living on champagne and adrenaline. I've got three photos for you over the next pages of Bruce. Please stop at page 22.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

The first one there is of him and his wife Franny. That's them on their honeymoon in the south of France. So his wife, Franny, was actually the younger sister of his first love, Rita.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Awkward. I think Rita like broke his heart and then he like called Franny and they went out, and then he just realized she was cute too, I guess. And maybe a bit vulnerable. Who knows? Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Oh yikes.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

I mean, he just looks just as cool there as he does in his mugshot.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

I don't know, the speedo isn't really doing it for me.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Oh my god, I didn't even see the speedo. I thought it was like suit pants.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

No. I like the speedo. All I can think about is my grandfather. He's the only one he just wears. He just wore speedos. Like, I mean, not dead, but like when he went, he just wore speedos all the time. And I was like. All the time. Yeah, because we lived in Florida and he would come to visit. So it'd be at the beach 24-7.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

America's a real place. No, we need to. This is all just to say that.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

This is all the simulation, it's fine. Then that's Bruce and Franny with his stepmother Amy.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

A lot of nice people.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

And then that's them and friends having lavish dinners in posh restaurants in London.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

And is this post-train robbery or no? Okay. So they had some cash.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Oh, yeah. I mean he's well, we're gonna get into it, but he's robbing everyone.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Right, so post some robberies, but not. Oh yes. Right, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Yes, so definitely this is him and his little gang who are criminals and cool boys in the elite criminal world.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

He even got into insurance scams where people would ask him to rob their jewelry store, for example, for the insurance money, and Bruce would get a cut.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

He and a friend called Chad once did a house robbery at three in the morning after a nice dinner and a bottle of wine. He described them slithering around the house on their bellies in the middle of the night.

unknown 18:31

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

And into the bedroom where the owner slept.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

And what was the necessity to slither around in your belly?

SPEAKER_02 18:38

I just want to be like a snake. I guess maybe you don't want people to hear your footsteps.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And he decided slithering.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

He used the word slithering in his book, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

It creates a nice image. It really, really dark.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Butter, perhaps? Well, I'd hope so.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Nothing else would make sense. They were looking for a key to the safe. They had planned to just nick the safe and walk out with it and blow it up later, but they found it securely fitted to the floor. So Chad had the great idea of finding the woman's handbag to see if the safe key was in it. So off he slithered into the couple's bedroom, belly on the floor, passed the snoring couple in their bed, and then appeared back at the door with the handbag. They emptied the contents and out fell a key. Sure enough, it worked in the safe, and sitting inside were four brown packages. That night, Bruce and Chad went home with fifteen grand. That would be just over three hundred thousand pounds today. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Imagine keeping that in your safe though. Like, did banks not exist in night? Imagine keeping the key in your purse. Oh, it's a bit weird, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 19:48

I don't know, I just I'd hide it somewhere. Somewhere good.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

I think you think that your handbag's always going to be close to your person, so you wouldn't imagine anyone can ever take it.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Because it's that close. You don't imagine people are going to be slithering around on your bedroom floor. That is true. Breaks at 3 a.m. after two bottles of wine and a nice dinner. Finding your handbag and nicking your key. But yeah, interesting. I guess I guess it must have been the thing back then. It probably still is for like really, really rich people and huge houses to have money stashed. It's probably still a thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

It was Charlie Wilson that was trying to patch up Jack Mills as he was forced to drive the train. Peter, Ronnie's driver, had become overwhelmed as he saw Jack being beaten and couldn't start up the train again. That's why they had to threaten Jack into driving.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Bruce said he'd caught sight of Peter a little later and that he didn't look well. So poor Peter was a bit traumatised. According to Bruce, Charlie had offered to leave Mills some money on the grass verge. Mills declined by shaking his head. Now if you ask Bruce, he'll tell you that the media hyped up the injuries to Jack Mills. He said he saw him after the attack when he was sitting on the grass with Charlie, and he had a slight cut to his head, but it was nothing major. No one took much notice of it, in fact. He'd had a whack and that was it. You saw the photo at the beginning of part one. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

He looked pretty beat up to me.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

He did. Yeah. I don't think they'd put that much bandage around his head if it was just a cut. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

I mean it said he had four lacerations and needed stitches in all of them. But then it was a newspaper, so maybe it was hideout.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

And then maybe they're taking photos to use in the trial.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

And it would be that much bandage because head wounds bleed a lot. True. So it could just be like trying to stop the bleeding best they can.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

The gang spent the hours after the raid celebrating in their hideout, listening to the police radio they had acquired. An exclamation came across it saying, You'll never believe it, they've stolen a train. The men spoke of their plans, the yachts they were going to buy, where they were going to take their wives, the lives they were about to go and live. Ronnie Biggs received 147 grand in. Takings equivalent of about two point five million today.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Damn.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

In the morning after the robbery, Bruce set out to the bus stop with his money. A car stopped and offered him a lift, which he accepted. The two men in the car were discussing the robbery. He secured the money in a storage unit under some antique furniture. He also got a van and returned to the hideout for more cash to store away, and then he returned to Franny. They packed a few things and moved in with a friend in his mansion. All this time whilst doing this research, I was wondering how the police got the names of the gang so quickly. It turns out that it was a prisoner informant who contacted his barrister, who then contacted the police and gave them a list of names.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Did he get time off a sentence or anything?

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Maybe. It may have even been a hunch of Bruce's, or maybe he really did know.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I think he maybe didn't think that the police were that good at their job, so probably figured that it was someone that told them. Whereas maybe the police really were.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

How would this prisoner have known though?

SPEAKER_03 23:09

That's what I was thinking immediately.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Yeah, you would think Bruce would have at least named him. Mm-hmm. But he didn't. I don't think. The gang kept an eye on the newspapers over the next weeks and months. When they saw that their hideout had been found and that there had been fingerprint experts sent in, everyone realised they were up Shits Creek and started making plans to flee. They watched the papers as William Ball and Roger Caudry were arrested, and then came the photos, big black and white images of Bruce Wilson and White's faces over almost every paper in the city. Bruce hightailed it back to the money, stuck it all in a van, and moved it to a friend's garage way outside of the city. He then sofa surf for a while, offering up a hundred quid here and there for a lift at night and a sofa asleep on. When the sentences were handed down, Bruce realized he couldn't stay in Britain. He considered South Africa, mostly because everyone spoke English. That was until a close friend introduced Bruce to an American who suggested Mexico as a better option. This friend had close ties to Mexico with friends that he could sort Bruce out with in a life there. So he got himself a false passport and flew out to Mexico on a private plane. It was a bit more exhaustive than that, so if you'd like to know the details, go and read Bruce's book. It is good. I have some photos of Bruce's time in Mexico on page 23 and 24. These are straight out of his book.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Oh, he was having a great time.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Looks like DB Cooper on the left.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Oh, he looks old there. So how long was he in Mexico?

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Ooh. How long was he in Mexico?

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Oh. Is that Fosters?

SPEAKER_02 24:51

It is.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

So he was there for a while there.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

What do you call them? A parasol.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Parasol with Fosters. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

In 1968, Bruce Reynolds was finally found and arrested after a five-year hunt. He was found in a flat in Torquay with his wife and two children. So he went back to England. Yes, so he actually ran out of funds and had to move back to the UK eventually.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

But if he ran out of funds, how'd he move back?

SPEAKER_02 25:18

I suppose he had enough to come back and then probably moved in with family. He was found in a flat in Torquay with his wife and two children. He would later give accounts of those five years in interviews. An article from The Independent titled Bruce Reynolds, Criminal Known as Napoleon, who led the great train robbers, had tons of info in there. He said that when he was finally caught in Torquay, the chief superintendent at the time said, Your wife's nicked, your dad's nicked, your stepmother's nicked, and Terry your best pal, they're all nicked for aiding in a betting and passport offences. That's the deal he presented Bruce with. Plead not guilty, and they'd all be nicked. Bruce told the newspaper, I gave him a look, he gave me a look, and I got 25 years. Wow. Bruce spent a total of ten years in custody and was released in 1978. He spent his last two years of custody in Maidstone prison. He recalled his time there with glee. He spent the two years getting super fit, reading every day, and getting into weed. An absolutely marvellous time, he said. He was jailed again in the 1980s for dealing amphetamines and then worked as a consultant on two films. You can see the covers there on your document. A 1988 film called Buster, which was a rom-com based on the events of the Great Train robbery. I'm guessing that was about Buster Edwards.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Mm-hmm. But can you imagine being the being Jack's like son or daughter or whatever? And seeing them might make thousands from having films of rom coms about this event.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah, I know that would be really hard. And I'm I'm pretty sure he did have a lot to say about it as well. And he consulted on a British crime drama film called Gangster Number One, which you can see the covers there on page 25, and then an older photo of Bruce on page 26. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

I no longer think he's hot.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

In 1995, he published his autobiography named Autobiography as it Sorry, I think I'm just gonna stop autobiography. Named Autobiography of a Thief. By then his health was failing and he was living on income support in Croydon and under the care of his son. On the 50th anniversary of the robbery, Bruce's son was interviewed. He said about his dad that there was a time when he enjoyed the infamy, and that's why he did all the shows and interviews, but he doesn't now.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Suck it up. You've had a pretty good life, really.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yeah. And then only to serve ten years. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

How come did he just get released halfway through?

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Yeah. Most of them did. Crazy. Why? Just cause.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Yeah, it's good good behaviour, innit?

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Yeah. Charles Wilson was recaptured after four years on the run. He'd been living in Canada. His wife made a phone call to her parents in the UK from Canada, which allowed Scotland Yard to establish a connection and go and hunt them down.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

God devas, right? It's always the women, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Just bloody women. In that case, like, yeah, that how bad would you feel? You feel like such a fucking idiot. You would.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

And you would be such a fucking idiot. Yeah. Can you imagine sitting in jail for the next ten years just because your wife wants to make a phone call home?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Oh honestly, like livid.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

He then spent ten years in HMP Durham. After which, yeah. After which he moved to Spain, where he was shot and killed on his doorstep by a hitman in 1990. Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Do you know who like hired the hitman? Was it Jack?

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Don't know. Jack's long gone by now. I I don't know who did that. I think it's just from from again from the life they were living, right? Someone was after all those years, someone was still out to get him. On page 27, you can see a photo of Bruce Reynolds and Buster Edwards attending his funeral in Spain.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Wow. So they stayed like friends-ish?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

See, I thought they'd all like turn on each other in the trial and blame each other.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

They didn't, you know. They didn't. Interesting. Ronnie Biggs fled to Brussels by boat after his prison escape. Then he sent a letter to Char Sharman to meet him in Paris, where he had acquired a new identity and was undergoing plastic surgery. Adjusted for inflation, by the time he got to Adelaide in 1966, he had spent 40k on plastic surgery and 55k on a package deal from the UK to Australia. Wow. That's insane. In 1967, he received an anonymous letter telling him that the police were on his trail and he should move ASAP. He and Shaman then moved with their now three sons to Melbourne, where he took up construction work. You can see here a photo of Ronnie and Shaman in Australia sometime in the late 60s. Just a receding hairline.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Look at that airplane though.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

I love it. I love the curtains.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Right? You don't get those nowadays. You get the buttons that don't work half the time.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

You you have buttons in your planes?

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Yeah, yeah, the ones that go across. You like uh I forget it's a certain airline, you like hit the button and it dims it, so instead of like pulling they don't have a shade, you like hit it so it dims it so it goes all dark.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Fucking hell.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

She is on some bougie planes right now.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

I know. But the police were soon on his tail once again, so Ronnie fled, leaving his family in Australia. He got on a passenger liner from Port of Melbourne, where 21 days later he landed in Panama. Two weeks after that he was in Brazil. Ronnie found a new woman in Brazil and fathered a child.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

I mean, I get it.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Do you? Just so you know, listeners have just shown them a photo of the baby with Ronnie and the new lass.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

The girl looks Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

I mean it's an upgrade. Is it? Am I wrong?

SPEAKER_03 31:13

Do like a third glass of wine, honey.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

I mean It's just the classic, isn't it? Man runs away and starts a new family with a young foreign bride. Yeah. Is that what you've done, Britney? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

That's why she's done. I mean, it runs for the family, so. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

In Brazil in 1970, he was out and proud as Ronnie Biggs, the great train robbery rascal on the run. Because of his criminal history, though, he was not allowed to work, go to bars, or leave the house after 10 pm.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

So how did he make his money?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Oh how did he make his money?

SPEAKER_03 31:50

He told people what to do.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

How to rob trains?

SPEAKER_03 31:54

He did interviews.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Was that it? No. Did he do adverts? Um go on, tell us.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Ronnie would hold barbecues at his large home in Rio de Janeiro for tourists, where they would come and get to meet the infamous Ronnie Biggs. Use his infamy. And he'd tell them stories of the robbery. And charge them.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Genius. So they never consider that. Hang on, doesn't this guy have two million?

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Why is he charging us like £50 to he was even invited to tea by footballers who came into town? Wow. In March 1981, Ronnie was kidnapped by a gang of British ex-soldiers. They took him onto a boat back to the UK, but the boat suffered mechanical failure near Barbados. They were rescued by the Barbados Coast Guard and toured back to Barbados.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

The kidnappers had hoped to cash in on some reward money for presenting Ronnie, but like Brazil, Barbados had no extradition treaty to the UK. That's hilarious. He was subsequently sent back to Brazil.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Oh my god. Wow. This guy is so lucky.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

All of these guys are so lucky. Ronnie's son, Michael Biggs, became a famous musician in Brazil and brought financial stability to his dad.

unknown 33:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

What does this music sound like? Have you listened to it? I haven't. I haven't. And so they lived happily until 1997, when the UK and Brazil finally got together to make an extrish extradition treaty. The UK then made a formal request for the return of Ronnie Biggs. But the Brazil Supreme Court rejected this request on the grounds that Ronnie now had children in the country. Wow. This gave Ronnie the right to remain in Brazil for the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

That's insane. I know, and that he absolutely did. So I'm gonna show you some photos now of Ronnie living his best life in Brazil. Cannot wait.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

So that's a red herring's top tip. If you're ever on the run, immediately have some children in another country.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Specifically Brazil.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

So he's on the beach in an England football shirt, he's loving life, he's got a wife, he's got another woman with him. Um, he's wearing a t-shirt that says, I know someone who went to Brazil and met Ronnie Biggs. Honest. Honest. There's him with who I presume is his child or grandchild. Some cute photos of him and his son. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Seems like he was a mint dad, to be honest, except for the three left in Austria. Oh, it's gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah, well. There's him with a topless man. Is that wife number three? Because that's again an upgrade. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

It's a different woman. I think people just fucking loved him over there.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

I mean, honestly, why not? I've never even heard of him.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

It's him being interviewed, he's tape recorders and microphones, there's him with a beer on his chest.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

He's just getting older, he's living his full life out there, man. There he is in a pool with a beer resting on his chest.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

That's like an intimate photo. Like, that's something you'd take like within the family. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

That's him posing in front of Rio de Janeiro, him with some more women, flat cap. You'll be able to see love the England top.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

Yeah, you'll be able to see as these photos photos go on, he just gets older and older and older.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

I think it's interesting that he was able to live out and proud as like the ex-criminal or still criminal, I don't know. But like the other guy got shot by a hitman, and he's just like, Yeah, I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Look of the draw, innit? Yeah, this photo on page 38 is Ronnie and Bruce together for their 70th birthdays in 1990 with their sons Michael and Nick.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Wow, so they were still friends living it up.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Isn't that mad that they could just meet back up? I mean, by now, Bruce has done his time, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

So he came to see Ronnie in Brazil.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Must have.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Yeah, Ronnie can't come back to the UK because he'd be arrested immediately.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

What's that t-shirt say?

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Happy birthday, 70, Ronnie Biggs.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Love how Bruce isn't wearing one of those.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Mad innit.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

That is a crazy photo. And there he is, really old with his son. Michael doesn't wear a lot of t-shirts, does he?

SPEAKER_03 36:10

No, I mean it's Brazil, it's hot all the time.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

True.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

That must be it, yeah. So in 2001, Ronnie Biggs wasn't very well. He was getting old and needed medical care. So he announced to the Sun newspaper that he was to return home. The son paid for a private jet to go and get him.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

No. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

And so he returned. Ronnie was immediately arrested and re-imprisoned on his return to the UK at the age of 72.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

And here is a photo of Ronnie getting off the plane on his return.

unknown 36:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

A question's just came to me. Do you think the son got that reward money?

SPEAKER_03 36:50

No.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Well, because it said that the soldiers were kidnapped him on the idea that they were going to return him and get the reward money. So that means the reward money was still out there for the taking. And what year was that?

SPEAKER_00 37:04

It was the 80s or the years. I mean Maybe. I mean, I don't know whether it was.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

They technically brought him back.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

They did. They paid for the flight.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

I kind of almost think they wouldn't have done it if they didn't think they were going to get the reward.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Well, for to sell papers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

I think it's a it's a potential.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

In prison, Ronnie's health deteriorated deteriorated rapidly. And in 2005, he made a request for early release on compassionate grounds after contracting MRSA. Now keep that year in mind, 2005. His legal team said his death was likely imminent. This was denied as his condition wasn't terminal. Then in 2007 he made another appeal for compassionate leave, saying, I am an old man and often wonder if I truly deserve the extent of my punishment. I have accepted it and only want freedom to die with my family and not in jail. I hope Mr Straw, who I think was the home secretary at the time, decides to allow me to do that. I have been in jail for a long time, and I want to die a free man. I am sorry for what happened. It has not been an easy ride over the years. Even in Brazil, I was a prisoner of my own making. There is no honour to being known as the great train robber. My life has been wasted.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

I dunno, he looked like he was having a pretty good time over there.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

The beer, the photography.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

I mean, it sounds like he was making the most of it.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

He had a pretty good old time out there. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

This is just it's just the same bullshit over again, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Yeah, it wasn't like he tried to reinvent himself. He was happily living it up as a great train role.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

He's a con man. He's conning them. He's conning them. In April 2009, the parole board recommended that Ronnie should be released, and he was finally released in August after being taken to hospital with pneumonia. So the first one was in 2005 when his death was likely imminent. We're now in 2009, four years later. Upon his release, his health improved greatly.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Oh wow, what do you know?

SPEAKER_02 39:17

After some complaints that his illness may have been exaggerated, Ronnie claimed, I've still got some life to live yet. Now, on these pages, you can find some really cute images of the frail old sweet Ronnie being released from prison in 2009. Oh my god. Isn't he canny?

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Oh. That's funny. That's hilarious. He's lovely. I wish that was my granddad.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

For the listeners, he's in a wheelchair with his tongue sticking out, giving everyone the finger. Oh, two fingers.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Iconic.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

In March 2013, Ronnie Biggs attended the funeral of his fellow train robber, Bruce Reynolds.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Awww.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

And he himself would go on to die at the end of that year at the age of 84.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Pretty good life.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

This is eight years after he first asked to be let out.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

I was gonna say, that's insane. And you said he came back to the UK what in 2001? Yes. Twelve years later. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

I think he put off pretty lightly. He had a full life and then he spent like his old age in prison.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

And then he got out and he still lived a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

It's pretty good. Best case scenario, really.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

An honor guard of the Hell's Angels escorted the hearse to the crematorium, which you can see here.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Went out in style.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

He did.

SPEAKER_03 40:38

Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

So remember Gordon Goody? Mm-hmm.

unknown 40:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

He went to live on a ranch in Spain with his wife and dogs. He did an exclusive with The Guardian, where he finally revealed the name of the mysterious Ulsterman. I don't know if I say it here, but I think this is another one that got out after like ten years.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

His name was Patrick McKenna.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

And do we believe that?

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

It's possible this is the same man that Bruce refers to as Paddy in his book, I'm not sure. Goody still insists to this day that although he did indeed take part in the crime, the evidence against him in court was fabricated. They had his shoes, and on the shoes was some of that yellow paint. You know the stuff that they got William Ball with.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

On his knob.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

On his knob. Goody says they were never his shoes at all. He also spoke about his regret that Jack Mills was hurt, saying we were gentlemen. We were gentlemen robbers. He didn't speak very highly of Ronnie Biggs, like at all. He berated Biggs to the newspaper saying basically he had one job and couldn't even do that. He called him an arsehole and said that no one liked him.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

When people went to his funeral, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Yeah. Who, Gordon Goody?

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Or at least funeral, maybe that's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

By the time Goody got out of prison, he claims most of his money was gone, spent by the person he left it with, but you wouldn't say how much was left, but it was enough to buy a plot of land in Spain and live out of the rest of his days happy by the looks of it.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

I mean, honestly, if you gave me two million and said I had to sit in jail for ten years, I don't know. Is that worth it? No. Probably not, actually.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

No.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Oh, it's difficult, though.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

That's a lot of your life.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Maybe if it was twenty million.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

No. No, I don't think no, I don't think so either. No. No, I don't think you could give me any money for time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Yeah, you're probably right. Like twenty million.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Ten years? How old were you ten years ago, Chris? I was 18.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

I don't remember so long ago.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

19? Yeah, I think it was 19. So imagine all that time, all the changes you've made as a person, all of the things you've done, the people you've seen.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

That would be really sad.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

That would be really sad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Would you give up all the time? Hold your tongue. I don't know. Yeah, it's a hard one.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

You could buy a lot of Britney's for that.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Oh my god. Brittany's from Wish. So Goody wrote a book. It's called How to Rob a Train. Love it. He wrote it to put a few things straight. He said, I keep being called a hairdresser. I was never a hairdresser. So I left that. That's amazing. Yeah, I left that bit in my script for the last episode because I was technically quoting a newspaper, but also like he did all of that, did 10 years, got away with it, and then he's upset about being called a hairdresser. So you can't have everything you ask for. Exactly. So I'm calling him a hairdresser. Goody died of emphysema in 2016. McKenna, so the Ulster man, apparently, photographed on page 48. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Oh, he looks the coolest.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Another cool cat. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

That's a strong sunglasses choice.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Yeah. So he was never arrested for his part in the crime, but according to Goody, he took his share of the money. According to The Guardian, his family, who now live in Manchester, were flabbergasted to hear about. About his part in the crime. He was a quiet church going man who worked for the post office until his retirement. He never owned a car and was always worried about the security on trains. What do you know?

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Wonder why.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

His family thought his conscience may have gotten the best of him and he may have donated the money, possibly to the church. Buster went on to have a flower stall outside of Waterloo Station. Uh oh. Here is a photo of him. There on his flower station. And then a photo of him with actor Phil Collins and Julie Walters at the premiere of the film Buster that Bruce consulted on. Oh wow. He's there on the right.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Very smart.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

I don't think actors and act I don't think you would get away with that today. No, you couldn't be photographed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

When you said that, I was still thinking about the movie. It brought me back to the Joseph Maloney case. Remember? He did actually consult on movies. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Sorry, it's not now, but I was like, what? Something, I don't know. It's like a four film.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

Wasn't there one way he had like loads of guns in his car? Yeah. The rest of the men carried out their sentences quietly over the sixties and seventies. Most were let out after serving about a third to half of their time.

unknown 45:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

Many moved away, some went back into crime. Some ended up back in prison. Some led a quiet life, and they wrote a book together. There's a photo of them all together very happy with their book here.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Oh, that's lovely. They all look so cute.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Just look like little old men, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Literally, if you saw that, you'd think, oh, it's just like a cute like a cappella group or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

It's very easy, isn't it, to think that of these people. But there is this thing about how the media have very much glorified these people and its rose-tinted glasses, but we aren't to forget that these were hardened career criminals.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Yeah, and they did break into a train and whack someone over the head with an eye-balled.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Well, the whacking over the head, it would seem, came from the South Coast gang. Everyone in this gang are Bruce Reynolds and Ronnie Biggs' gang. Right. They say that they never agreed to that. So it looks like, and you know, I'm inclined to believe them at the end of the day. Like, a lot of us, even Bruce, for for all the crimes he committed and for all of the the shit that he did.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

He never did anything else violent, didn't he? There wasn't any violence.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

No. Fair. So I am inclined to believe them on that, but at the same time, you know, they were they were bad lads. All of them are dead now. But overall, history doesn't pick the rest up as much as Ronnie and Bruce. I'll leave you with this quote from Bruce Reynolds that I thought was quite apt for a true crime podcast and true crime club to keep in mind. Clever criminals don't get caught even when times are lean. And that was the tale of a very big job.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

That was so good! I'd never even heard of that.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Good job.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

My sources are the independent, iNews.co.uk, Wikipedia, Bank of England website, RonnieBiggs.com, the Birmingham Daily Post, the British Newspaper Archive, the Aldy.co.uk, BBC.co.uk, the Chester Live Gallery, The Telegraph, HistoryExpose.com, The Metro, and the Autobiography of a Thief by Bruce Reynolds.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

Amazing, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Fantastic. Well done.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Tuna in next week for a real good tale.