Great Train Confessional

SallyB2
By SallyB2 Last edited 197 months ago
Great Train Confessional
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Don’t get all excited – this is not a steaming transport exposé.

Britain’s favourite crook has surely dashed the hopes and aspirations of thousands of wannabe train robbers with his recent revelation that crime actually doesn’t pay, and that he thinks he should’ve done it differently. Somewhat-larger-than-life Ronnie Biggs has now had the largesse to admit that:

“There is no honour to be known as a Great Train Robber….I apologise for glamorising what should only be thought of as a wilful crime.”

The poor lamb feels ‘that he has wasted his life’.

A brief re-cap for those not versed in 20th century criminal history – Biggs and his gang snatched £2.6 million from a mail train in 1963. They nicked him, but he escaped from Wandsworth prison in 1965, and effectively led the police a merry salsa, living the high life in Brazil before returning (on the grounds of ill-health) in 2001: he has been in prison ever since. He is by all accounts moribund, having had a coronary or two, and skin cancer – he is reputedly unable to speak or eat and communicates/confesses via a palm held device. He wants to die a free man.

Londonist thinks that the old rascal should be granted his wish. He has done six years, and whilst it is true that he or one of his cronies smacked the train driver over the head, many criminals get lighter sentences for far greater crimes now.

And whether he likes it or not, he is up there with Dick Turpin and the Scarlett Pimpernel as an elusive rotter whose fame will not die with him. At the very least, he can be proud of having given us the film Buster….

Image courtesy of teflon’s flickr stream.

Last Updated 09 October 2007