Ronnie Biggs Dead

[Higgins86]

Never understood the Hero worship with Biggs but you can't deny that the man had a hell of a life, film worthy even.

BBC News - Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs dies aged 84


Oh well Only one great train robber left now and that's National Rail who charge 5 quid for a cheese and tomato sandwich these days.

 

[Ben K.]

Good riddance.

 

[Higgins86]

Good riddance.

Yeh I wished we had let him rot in brazil.

 

[alexa]

At the time the feeling seemed to be that they had got away with a lot of money without doing much harm. Yes, one person was hurt but the general impression was that they were not thugs. Then they got massive prison sentences and people thought this is just because it is money. If they had killed someone they would not get such harsh prison sentences, so I think that more than anything got the public on their side.

With Ronnie Biggs, regardless of what they say now of his small part in it, they made his name by searching for him and trying to get him back. I felt for him when his child died and his wife told him not to come. So really the press and the police never leaving him alone, acting like he was the most wanted man in the world, made him into something which he used to his advantage.

We live in a different society and now the man who was injured is supposed to have died from it though he died from Leukaemia. We live in a society where money pretty much is the top value so he/it is portrayed in a different way.

I don't think at the time many people blamed them. Rather they seemed to respect them for trying something so difficult and doing their best to avoid violence. Then they condemned the long sentences.

 

[Ben K.]

No they beat the **** out of a train driver, hardly a fat cat. The difference now isn't that we value money more, just we can see through the Robin Hood bull****.

The train driver did an honest days work for an honest days wage and got injured by a bunch of thugs to the point he could no longer work and the robbers got lionised.

 

[alexa]

No they beat the **** out of a train driver, hardly a fat cat. The difference now isn't that we value money more, just we can see through the Robin Hood bull****.

Well I am just saying as it was seen. I wasn't even that old at the time, just a teenager. They did not take guns and the general impression was that it had been done with only one bit of violence which was sort of accidental. I don't know where these ideas came from because I just head people talking about it. It does though possibly more reflect that criminals of the time were generally more violent. A lot was made of them not taking guns, hence no intent to kill, which should have reduced their sentence,

I only heard that Jack Mills never recovered from it a few years ago. He did however return to work soon after which obviously confirmed in people's minds that he was not badly hurt. I have heard different things on how badly or not he was injured. Here these people claim it took his life

And it was hardly a victimless crime, because one of the gang coshed train driver Jack Mills. He never worked again and died seven years later, his life shortened arguably by the trauma of the attack.

The train driver did an honest days work for an honest days wage and got injured by a bunch of thugs to the point he could no longer work and the robbers got lionised.

Great Train Robbers Were A Bunch Of Villains

whereas

Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never fully recovered from his injuries. He returned to work in May 1964, and worked for 18 months on light duties. He was then on sick leave from November 1965 until December 1966 with shingles. He returned for one last year in work for 1967, retiring at Christmas, with two and a half months off sick that year.[3]

Jack Mills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As he died from leukaemia it would be necessary to do some study to find out if that was also what he did not recover from rather than the train attack because there seems to be some propaganda around this.