Ronnie Biggs

Has joined the other Great Train Robbers in criminal heaven, wherever that is!

GOB wrote:

Has joined the other Great Train Robbers in criminal heaven, wherever that is!

Good timing with the two part TV programme starting tonight on BBC1 about the 'Great Train Robbery'

I honestly thought he'd snuffed it years ago.Remember him doing a few bits and pieces with the Sex Pistols back in the Seventies when he was in Brazil,could never understand why he came back to this country on a voluntary basis.Don't think he actually played a major role in the robbery,which seems to have taken on rather a glorified hue in the English psyche.Very daring and organised i suppose but the driver did get badly coshed and never fully recovered from the injuries inflicted,so there was a downside [no pun intended] to it.

I think he returned to the UK to gain free health treatment.

GOB wrote:

I think he returned to the UK to gain free health treatment.

Spot on.......and without paying in to it for well over 30 yrs.

Robin Hood, Jesse James, Ned Kelly, Margaret Thatcher and now Biggs. All thieving bar stewards who have been elevated to hero status.

Margaret Thatcher and I got off on the wrong foot....when she stopped school milk, when my daughter started school....and she wasn't even leader of the Tories at the time.....first impressions !!!.....never changed.

ZYPH wrote:

GOB wrote:

I think he returned to the UK to gain free health treatment.

Spot on.......and without paying in to it for well over 30 yrs.

Yes and the difference between him and a benefit scrounger is what exactly! The man never gave, he only took.

knecht wrote:

Robin Hood, Jesse James, Ned Kelly, Margaret Thatcher and now Biggs. All thieving bar stewards who have been elevated to hero status.

Thatcher.  

knecht wrote:

Robin Hood, Jesse James, Ned Kelly, Margaret Thatcher and now Biggs. All thieving bar stewards who have been elevated to hero status.

Four in there who fought tyranny and oppression, I should have thought you could have got your lips off Mandela's knob for long enough to recognise real heroes of the people, Biggs of course was just another scum bag, plenty of them about and many far worse.

He was half way to being the new Robin Hood. He stole from the rich but didnt get round to giving it to the poor.

Angry wrote:

He was half way to being the new Robin Hood. He stole from the rich but didnt get round to giving it to the poor.

Not sure Hood gave as much to the poor as Hollywood would have you believe, the other side of it was the inordinate sentences the train robbers received, today Biggs would probably get less than ten and be out on licence in three and a half.

Network rail were forced resently to remane the bridge where the robbery happened.
they thought it was a good idea to rename it train robbers bridge instead of Bridego Bridge),  [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Public pressure had them rename the bridge

Lord Tisdale wrote:

Angry wrote:

He was half way to being the new Robin Hood. He stole from the rich but didnt get round to giving it to the poor.

Not sure Hood gave as much to the poor as Hollywood would have you believe, the other side of it was the inordinate sentences the train robbers received, today Biggs would probably get less than ten and be out on licence in three and a half.

You're probably right Robin Hood is make believe in anycase (so im told)

I was actually talking about Biggs to a couple of mates about four days ago who dropped in for a chat, all of us thought that he was dead we just couldn't remember when it happened. I think that he came in for a bit of adoration from the great British public because the truth is that most of us would happily retire to Spain and Brazil after nicking a load of cash off the bank, I know I would.
A good mate of his reckoned that he served less time by doing the train robbery than he would of if he had stuck to his previous life of petty crime, no moral compass whatsoever was how said mate described him.

I think that's how they became heros in some peoples eyes by nicking the money and getting away with it for aslong as many of them did.

Iggy wrote:

I think that he came in for a bit of adoration from the great British public because the truth is that most of us would happily retire to Spain and Brazil after nicking a load of cash off the bank, I know I would.

Exactly, the feckers who mug us for billions get a pension to allow them to do whatever they like, Biggs was a recidivist with little or no ability to stop, he wasn't violent, yes I know Jack Mills took a slap, I have had worse on many occasions, he never died from it, he had leukaemia and pneumonia.

Lord Tisdale wrote:

Iggy wrote:

I think that he came in for a bit of adoration from the great British public because the truth is that most of us would happily retire to Spain and Brazil after nicking a load of cash off the bank, I know I would.

Exactly, the feckers who mug us for billions get a pension to allow them to do whatever they like, Biggs was a recidivist with little or no ability to stop, he wasn't violent, yes I know Jack Mills took a slap, I have had worse on many occasions, he never died from it, he had  leukaemia and pneumonia.

he got a lead pipe to the head and could never work again, bit more then a slap

Lord Tisdale wrote:

knecht wrote:

Robin Hood, Jesse James, Ned Kelly, Margaret Thatcher and now Biggs. All thieving bar stewards who have been elevated to hero status.

Four in there who fought tyranny and oppression, I should have thought you could have got your lips off Mandela's knob for long enough to recognise real heroes of the people, Biggs of course was just another scum bag, plenty of them about and many far worse.

Your obsession with exposing Mandela is truly impressive.

A pity that your naivete is also exposed. The man was one of the giants of the 20th Century. The fact that he was also human seems to confuse your crudely dichotomous view of the world.

The rest is silence on my part but I'm sure you will want the last word.

Saw a funny tweet where someone confused him with Ronnie Kray lol for all the bad the krays did they actually shared their wealth and kept the streets safer.

Angry wrote:

Saw a funny tweet where someone confused him with Ronnie Kray lol  for all the bad the krays did they actually shared their wealth and kept the streets safer.

I knew somebody that was in the pocket, so to speak, with the Kray brothers. To say they were evil would be a bit of an understatemet and I remember him saying to me as he was telling me a few stories "the Krays were dark, very dark, but there are people in the police that are far darker". I'm not sure that keeping the streets safer was their method, it was after all the people on the street that were forced by the Krays to sell their cocaine.

My old man grew up in Bethnal Green at the same time as the Krays. Although never on the wrong side of the law everyone knew each other. In the mis 60s my Dad and Uncle had a factory in Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane). A bloke comes to the factory and starts talking about 'insurance'. Didn't take the old man very long to work out it was protection and so my Dad and his brother literally threw the bloke down the stairs. Next day two massive bunches of flowers were sent to the factory fro Ronnie and Reggie, apologising for someone not doing their homework and knowing that local boys owned the factory.

The Krays were proper naughty gangsters, Biggs was just a toe rag.

Evil bastards.

Coronation Street will never be the same again.
RIP
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Damon.Lenszner wrote:

My old man grew up in Bethnal Green at the same time as the Krays. Although never on the wrong side of the law everyone knew each other. In the mis 60s my Dad and Uncle had a factory in Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane). A bloke comes to the factory and starts talking about 'insurance'. Didn't take the old man very long to work out it was protection and so my Dad and his brother literally threw the bloke down the stairs. Next day two massive bunches of flowers were sent to the factory fro Ronnie and Reggie, apologising for someone not doing their homework and knowing that local boys owned the factory.

The Krays were proper naughty gangsters, Biggs was just a toe rag.

Interesting post DL. My wife is a right 'Cor blimey, do what, leave it aaat guv' Lambeth girl. She tells me stories of her old man who had a Newsagent in Middlesex street in the 60's.

He regularly had to/decided to/was forced to (delete as appropriate) pay a few quid a week to some skinny little shyster in a cloth-cap, woodbine smkoing little bastard that was allegedly a runner for the Krays, allegedly.

After she told me this story, I told her to put the gin away.