Ride the money train

A carpenter that disappeared mid job from the childhood home of rare-book dealer Simon Finch turned out to be an infamous robber. Years later, a memento of the man’s colourful life landed in Mr Finch’s hands, as he reveals to Carla Passino

- Carla Passino

WHEN he was a child, rare-book dealer Simon Finch met a robber. It wasn’t just any thug—he was one of the men who pulled off the Great Train Robbery of 1963, Ronnie Biggs. ‘He was working as a carpenter in a house owned by my parents,’ Mr Finch explains. One day, he disappeared mid job and never came back. ‘My parents thought, “Gosh, another hopeless tradesman”, but it turned out, obviously, that he was robbing a train with a few of his friends.’

By the time Biggs had begun working at the Finches’ house, he had already served a few prison sentences and collected a long and variegated list of crimes, ranging from desertion to theft and robbery. During one of his stints in jail, he had met another criminal, Bruce Reynolds, who, after his release, took up van and train robberies. In 1963, Biggs found himself in need of money, so he turned to Reynolds and, together, they hatched a plan to attack a mail train. Reynolds assembled a gang of 15 people and, at 3am on August 8, they faked a red signal at Sears Crossing, in Bedfordshire. As the Travelling Post Office train that was heading from Glasgow to Euston stopped, Biggs, Reynolds and their accomplices separated the high-value carriages from the rest and forced the driver to take them a mile down to Bridego Bridge, Buckinghamshire, where they unloaded 120 sacks for upwards of $2.3 million (about $44.8 million in today's money).

They then absconded to nearby Letherslade Farm. A ketchup bottle and a Monopoly board (at which the bandits had apparently played using real money) were their undoing: the police found fingerprints on them and Biggs and most other members of the gang were soon arrested—except for Reynolds, who fled the country, and a man who probably provided insider information, but was never identified.