Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what's ridiculous? Why are we whispering? I don't know? Okay, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do know what's ridiculous, Elizabeth. Okay. The other day
Speaker 1: I learned about a new sport. The sport i'd never
Speaker 1: heard of. I doubt you've ever heard of it. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe you get around. It's called worm charming.
Speaker 1: I've not heard. Well, I've heard not that sport. It's
Speaker 1: it takes place in England, and the goal is for competitors. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll just late this way. They're given a plot of
Speaker 1: earth it's three ms by three meters, and they're allowed
Speaker 1: to use a couple of different implements to try to
Speaker 1: get worms to emerge from the earth. They're allowed to
Speaker 1: use a garden fork, you know, like those three fingers things,
Speaker 1: piece of wood if they want. They can have a
Speaker 1: source for music or sound, like a boom box or something.
Speaker 1: And uh, the judges they start the time where they go,
Speaker 1: youve got thirty minutes, right, and then the goals to
Speaker 1: charm as many worms as they can to crawl up
Speaker 1: out of the dirt and present themselves on the surface, right,
Speaker 1: there's the only one rule, no dig right now. The
Speaker 1: idea is that, you know, you can use various techniques
Speaker 1: to create vibration. That's what all the sound stuff is
Speaker 1: for the wood and everything, and then the vibrations drive
Speaker 1: the worms insane and they have to like stop beating
Speaker 1: on that two by four and they crawl out of
Speaker 1: the earth. Now, if you can guess, how many do
Speaker 1: you think as a world record for worms charmed out
Speaker 1: of the English soil in thirty minutes time? How many
Speaker 1: do they put in each bin three by three plot?
Speaker 1: And it's just thick with them. No, it's just normal earth.
Speaker 1: They don't put they don't put any your own. It's
Speaker 1: not somewhere oh gosh, I don't know. In thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: just coming out of the earth. And the only rule
Speaker 1: is no digging, you know. That's that's multiple second because
Speaker 1: they all come up after exactly. So that that record,
Speaker 1: by the way, I set so it's out there if
Speaker 1: you want to break it, all right, I'll get to it. Ridiculous.
Speaker 1: That is really ridiculous. Again, I kind of want to
Speaker 1: know how it came about, and then I kind of don't.
Speaker 1: I do. It's England, that's how it came about well,
Speaker 1: speaking of England. Yeah, you know what else is ridiculous
Speaker 1: aside from worm charming? A couple of things, Yeah, one
Speaker 1: on fifteen dude stealing a train. Yeah, this is ridiculous
Speaker 1: crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, cons.
Speaker 1: It's always murder free and on ridiculous. Damn right, we
Speaker 1: have a pretty cool theme song, right, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's the best. I love it. Trave killed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it totally fits the show somehow. Um, what would you
Speaker 1: say is your favorite TV theme song? Speaking of theme
Speaker 1: songs with my clumsy segways, favorite TV themes, I mean,
Speaker 1: just offhand, I love Rockford Files. It's probably one of
Speaker 1: my ultimate favorites. I love the weird, jangly northern exposure
Speaker 1: just because it makes me happy when I hear it. Um,
Speaker 1: there's other ones. I mean, like, you know, Peter Gunn
Speaker 1: theme was a classic, and I ever watched it, but
Speaker 1: I've I've heard the song a bunch, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a really cool one. I'd probably say, let's go
Speaker 1: with the Rockford Files be my favorite. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I like Walking Empire. I don't know that one. It's
Speaker 1: a jangly. Oh really it's like piano. No, it's an
Speaker 1: electric guitar. Oh, board Walk nachronistic. Yet it's a good song. Um,
Speaker 1: it's no lyrics, instrumental. They call it just the way
Speaker 1: you'd like it. Well, there are a lot of robberies
Speaker 1: on Boardwalk, Empire. I'm working on all my news right now.
Speaker 1: There's banking, sharp and clean. Um. Speaking of robberies, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you today about a robbery. Man, I'm into
Speaker 1: it here. Here's the thing. If it weren't not for
Speaker 1: this particular robbery, we likely wouldn't have had one of
Speaker 1: the greatest TV theme songs ever written. I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that later. Buckled up. Let's talk crime. First.
Speaker 1: Hit me with you like crime, right, you never heard
Speaker 1: of it? That's when someone breaks the law. Let's talk robbery. Um,
Speaker 1: you've told me about train robberies before, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: Billy Minor Robin trains in the Old West. Um so,
Speaker 1: but when we hear about train robberies, we like we
Speaker 1: think of the Old West. Yeah, like the James Gang
Speaker 1: and people on horses with rifles and like, yeehaw, the
Speaker 1: train robbery. I want to tell you about today. Happened
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, and it happened in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Like this, I am just breaking all sorts of stereotypes
Speaker 1: when it comes to train robberies, steel horses, all this. Okay,
Speaker 1: So went down in there. Used to this train service
Speaker 1: called the traveling post Office. So mail would be put
Speaker 1: on a train at one end of the country and
Speaker 1: sent towards London. So hey, wait a minute, a traveling
Speaker 1: post off. It makes it sound like it stops and
Speaker 1: I can go get some stamps if it comes to
Speaker 1: Brockhampton or whatever, like it really is, Like well, it's
Speaker 1: kind of no, it doesn't stop. Um, that's one of
Speaker 1: the train the call. But it's not. Okay, so check
Speaker 1: this out. So the mail gets put on the train
Speaker 1: at one end of the country, like not all the
Speaker 1: way up to John of Roads north but like so
Speaker 1: that's the northernmost point, that past Northman Island. Oh, the
Speaker 1: northern moost point on the island. We're including Scotland, right, yeah, okay, UK,
Speaker 1: not England, and then the southernmost is Penzance where yes, so,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't take it all the way. That's real,
Speaker 1: Poe I didn't know that. Yeah. Um, they would go
Speaker 1: up to like Aberdeen is the northernmost point of this
Speaker 1: and they would load up with mail and then they'd
Speaker 1: head to London or South up are all of Australia's
Speaker 1: towns named towns in England. I mean there's a single
Speaker 1: new one. It's like where they got kicked out of.
Speaker 1: They know everything. They're like, oh, this is Aberdeen. Um.
Speaker 1: So they loaded up right and it's a long distance
Speaker 1: that they have to go. The train is full of
Speaker 1: postal workers who are sorting the mail for delivery along
Speaker 1: the route. Yeah, so they and they're picking up mail
Speaker 1: as they go. So as they passed through these collection points,
Speaker 1: they would toss out their bags of mail to be
Speaker 1: delivered to that point. And then they also had like
Speaker 1: big nets where they would grab these mail bags hung
Speaker 1: from hooks, so the train didn't have to stop, would
Speaker 1: just like slow down. Yeah exactly. And so they grabbed
Speaker 1: the mail and then they get that and they start
Speaker 1: sorting it where it has to go. Um, and the
Speaker 1: staff and the train just like kept sorting constantly as
Speaker 1: they as they rolled on. In three there were forty
Speaker 1: nine of these trains being used. So this is like
Speaker 1: a predominant amount of their mail services going this way.
Speaker 1: I think so, I mean because they think about how
Speaker 1: we get mail if we look good at like the islands,
Speaker 1: the size of the state of California kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: And also the fact that we were fly our mail
Speaker 1: across country and they would just take a train because
Speaker 1: they used trains for most of their beautiful infrastructure they have.
Speaker 1: So some of the cars would be attached to passenger trains,
Speaker 1: but most were just dedicated postal trains um and so.
Speaker 1: Like I said, they went between Aberdeen and Scotland and
Speaker 1: London or pen Zance up, um and so on. These trains.
Speaker 1: The second and third cars were always special. So listening
Speaker 1: to like steady music, Yeah, it was full of this.
Speaker 1: That's how they got their start. In her name. These
Speaker 1: were called hv P cars. That's high value packets. Oh
Speaker 1: I had no chet, not not HPV cars carrying human
Speaker 1: paplovirus virus h v P. It was not how they
Speaker 1: spread that across the country to give you that high
Speaker 1: value packets, um packet man. So this is where registered
Speaker 1: mail and then most importantly a lot of cash those
Speaker 1: were kept. I'm listening. So normally there'd be about three
Speaker 1: thousand pounds sterling in that carriage, and in the sixties
Speaker 1: that's a ton, right, Yeah, well it's like seven million
Speaker 1: pounds sterling today, So seven million bucks rolling on down
Speaker 1: the tracks and give me a nice flot Yeah, nothing
Speaker 1: to sniff at. In three, a postal security officer who
Speaker 1: was like pretty high up, he tells a lawyer or
Speaker 1: what they're calling a solicitor's clerk or as they would say,
Speaker 1: solicitors Clark Clark. They do, isn't it. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: invented the language they did, so we're not doing it right. Um. See,
Speaker 1: he's like, look, I got a line on a heist.
Speaker 1: Check me out the barrister lawyer. The security officer for
Speaker 1: the post office goes and finds a lawyer. Okay, look
Speaker 1: at me. Well he's kind of a good lawyer. So
Speaker 1: the lawyer turns around and it's like, hey, I know
Speaker 1: a guy who has a heist. I've got some clients. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got two criminal clients. Yeah, Gordon Goody. He goes
Speaker 1: to his own client. Yeah, I gotta lead boys, Gordon
Speaker 1: Goody and Buster Edwards. Gordon and Buster. So he's like, Gordon, Buster,
Speaker 1: I got a cat at the Postal Service says he
Speaker 1: knows he knows how to do a good heist. Gordon
Speaker 1: tall blonde fella, this is better than your last idea.
Speaker 1: You guys should started a restaurant together. It's a tax
Speaker 1: right off Gordon Busters. I don't know that. Gordon is
Speaker 1: like super into criming and he got he got, you know,
Speaker 1: into it at a young age. He joined Busters Gang. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know it sounds like a forties so Buster he's
Speaker 1: the son of a bartender and he used to work
Speaker 1: in a sausage factory. Okay, but that means he's like
Speaker 1: deep into post war black market stuff. Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: meat packer on the dirty. Yeah. Well, I mean, don't
Speaker 1: forget uk UK ration were in place until nine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so during the war, this whole black market economy comes
Speaker 1: up and actually chocolate but yeah, anything and so that
Speaker 1: you know, that continues on during ration NG and then
Speaker 1: it just like keeps up and it kind of merges
Speaker 1: in nicely with the pre existing criminal black market that
Speaker 1: was was already there. So it kind of explains to
Speaker 1: those sixties British rock bands love of American stuff that
Speaker 1: they didn't have anything is the deprivation. They're like oh
Speaker 1: my god, I want some exactly. So in summary, Busters,
Speaker 1: a career criminal, now the security officer, he is known
Speaker 1: only as the Ulsterman. His identity remained a mystery for
Speaker 1: half a century. Ulsterman he knew which trains would be
Speaker 1: where and when. And he also knew that the postal
Speaker 1: service has sort of like beefed up security for the
Speaker 1: h VPS um after there had been like a couple
Speaker 1: of robbery attempts. So another thing that he knew, he'd
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, he knew that some of the train
Speaker 1: cars didn't have that beefed up security. By the way,
Speaker 1: is Ulsterman like a job title. I only know Ulster
Speaker 1: is a place. He's from, Ulster. I just wanted to um.
Speaker 1: And so he knew which cars weren't tricked out and
Speaker 1: when they'd be used. So his yeah, his heist idea
Speaker 1: goes like this. So, as I said, h v P
Speaker 1: cars they normally carry around three grand after bank holidays,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more because it's a long weekend. People
Speaker 1: are spending their money. How much more I can see
Speaker 1: in your eyes? I was wondering, he did you see
Speaker 1: the numbers? Somewhere between two and three million pounds whoa, Yeah,
Speaker 1: ten times as much just because of a holiday weekend.
Speaker 1: And then in nineteen sixty three that's the same as
Speaker 1: fifty eight million pounds today, and that's like sixty five
Speaker 1: million bucks dollars American dollars. I'll take it. That's a
Speaker 1: lot hot damn right. So Gordon and Buster they're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, that sounds like a good hen help
Speaker 1: me in, you know, Gordon and Busters can wait, We
Speaker 1: just we got to do this. They had the bona
Speaker 1: FIDE's their criminals. They're part of the Southwest Gang, which
Speaker 1: is a London crime syndicate. But they're like, we need
Speaker 1: a much bigger crew for this. This is a big job,
Speaker 1: going to take a big Crew's going to take a
Speaker 1: big boy to swing this back. Yeah, So they go
Speaker 1: to recruit. They call in Bruce Reynolds and Charlie Wilson.
Speaker 1: Bruce sort of becomes the leader of the group. He's
Speaker 1: well known, he's a successful criminal, but you know what,
Speaker 1: he didn't know anything about Robin No Train. So he's
Speaker 1: just like Charlie Wilson, the other guy. He's known as
Speaker 1: the Silent Man. He's a dangerous guy, bad man. That's
Speaker 1: what they say about the Silent Ones. So they got
Speaker 1: those two in place, they locked them and the next
Speaker 1: batch that they pick up were members of the South
Speaker 1: Coast Raiders. That sounds like like a Weekend Warrior motorcycle
Speaker 1: club that girls my sister play. It sounds like they
Speaker 1: ride Harley fat Boys and we're like brand new leather
Speaker 1: vests and the balding ones where bandanas folded all tight
Speaker 1: over the tops of their heads. Everyone's sweaty. Everyone's wearing
Speaker 1: white Kirkland elevens. You see this. They like stop for
Speaker 1: beers and they stand by their bikes. They got their
Speaker 1: fingers hitched in their belt loops. They're waiting for their
Speaker 1: lunch table. They're going to order jalapeno poppers, like hands down.
Speaker 1: One's gonna order chicken fingers. There's another who's like, I'll
Speaker 1: take a salad because his cardia. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to some that's the South Coast, but it's actually just kidding.
Speaker 1: It's an English gang in the sixties. So they had
Speaker 1: actual train robbers in their in their crew. Jim Hussey
Speaker 1: not real hussy, Tommy Wisby and Bob Welch. I'm hoping
Speaker 1: there won't be a quiz later. No because listen, I
Speaker 1: had to. I had to write out a chart when
Speaker 1: I was doing this, and I wish I were joking. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also a guy named Roger Quadry, and he knew
Speaker 1: how to operate the train signals along the track. So
Speaker 1: that's helpful. You gotta get the train to stop. As
Speaker 1: I learned when you told me about Mr Minor that
Speaker 1: I thought that they were just jumping on the train
Speaker 1: while it was moving, and then they got to figure
Speaker 1: out where they're going to jop Yea. So apparently they
Speaker 1: have to stop these trains. Yeah, there you go. Well,
Speaker 1: Jimmy White, he was in charge of uncoupling train carriage
Speaker 1: there is that's his specialty. Um. Then there's Ronnie Biggs.
Speaker 1: He's a prison pal of Bruce's. UM. Ronnie connected them
Speaker 1: with a guy named Peter who also was called stan Agget.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they gave him that name Stan whatever.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like it's like he's hard as a rock,
Speaker 1: who knows who cares? Like Bob gran Bob granted. So
Speaker 1: Stan agg he's a train engineer. He drove them suckers whatever.
Speaker 1: He's the prime guy for this, so they pick up
Speaker 1: more dudes, lots of rude dudes piling and on top
Speaker 1: of that they get to fifteen guys on the core
Speaker 1: heist team. There are associates out there who are helping
Speaker 1: with other logistical things. We have fifteen guys, so they figured, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to rob the train on August eight ninety three.
Speaker 1: It's the one going from Glasgow to London's Houston station.
Speaker 1: I've been there. So it leaves Glasgow the deer Green place.
Speaker 1: That's literally what Glasgow means in Celtic. Learn all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff today. It's so educational today. So they leave
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and the midnight train
Speaker 1: from Glasgow. Um, the best place to stop the train
Speaker 1: would be at a signal light at Sears Crossing and Zaren.
Speaker 1: That's between Layton, Buzzard and Cheddington. And that sounds like
Speaker 1: I totally made that up, totally right near Hampton and
Speaker 1: that is half a mile from Bridego Bridge, bretty Go Bridge, um,
Speaker 1: and that's really on the lane. And that's forty something
Speaker 1: miles north of London, eleven miles south of Bletchley, made
Speaker 1: famous by the World War Two codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
Speaker 1: I just saw that on the map, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: actually I love that stuff geography. Um. So the plan
Speaker 1: was to uncouple the engine and the HVP cars from
Speaker 1: the rest of the train and then ditch the seventy
Speaker 1: two postal employees and the ten other cars, take the
Speaker 1: engine and the high value cars down the line to
Speaker 1: Brittago Bridge and then they're going to clean them out there,
Speaker 1: separate them out. The new gang. They needed a staging
Speaker 1: area hide out this newly formed supergroup. So they buy
Speaker 1: a place called leather Slade Farm. Again, I am not
Speaker 1: making these names. Leather Slade Farm and that's twenty seven
Speaker 1: miles from Brittigo Bridge. It's like a nice brick farmhouse,
Speaker 1: got some you know, good land around it. Um. They
Speaker 1: figured that they could like make the cost of the
Speaker 1: farm back. Obviously with all these millions, it didn't cost him.
Speaker 1: It's an operational investment. Yeah, and it was cheap. So
Speaker 1: they set up a fake army unit at the farm
Speaker 1: to disguise their vehicles. Yeah, they stockpiled supplies. Um. The
Speaker 1: heist was going to be on a Thursday, at the
Speaker 1: very start of the day, and so they planned to
Speaker 1: make it a long weekend. They missed the bank, wheat holiday,
Speaker 1: So they're going to do their own um, and they're
Speaker 1: going to stay through Sunday, so that um, they would
Speaker 1: be able to kind of like lay low and then disperse.
Speaker 1: But if you're going to stay that long, you know,
Speaker 1: they needed snacks, they need stuff like that, so they
Speaker 1: stock up. Before the heist. They went out to the
Speaker 1: signal light at Sears Crossing and they covered up the
Speaker 1: green light with a glove. They shoved the glove right
Speaker 1: up in there, just just crammed the glove. Saren they
Speaker 1: just shoved. Why do you keep making that gesture? I
Speaker 1: just wanted to understand. They just shove the glove. Clear.
Speaker 1: We're clear gloves up there. It's pretty it's they're pretty tight. Um.
Speaker 1: So then they get a big old battery, a big
Speaker 1: enough and they plug it into the red lights, so
Speaker 1: they control the red light. They control the vertical um.
Speaker 1: They go down the track and then they stretch a
Speaker 1: huge white sheet across the rails to signal a stopping point,
Speaker 1: like you know, stop here to get to Britty Go Bridge.
Speaker 1: It's just like you know, their own communication thing. Now
Speaker 1: they just wait. All they gotta do is wait, m
Speaker 1: are you on? It kind of looks like you're on
Speaker 1: the edge of your seat, right, I'm probably gonna fase in,
Speaker 1: So okay, let's cool you off with some ads. Just
Speaker 1: get you fully back in the seat. When we come
Speaker 1: back from this break, I'm going to tell you how
Speaker 1: it went down on that fateful August night. I can't wait, Zaren.
Speaker 1: When we left off are impromptu gang fifteen guys. I
Speaker 1: didn't do it. They had everything prepped. They not just
Speaker 1: rob a train. They were going to steal a train,
Speaker 1: a train filled with the equivalent of sixty five million
Speaker 1: dollars today. That amount just absolutely mind blowing. I can't, honestly,
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine what sixty million dollars is like, what
Speaker 1: it would like, just like any part of it. What
Speaker 1: would you do with that? How much would it weigh?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna tell you, Saren. I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you something close. Take a deep breath and
Speaker 1: picture it. Yes, it's three in the morning on August three.
Speaker 1: You aren't Saren. Now, I'm you're David Whitby. Dawn it On.
Speaker 1: David Whitby. You're a twenty six year old crew member
Speaker 1: the Traveling Post Office locomotive. You're just chugging along down
Speaker 1: the West Coast mainline. You love your job, you take
Speaker 1: it very seriously. Tonight you're working with your pal Jack Mills. Jack.
Speaker 1: He's fifty eight seasoned train conductor. You have learned so
Speaker 1: much from him. You've worked together on these long haul
Speaker 1: mail runs. You're both from a town called Crew in Cheshire.
Speaker 1: It's a railway town. Your train boys to the core.
Speaker 1: You got that train life. Um. As you reach Sears crossing,
Speaker 1: Jack mutters, right, seems the red signal light is on.
Speaker 1: That doesn't really make a lot of sense. It should
Speaker 1: be completely smooth sailing in this stretch. He brings the
Speaker 1: giant locomotive to a stop. He tells you to get
Speaker 1: out and see what's what. So you have to call
Speaker 1: the signalman from the phone box at the light and
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this. You crunch along the
Speaker 1: gravel that runs alongside the rails, reach the phone box,
Speaker 1: lift the receiver and you see it. The phone line
Speaker 1: has been cut. What you didn't know is that all
Speaker 1: the phone lines in the immediate vicinity had been cut.
Speaker 1: You sign frustration head back toward the engine. This is
Speaker 1: also puzzling. Just as you reach the engine, put your
Speaker 1: hand on the rail to climb the metal steps into
Speaker 1: the cab. You hear a crunch behind you footfall in
Speaker 1: the gravel. Before you can turn around, you're tackled by
Speaker 1: a masked figure. So other tufts, dressed in the hoods
Speaker 1: and blue jumpsuits. They come out of the woods and
Speaker 1: they climb into the engine from both sides. Jack tries
Speaker 1: to fight off the outlaws, but one pulls out a
Speaker 1: club often referred to as a cash and bangs him
Speaker 1: on the head, so he slumps down to the ground.
Speaker 1: In the days other members of the crew, they scurry,
Speaker 1: you know, into uncouple the HVP cars from the rest
Speaker 1: of the train. Remember train operators stand Aggett. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: his time to shine. He takes hem of this mighty engine.
Speaker 1: He sits at the controls. He looks at the various
Speaker 1: knobs and levers. He size, Um, guys, you know how
Speaker 1: you pick me for your gang? Because I used to
Speaker 1: drive trains for a living. Well, the emphasis should have
Speaker 1: been on used to I'm retired and it looks like
Speaker 1: they've totally modernized everything since I've been last in the saddle,
Speaker 1: So we kind of need someone else to do this.
Speaker 1: Kay thinks by so everyone looks around at darn Ronnie Biggs.
Speaker 1: He brought them a dud, and so Bruce orders Ronnie
Speaker 1: and stand off the train and down the tracks to
Speaker 1: help unload the loop. They get demoted, so they still
Speaker 1: need a conductor though, right. Um. They look down on
Speaker 1: the floor, pitiful Jack Mills, bleeding from the head in
Speaker 1: a daze. This guy just tried to defend his mighty steed,
Speaker 1: Jackie exactly. They order him up. You, David Whitby, you're
Speaker 1: laying mo You're crouched in the corner trying to like
Speaker 1: maybe they don't see me anymore. Um. The criminals watches
Speaker 1: Jack Mills valiant and brave. He guides the train down
Speaker 1: the track as instructed. So after this shorty version of
Speaker 1: the train pulled into another stop at Brittago Bridge, the
Speaker 1: robbers forced their way into the hv P cars and
Speaker 1: they like rough up the supervisors. They get the staff
Speaker 1: under control really quickly because like they're not expecting this.
Speaker 1: They're just thinking, yeah, they're at work, like why do
Speaker 1: we keep stopping whatever? Um, what else could they do?
Speaker 1: So all of them are forced to life face down
Speaker 1: on the floor in the corner of one of the
Speaker 1: carriages and then you and Jack handcuffed together and made
Speaker 1: to join them together again, Dave Jackie train boys. Um.
Speaker 1: So before you sit down, you look out the window
Speaker 1: and you see a huge truck and Austin load Star
Speaker 1: pulled up alongside the train, two land rovers with identical
Speaker 1: plates twinsies. Um. And then you're like, you're you're seeing like, okay,
Speaker 1: I kind of get why they're fifteen guys here. This
Speaker 1: is a big operation, um, because they have the truck
Speaker 1: right this Austin load Star. The fifteen guys they line
Speaker 1: up and they are a human chain moving the sacks
Speaker 1: of all the mail to from the carriage to the truck.
Speaker 1: There are a hundred and twenty eight bags in these
Speaker 1: two carriages, and these guys move a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: of them in a half hour. That's two point five
Speaker 1: tons of cash. That's a lot. Oh yeah. And also
Speaker 1: you're just constantly twisted moving bag. Yeah and so but
Speaker 1: the thing is it's heavy because it's mostly ones five
Speaker 1: tons small bills. Um. So it takes to do this. Uh.
Speaker 1: They toss them in the back of the idling load Star. Um.
Speaker 1: The last bag gets flung in the truck and one
Speaker 1: of the robbers turns back into the carriage and yells.
Speaker 1: Don't move for half an hour, and they're like okay,
Speaker 1: everyone's checking their watch, like, hold on, I gotta get
Speaker 1: my stop watch. Um. And with that truck land rovers
Speaker 1: they peel out into the night. They've just stolen two
Speaker 1: and a half million pounds this mind blowing fortune. Um.
Speaker 1: They ramble along the road to leather Slade Farm. They're
Speaker 1: listening to police brook and uh, they're listening to police
Speaker 1: broadcasts on the scanner. Leather Slade Farm sounds like where
Speaker 1: a heavy metal band would live. Yeah, yeah, that's one option.
Speaker 1: That's I know. I'm steering us that way. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to steer elsewhere. So take some forty five minutes
Speaker 1: to get to leather Slade Farm. I'm just gonna keep
Speaker 1: saying it to driving that. Um. They pull up and
Speaker 1: they hear calls going out on the police radio about
Speaker 1: their taper. Yeah we'll see that. A postal worker on
Speaker 1: the train managed to flag down a passing train heading
Speaker 1: to Cheddington, and the police announced what would become a
Speaker 1: famous line over their radio band, can you give it
Speaker 1: to me with accent? No robbery has been committed and
Speaker 1: you'll never believe it. They've stolen the train. I did
Speaker 1: that in my junior high production drama production voice and
Speaker 1: robbery has been committed and you'll never believe it. They've
Speaker 1: stolen the train. And then my mom is in the
Speaker 1: good job honey, Oh she's so good, and then she's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, she's daring. Um alright, so uh that
Speaker 1: comment that one of them made about don't go anywhere
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes, that was a bad idea because one
Speaker 1: of the witnesses told the cops and then the cops
Speaker 1: were like, okay, so that means that they're probably within
Speaker 1: a thirty mile radio, right, I know what this means.
Speaker 1: So circle on the map now. Um. It's also okay,
Speaker 1: it's like they have this area to search. It's pretty
Speaker 1: much mostly farmland, so it's not like, oh, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of hidy holes um in like buildings and stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: it's about four thirty in the morning at this point.
Speaker 1: Those farm folk they're they're just getting up and these
Speaker 1: are good, honest folk. We want to help the cops.
Speaker 1: So they're not down for this kind of hanky stuff. No, no, no, no. So,
Speaker 1: as I said before, gang, they were going to hang
Speaker 1: out until Sunday, have given long relaxing weekend and leather
Speaker 1: slide farm. And that's kind of a bad idea. Now
Speaker 1: it's crap. So they're like, know what, let's leave tomorrow Friday.
Speaker 1: Let's get out of here. So that whole witness information
Speaker 1: thing that became a problem too, because you, David Whitby,
Speaker 1: you saw the truck and the two land rovers plashing
Speaker 1: plates and you pass that on to the cops. Of
Speaker 1: course you did. Yikes for them, it's right, you've got
Speaker 1: to keep him in mind. Um. So they're working out
Speaker 1: this plan about how how are we going to get
Speaker 1: out of this farm. They split up the hall. That's
Speaker 1: like first and foremost, let's let's divvy up this money.
Speaker 1: So they wound up doing sixteen shares. We're going to
Speaker 1: take the time to count out tons of small bills.
Speaker 1: That's the whole point. They have to if they're going
Speaker 1: to scatter, they have to take their little chunk. I
Speaker 1: don't recommend they get about a hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: pounds each, and that's you know, three and a half
Speaker 1: million a guy today. That's a lot of money, but
Speaker 1: it's also small bills. Yeah, volume was and then they
Speaker 1: divided the remaining ten thousand up into what they called drinks.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard that term? It's like little bits
Speaker 1: for those who are the side associates who helped out
Speaker 1: A term. I don't know. Maybe it comes from like
Speaker 1: getting their beaks wet. I love that phrase, but get
Speaker 1: your beak wet. Um. So a couple of the gang.
Speaker 1: Then they got rides out to pick up new cars
Speaker 1: to like be able to come back and leave the farm. Um.
Speaker 1: Other ones hung out, I don't know, rolled in the
Speaker 1: money or something. Who knows. Um, I do know they
Speaker 1: had a game of Monopoly there and they used their
Speaker 1: real cash to play the game exactly. Um. Now, uh,
Speaker 1: they're on the edge because not only are the cops
Speaker 1: looking for them, but they start hearing these low flying
Speaker 1: R A F planes and oh my god, you guys
Speaker 1: they called out the army or the air Force whatever
Speaker 1: it is, a f air force. Well yeah, it was
Speaker 1: just it wasn't part of a search. It was just
Speaker 1: up that just got them all chalked up. And there's yeah.
Speaker 1: So then this guy named Mark shows up. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. There's Mark. Mark. Mark's got a couple of
Speaker 1: guys with him. They've brought vans. I like to believe
Speaker 1: that Mark is a really friendly Canadian. Well, like, in
Speaker 1: every article I've read about this, Mark's name is in
Speaker 1: quotation marks and that's like, you know, because it's probably
Speaker 1: not his name, but it makes me laugh because it's
Speaker 1: so generic. Right, Like you have this thing about how
Speaker 1: you can get into any party if you just say
Speaker 1: that Josh invited you. Yeah, Scott, Josh your Scott like
Speaker 1: they told me to come. Yeah, I'm a Scott, I'm Josh.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows some Josh. Mike makes a good one. Parts
Speaker 1: of the country, Eric works or in the south, trade
Speaker 1: in cody to entry points. Marks like Marks a dark
Speaker 1: horse on this. Yeah, you know, like it's I wouldn't
Speaker 1: use marker Gary. These are not names anymore, you know. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean then we get into generational thing things like
Speaker 1: now like younger generations, it's going to be like Madison
Speaker 1: told me or Caitlin I was at Brooklyn and Ireland
Speaker 1: and know what's Gwyneth Paltrow's kid eggs Apple it is.
Speaker 1: Why do I know these things? I didn't want to
Speaker 1: know them. I want to forget them. Keep your secrets anyway, Mark,
Speaker 1: So Mark He's brought in by that original lawyer who
Speaker 1: connected the Ulsterman with all these clowns. Mark's job was
Speaker 1: to come in and clean the place any trace of
Speaker 1: the gang, and then he's supposed to set the whole
Speaker 1: place on fire. He's going to burn down leather Slade Farm.
Speaker 1: So on Friday, the robbers they get in their various
Speaker 1: vehicles and much like the last scene in Ocean's eleven,
Speaker 1: they like scatter off one by one into the night.
Speaker 1: But let's go back at the train on Thursday morning.
Speaker 1: Chief Superintendent Malcolm Futrell say that one more time, Malcolm,
Speaker 1: I like the laser fight in the middle of his name.
Speaker 1: He later played a storm trip. So I can see why,
Speaker 1: Chief Superintendent Malcolm of the Buckinghamshire Police Criminal Investigation Department,
Speaker 1: he was on the case. He was there, Zaron. He
Speaker 1: looked around the circus, well, hold onto your pants. He
Speaker 1: looked around at the chaos, and he's like, I need
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard and therefore I need the Flying Squad. Hear
Speaker 1: me be excited about the arrival of police, the Flying Squad.
Speaker 1: This is like right before they go crooked. Too likely sixties,
Speaker 1: Remember it was like late sixties, early seventies, they went
Speaker 1: all Cercuco. Okay, so they start a grid search. They
Speaker 1: get right on it. Border exit points are alert alerted
Speaker 1: like all the ports um the postmaster offers a reward
Speaker 1: quote to the first person giving information leading to the
Speaker 1: apprehension and conviction of the person is responsible for the robbery.
Speaker 1: So like, first in, you get some money. I'm not
Speaker 1: like free stamps with the rest of your life. Like
Speaker 1: you get six books of stamps and they're not the
Speaker 1: forever kind, and you get to pick. He went on
Speaker 1: the radio and he said, the first person giving information
Speaker 1: relating to the apprehension and conviction of the person's responsible
Speaker 1: for the robbery. That's how he said it. I gotta
Speaker 1: take it back and gather myself. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: When we get back, I'm gonna tell you just who
Speaker 1: that first person was. Yeah, all right, Saren, we're back.
Speaker 1: Oh tasty. I love them, you love them. They're fresh,
Speaker 1: They're so good. Where's my wallet? It's just what I needed.
Speaker 1: So once upon a time there was a lonely shepherd. Ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the story, and that shepherd was not just lonely,
Speaker 1: he was nosy, my kind of shepherd. Uh. He noticed
Speaker 1: that there's an awful lot of activity. Wasn't a guy
Speaker 1: with a technicolor coat? No, no, next time, next episode. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a farm adjacent to him, like the pasture that
Speaker 1: he uses. It's a farm called leather Slade Farm. Other farm. Um.
Speaker 1: And so he's like, there's a lot of activity, and
Speaker 1: this is the place been quiet for a while ever,
Speaker 1: and all of sudden we got these military so goings.
Speaker 1: So he calls the cops. People, um, flying squad. They
Speaker 1: race over, They get on their on their little spaceships,
Speaker 1: fly over. Um they found something and that something was
Speaker 1: not the burned shell of a building. Oh he didn't
Speaker 1: get to it. No, Generic Mark failed to burn the
Speaker 1: place down. Mark. In fact, Generic Mark failed to clean
Speaker 1: it up. In quote Mark Mark. Um, the guys already
Speaker 1: like in prep for Mark, Like they didn't want the
Speaker 1: housekeeper to show up to too messy of a house,
Speaker 1: so they wiped down their prints before they left. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're counting on Mark to like do his job
Speaker 1: like we just did, like a surface clean He come
Speaker 1: in with a heavy cleaning. Um. I like to imagine
Speaker 1: that as the robbers like rolled out in their rides,
Speaker 1: Mark stood in the doorway of the farmhouse, like wearing
Speaker 1: an apron and cleaning gloves. Yeah, were waving like the
Speaker 1: long farewell at them like a sailor's wife on the dock.
Speaker 1: He's got like one rubber like dishwhing glove. And then
Speaker 1: the last car like leaves the drive and he rips
Speaker 1: off the apron and gloves like Mark quote unquote Mark. Um.
Speaker 1: So that said flying squad shows up places just covered.
Speaker 1: It's just thick with evidence. What did they find, Saron evidence?
Speaker 1: They found evidence, They found food, They found about sleeping bags, snacks, um,
Speaker 1: the paper rappers that go around stacks of cash bands,
Speaker 1: snacks they found, um, they found empty mail bags like
Speaker 1: bats incriminating, and then inside snack rappers. Um, they found
Speaker 1: registered mail with no money in it, so like someone
Speaker 1: was sending something like, you know, assigned form. I'll send
Speaker 1: it registered mail so we know you get it in
Speaker 1: this garbage. Um. And they also found the Monopoly game.
Speaker 1: They found the Monopoly game, and they found the huge
Speaker 1: truck and the land rovers, but they had been sort
Speaker 1: of hastily painted yellow. I don't know if the bad
Speaker 1: guys did that or quote unquote marked. That is his
Speaker 1: one last act is all throw some yellow paint on him.
Speaker 1: Uh all three all three vehicles though, and those are
Speaker 1: the vehicles identif Fine, it's seen. So the c s
Speaker 1: I Casts that come in, they're like collecting from their
Speaker 1: little treasure tripe. They're just you know, they're drooling so
Speaker 1: exciting fingerprints totally. Um, they're like, oh, we got these
Speaker 1: guys in our cross hair. I could tasted. Um they
Speaker 1: find Prince? Where did they find Prince? Saren? Because remember
Speaker 1: they guys wiped everything down where where they filled in
Speaker 1: the petrol? The monopoly game, like the board they didn't
Speaker 1: wipe down the board. And then a bottle of Ketchup
Speaker 1: that was just they're snacking it up and they're like,
Speaker 1: someone's drinking ketchup. They found a drinking that by and
Speaker 1: I thought maybe you wouldn't notice one of your favorite cocktails.
Speaker 1: I noticed Ketchup. It's like really thick to mata juice. Um.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately virgin bloody Mary, Yeah, you just gotta water
Speaker 1: it down. And a C in the yammers um pearls.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we're fortunately for a gang of thieves. Um, the
Speaker 1: investigation starts to lose steam. They had Prince, but they
Speaker 1: didn't have everyone's prince and they had some names, but
Speaker 1: they didn't know where to find them. So they're just
Speaker 1: like three days later, they're just standing in the yard farm.
Speaker 1: We just started playing monopoly. They got side tracked. Well,
Speaker 1: they go down all these rabbit holes, right. They went
Speaker 1: through a list of post office employees and traced their
Speaker 1: genealogy to see if they had any shared last names
Speaker 1: with any of their suspects. That's the most British thing
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. Is what we need to do is
Speaker 1: come over the genealogy for everybody in the post office.
Speaker 1: One guy, they traced him his family back to Victorian Norach.
Speaker 1: They're gonna like, oh, we got back to the Doomsday
Speaker 1: book and they're like, oh, dead end, that's not really literally.
Speaker 1: Um So then they flagged. They also were flagging large
Speaker 1: purchases by postal employees. Like a year after this, some
Speaker 1: guy who worked in the HVP car tried to buy
Speaker 1: a car, just going to guess and they were like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing. He's like, I've been saving up
Speaker 1: for a kid out of here. I was traumatized. They
Speaker 1: investigated him six ways from Sunday. Nothing. So they're not
Speaker 1: really getting a lot of leads. But then two informants
Speaker 1: come forward. I've been wonder when you got fifteen guys.
Speaker 1: They got fifteen friends. Yeah, and so they're able to
Speaker 1: provide like a rough list of names, and a lot
Speaker 1: of those matched up with the prince. So the head
Speaker 1: of the Flying Squad at the time was a guy
Speaker 1: named Ernie Millen, and he was ready to act. Is
Speaker 1: all feeling funny inside. He decides to distribute pictures of
Speaker 1: the suspects to the press. First, he gave him out
Speaker 1: like wallet size, and many had the portraits at home
Speaker 1: for the holidays exactly. Um, this was already huge news, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just driving everyone bonkers. Um, gigantic heist,
Speaker 1: the great train robbery at the time, like the press
Speaker 1: referring to yeah, so um. Next in line for the
Speaker 1: head of the Flying Squad was a guy named Tommy Butler.
Speaker 1: Tommy Tommy, and he's like, this is a really bad idea. Guys,
Speaker 1: don't put it in the don't put their pictures out there.
Speaker 1: It turned out to be correct a bad idea because
Speaker 1: as soon as the photo made the paper, all the
Speaker 1: guys go underground immediately because they're going to get recognized
Speaker 1: because everyone's reading about this. Tommy Butler then becomes head
Speaker 1: of the Flying all about fighting the crime. He's all
Speaker 1: about stopping the criming. And he had really good nicknames.
Speaker 1: One day Tommy because I could get it done. He's
Speaker 1: like so quick to bust up one day Tommy the
Speaker 1: gray Fox. Not bad, that's foxy. I don't know. They're
Speaker 1: like that guy is such a good detective and he's
Speaker 1: really foxy. He's the gray Fox. And then they called
Speaker 1: him Mr. Flying Squad because they're like Jimmy Flying Squad
Speaker 1: over there. He's like, come on now. But he lived
Speaker 1: and breathed the anti crimings. Um confirmed bachelor who lived
Speaker 1: with his mom. But you know he was like he
Speaker 1: worked these crazy long hours. He was all about busting
Speaker 1: back and married to the crime. He really was. I
Speaker 1: mean he really was. You can only give your heart
Speaker 1: to tell many things. There's only so much of you
Speaker 1: to go around when you're that foxy. Um. So he's
Speaker 1: all about busting and he got it done. He did busted.
Speaker 1: Eight days after the robbery. They caught their first criminal
Speaker 1: eight days Roger Cordrey. Alright, guy, he was the one
Speaker 1: in charge of messing with the train signals. He's the
Speaker 1: glove jammer. Yeah, I again. He tried to pay his
Speaker 1: landlord three months rent at once in small bills. Now
Speaker 1: she was the widow of a cop, so she immediately
Speaker 1: she's like, something is hinky. And then a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: that lawyer who connected the ulsterman to the crooks, he
Speaker 1: gets caught. The lawyer gets popped. So he was already says, oh, yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: and so like, slowly but surely the police nabbed six more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got him, they got the group. Yeah, eight of
Speaker 1: the core crew and a few hangers on. They stood
Speaker 1: trial in nineteen sixty four, so the next year media sensation.
Speaker 1: They had to move to a bigger venue to accommodate
Speaker 1: all these crowds. One of the cases was dismissed because
Speaker 1: of like fumbling with evidence and procedure and the I
Speaker 1: don't know whatever they and then the other seven get
Speaker 1: convicted and they got thirty years each thirty years. But
Speaker 1: it was like the magnitude of the robbery. But still
Speaker 1: don't they have a standard? Well, something I thought was
Speaker 1: interesting In a lot of the documentaries that I watched
Speaker 1: about this, they would mention like how bad they felt,
Speaker 1: that they not bad, but that it was they realized
Speaker 1: it was such a bad thing to be stealing from
Speaker 1: the queen. Why, well, come on, dude, the queen was
Speaker 1: a very special gal. I get that, But would they
Speaker 1: have felt that bad way about to say the king
Speaker 1: or is it just particular crown? But they said it
Speaker 1: with a sort of affection for the queen, was reserved
Speaker 1: for her in a way that we haven't seen yet. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to shoot coming up? Okay,
Speaker 1: So Charlie Wilson, he's another one, the silent man, bad
Speaker 1: bad man. He gets a thirty year sentence, but he
Speaker 1: managed to escape from prison. Something you'll like their personal war.
Speaker 1: I knew, I knew that was so excited. Three men
Speaker 1: busted in and got him out of prison in just
Speaker 1: three minutes. That set some sort of rap right um.
Speaker 1: From there he goes to Paris and gets plastic surgery.
Speaker 1: Then he goes to Mexico. He's doing every cliche you
Speaker 1: can pick up. And then from there he goes to
Speaker 1: Quebec and he becomes like a pillar of the community.
Speaker 1: He's just involved in a bunch of stuff. Scotland Yard, though,
Speaker 1: eventually tracks him down, brings him back. He has to
Speaker 1: serve out the rest of the yeah. Um. Then he
Speaker 1: goes back to criming after that and he gets killed
Speaker 1: in a drug deal in Spain, in rug deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he's you know, he's up in years and your
Speaker 1: last moments are like no, two for five there you go,
Speaker 1: well and that's what happens. Um. So then, like Charlie
Speaker 1: Ronnie Biggs, he also escaped from prison. Ronnie familiar. He
Speaker 1: will he kind of snuck out with some other guys
Speaker 1: who had planned an escape together. He just was like
Speaker 1: an escape stow away. He's like, I'll go with you.
Speaker 1: Do like a fair invader on the subway who slips
Speaker 1: in with a person anyway. He's also he wants to
Speaker 1: be like Charlie so much because he then goes to
Speaker 1: Paris and gets plastic surgery. Um. And then after that
Speaker 1: he goes to Australia and then goes to Brazil and
Speaker 1: there's no extradition treaty with Brazil and at that time
Speaker 1: their dictatorship. If I believe, well, they can't give they can't.
Speaker 1: They're not doing anything. You're not getting No, he's able
Speaker 1: to just go live his life and celebrate his journey
Speaker 1: out in the open, living his best life while he's there,
Speaker 1: he produced tracks for the Sex Pistols, and then when
Speaker 1: he's seventy one, he goes back to England after he
Speaker 1: had a couple of strokes like it's not funny the
Speaker 1: way I said it, couple like you know all and
Speaker 1: I'm hitting moment um. He knew he could be arrested,
Speaker 1: but then um, he said he wanted to quote walk
Speaker 1: into a Margate pub Margaret pub as an Englishman and
Speaker 1: buy a pint of bitter and buy a pint of better.
Speaker 1: He keep coming across this with the people who would
Speaker 1: get away, they think and they want their sense of
Speaker 1: their life and it's worth everything exactly. So as soon
Speaker 1: as he gets off the plane he's arrested. He doesn't
Speaker 1: even get a pint of bitter. No, that happened, man,
Speaker 1: Like you just okay, you could have that sent to you.
Speaker 1: They have they you you know, you robbed a mail card,
Speaker 1: you know, the ship things totally. So he he goes back,
Speaker 1: serves out the rest of his sentence. He gets denied
Speaker 1: parole at one point and then he gets compassionate release
Speaker 1: at the age of eighty. So because he was on
Speaker 1: his last legs. Then we got Gordon Goody He was
Speaker 1: one of the original seven arrested. He got out of
Speaker 1: jail in nineteen seventy five when he was forty six
Speaker 1: years old, changed his name to Dave and opened a
Speaker 1: restaurant with his friend Buster. Yes, um, so before he
Speaker 1: goes in though, before he goes into jail, he gets
Speaker 1: this friend and has the friend like and trusts him
Speaker 1: with the riches he made a friend he went down today. No,
Speaker 1: he gets a friend of his and it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to entrust you with maybeaches and you know you're
Speaker 1: in charge of my affairs. Test that friendship first, so
Speaker 1: then um the you know. He says like, you gotta
Speaker 1: make a promise to me, and that friend loyalist. And
Speaker 1: Gordon gets out and he's rich. Gordon's got cash. He
Speaker 1: moves to Spain and just cools out. Everybody needs a
Speaker 1: friend like that. Right. Two years before he passed away,
Speaker 1: he participated in a documentary called A Tale of Two Thieves.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good. Um, it's worth watching just for Gordon
Speaker 1: because it's such a character. Um. It tells his story,
Speaker 1: But the most important part is that he finally reveals
Speaker 1: the name of the Ulsterman. Can you give me the
Speaker 1: guy had never been caught or named. Gordon spills the
Speaker 1: beans that it was a Belfast born postmaster named Patrick McKenna.
Speaker 1: What's funny in the documentary is that they have to
Speaker 1: call in all these researchers and investigators because there are
Speaker 1: too many Patrick McKenna's in the thirty two counties to
Speaker 1: narrow it down. So but they solved the mystery, so
Speaker 1: they you know, but what about the other guys you're asking?
Speaker 1: Look at that bleeding good question. So Buster Edwards he
Speaker 1: starts a restaurant with his new friend day that he
Speaker 1: met with our producer Dave so Um. Buster Edwards, former
Speaker 1: sausage factory worker. He took his family and ran off
Speaker 1: to Mexico. And he did eventually go back home a
Speaker 1: couple of years later. And guess what did fifteen years?
Speaker 1: Couldn't resist the siren call? What is it? The food
Speaker 1: is not that good, the weather is not that great.
Speaker 1: So he gets out and he needs a job, so
Speaker 1: he starts selling flowers outside of Waterloo train station. Like
Speaker 1: he's a character in Mary Poppin. Yeah, he's like Tuppance. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a movie called Buster and Phil Collins stars as Buster.
Speaker 1: That's about him, know, what I'm doing. This buster had
Speaker 1: a tragic end, so we're just going to stop at that.
Speaker 1: Jimmy White, the train conscious um un coupler. Uh, he
Speaker 1: was on the runaround England, thank you. He was on
Speaker 1: the run around England with his family. And he did
Speaker 1: like he'd worked really hard to blend in because he
Speaker 1: thought he was like the invisible guy. No one, you know,
Speaker 1: no one could recognize him. But like people kept betraying
Speaker 1: him and all, not like turning him in, but just
Speaker 1: like taking his money or like doing him dirty and deals,
Speaker 1: and then you can't go to the police. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then he gets recognized eighteen years and then there's Bruce Reynolds,
Speaker 1: the Master. He called the robbery his Sistine Chapel. And
Speaker 1: he hid out after the robbery, waiting for a passport
Speaker 1: for a while. So he did most of the work
Speaker 1: lying on his back. And then uh, he hopped around
Speaker 1: on all these flights until he reached Mexico, Mexico. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go to Venezuela, Brazil. I mean, come on, that guy
Speaker 1: got to hang out. Um. He starts calling himself Keith
Speaker 1: Clement Miller, so he gets a new name. His wife
Speaker 1: and kid they joined him in Mexico and they lived
Speaker 1: this like cool life. Buster and Charlie come to visit
Speaker 1: him on their various times on the lamb, like his
Speaker 1: friends going to see him, like some fast and furious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so they're having this really cool, like high flying
Speaker 1: lifestyle style in Mexico. Yeah, lots of villas and lots
Speaker 1: of like fruity drinks. Um. Then the family they moved
Speaker 1: to Canada, then they go back to England. Then they
Speaker 1: go to the south of France and then back to
Speaker 1: England again, which was a smart go to Spain. Well,
Speaker 1: he couldn't resist his pals, so he was the last
Speaker 1: one to get caught, and he did ten years. When
Speaker 1: he got out, he tried to go straight, but eventually
Speaker 1: he got back into money laundering, drug trafficking. He gets
Speaker 1: pinched for dealing speed and he did three years in
Speaker 1: the eighties and then after that bust he went legit
Speaker 1: as a media commentator, and then he wrote his autobiography
Speaker 1: and his wife and stunt son the best way to
Speaker 1: become an author, right, they stood by him all the
Speaker 1: whole time, right there with him. Wife. Goody, Now do
Speaker 1: you remember how I was talking about TV theme songs
Speaker 1: about four hours ago. Yes, yes, my answer is Rockford file.
Speaker 1: You know which one is really good? The theme from
Speaker 1: the Sopranos, Oh my god, yeah, it's a great one
Speaker 1: to beat the whaling harmonica, Got myself a gun. You
Speaker 1: know who played that whaling harmonica, Little Walter. It's the
Speaker 1: sound that's evocative of the underworld, the psychic pain living
Speaker 1: none other than Nick Reynolds, son of Bruce Reynolds. He's
Speaker 1: a sculptor and a member of the group Alabama three
Speaker 1: and that's the band behind this theme song for the Sopranos.
Speaker 1: He lived a wild life, wild family. And I think
Speaker 1: that we have Bruce Reynolds and this his Sistine Chapel
Speaker 1: train robbery to think for the emotion and the feeling
Speaker 1: that his son Nick laid into that track, that is amazing.
Speaker 1: So the legitimacy, like the crime coming and emerging into music,
Speaker 1: and you're like, that feels so authentic, and you know
Speaker 1: he's like the AJ Now. It took me a long
Speaker 1: time to get back to theme songs, but I made
Speaker 1: a promise, I made a contract and I got you there.
Speaker 1: What's your ridiculous takeaway that I should be involved in
Speaker 1: British crime because apparently they need some help with some
Speaker 1: of this, like, hey, don't go back to England if
Speaker 1: you've got no way with it. Everybody needs some help
Speaker 1: with my theory of Look, there's three points to a crime.
Speaker 1: You're missing the last, Yeah, commit the crime, get away crime.
Speaker 1: Everyone's like, yeah, I got away with it. I'm like no,
Speaker 1: It's it's a constant exactly, it's a continuing It's like love.
Speaker 1: Every day you got to renew the love. Every day
Speaker 1: you got to get away again, exactly, exactly. Well, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful committing getting away when the crime is
Speaker 1: like love a lot like a successful marriage. Exactly, that's
Speaker 1: a beautiful takeaway. And that is it for today. If
Speaker 1: you find us, uh, it'll be online at Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 1: on both Twitter and Instagram, So remember everybody, Zaron. Twitter
Speaker 1: is for the smarter discourse and Instagram is where we
Speaker 1: put the photos for each episode show you what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, and then the stories are for chuckles um
Speaker 1: and sneak peaks um. If you want to email us,
Speaker 1: try Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Tune in next time.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett
Speaker 1: produced and edited by High Value packet distributor Dave Kuston.
Speaker 1: Researches by Train Come Blur Marisa Brown. The theme song
Speaker 1: is by Giant Truck specialist Thomas Lee and Can Takers
Speaker 1: postal sorter Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Reluctant Expatriots Ben
Speaker 1: Bolan and Mell Brown d Quiet Say It One More Time,
Speaker 1: We Dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.