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alan45
26-09-2012, 16:54
The Great Train Robbery
Episode: 1 of 1
Monday, 8 October 2012, 10:35PM - 11:35PM
Factual


"If it was going to be your brother on the train or your husband, or a friend of yours, and they were brutally attacked like that and terrified. Would you think these guys were cool, that they were heroes? I don’t think you would." - Nick Russell-Pavier, author

It was the crime of the century – and nearly 50 years on, this brand new 60-minute documentary for ITV1 examines the Great Train Robbery.

This documentary looks at the heist from the moment it was carried out at a desolate railway bridge, the way it captured the public imagination and elevated Ronnie Biggs and his partners in crime from small-time crooks to folklore figures.

Yet is the real truth dark and disturbing? Some glaring questions remain unanswered. Was it really a victimless crime? What is the significance of the men who got away? And with only £400,000 of the £2.6 million they stole recovered, what happened to the rest of the money?

The documentary features brand new interviews with key figures including Ronnie Biggs's wife Charmian, relatives of the robbers, and the policeman who discovered the gang's hideout at Leatherslade Farm, alongside rare ITV archive interviews with the robbers, as well as iconic archive film of the crime’s aftermath.

The Great Train Robbery also challenges romantic folklore surrounding the robbers and provides an insight into a landmark moment in time as Britain stood on the cusp of major social and political upheaval and the robbers' generation - too young to have served in the war - were the first to be seduced by the promise of a better lifestyle as consumerism began to take hold of society.

Charmian Biggs, talking about her husband Ronnie, said it hadn't been his intention to continue his previous criminal ways.

"I had extracted a promise from him when he married me that he wouldn’t go into anything criminal and I believed him. And I think he meant it at the time."

Historian Dominic Sandbrook explains the context in which the robbery took place at the start of the 1960s.

“People have this kind of Robin Hood fantasy if you like, of the Great Train robbers as actually some sort of Ealing comedy enterprise. Which of course it isn’t. These people are career criminals, who are out to get what they can for themselves.”

Train robber Bruce Reynolds explains the way he felt at the time:

"The way I looked at it I was an outlaw, that society didn’t care for me and I didn’t particularly care for society."

The documentary looks at how some media reports of the gang's robbery of a Royal Mail money train in Buckinghamshire, led to a popular perception of them as folk heroes, despite the seriousness of the crime. By the time the world woke up to the news of the caper, the robbers had scarpered to Leatherslade Farm to lay low. Yet they abandoned the farm without covering their tracks. Local police officer John Woolley tells the documentary how he uncovered evidence of the robbery under a trapdoor.

“Even in the half light I could see that that cellar was absolutely choc-a-block with bulging sacks. And as the top flopped open I could see parcel wrappers, bank note wrappers, consignment notes, all bearing the names of the famous high-street banks.”

In London, times had changed for the robbers' families. Marilyn Wisbey, daughter of Tommy, says: “I mean, one minute we would buy clothes from a catalogue and the next minute we’d be in a black taxi down to Knightsbridge and Harrods.”

But Charmian Biggs recounts the police raids and arrests that swiftly ensued.

She says: “A whole group of policemen, eight perhaps, arrived at the house. I answered the door. They barged in, in September after the robbery, about two o’clock in the afternoon. They asked for him, he was at work, I offered to ring him but was told I couldn’t use the phone. I was made to sit down and say nothing till Ron came home.”

At trial, all but one pleaded not guilty, and suggested that the evidence at Leatherslade Farm was planted. The identity of three men who took part in the raid but never stood trial has never been revealed by police or the robbers, says Nick Russell-Pavier, an author and expert on the Great Train Robbery.

“The guys who were prosecuted successfully claimed they were fitted up. So if they were fitted up why couldn’t the police fit up the three guys who got away. The answer is they weren’t fitted up.”

The robbers were given a total of 307 years in prison - up to 30 years each. Later, after Charlie Wilson escaped from Winson Green prison in Birmingham, Ronnie Biggs went over the wall at HMP Wandsworth and famously went on the run. But years later, most of the families had little to show for the robbery, says Nick Reynolds, son of train robber Bruce, who also went on the run before his arrest.

“The money went on just being on the run, its an expensive game laundering, false passports, keeping one step ahead of the law.”

Former ITN reporter Gerald Seymour explains the impact the crime had on the robbers, and their families.

“What a waste of some clever bright guys who at the fork in the road went left when maybe there was a right, and they paid so dearly for it. I can’t say that any of them would say it was worth it.”

Dazzle
26-09-2012, 21:13
"If it was going to be your brother on the train or your husband, or a friend of yours, and they were brutally attacked like that and terrified. Would you think these guys were cool, that they were heroes? I don’t think you would." - Nick Russell-Pavier, author


You're not trying to make a point, are you Alan? :ninja: :D :bow:

alan45
26-09-2012, 21:16
You're not trying to make a point, are you Alan? :ninja: :D :bow:Merely quoting the author who seems to be a reasonable human being with common sense.

Dazzle
26-09-2012, 21:20
Merely quoting the author who seems to be a reasonable guman being with common sense.

He certainly is.

I think the red is yours, though :)

Dazzle
26-09-2012, 21:20
deleted

alan45
26-09-2012, 22:40
Just goes to show that great minds think alike.

If the cap fits put the shoe on the other foot

parkerman
08-10-2012, 13:23
Review from today's Daily Mirror:

"The programme aims to debunk some of the myths around the Great Train Robbery. Although it doesn't serve up anything new, it will remind (or show) those who have this romantic notion about the gang being Robin Hood types, that they were actually violent career criminals."

Apparently they weren't legends after all!

parkerman
08-10-2012, 13:23
Review from today's Daily Mirror:

"The programme aims to debunk some of the myths around the Great Train Robbery. Although it doesn't serve up anything new, it will remind (or show) those who have this romantic notion about the gang being Robin Hood types, that they were actually violent career criminals."

Apparently they weren't legends after all!

alan45
08-10-2012, 14:05
Review from today's Daily Mirror:

"The programme aims to debunk some of the myths around the Great Train Robbery. Although it doesn't serve up anything new, it will remind (or show) those who have this romantic notion about the gang being Robin Hood types, that they were actually violent career criminals."

Apparently they weren't legends after all!

Thats the Daily Mirror for you, bullying those people who think Ronnie Biggs is a Legend.. I think I will write to the editor. Bob Maxwell should be told.

alan45
08-10-2012, 14:05
....