by Jim Morris
Added to this, though, was the management at the GPO although they could and did make special arrangements for mail collection and delivery – mainly involving motor transport. And they did “. . . not think there [would] be any delay in deliveries”.
The Sussex County Police, the Metropolitan Police and the British Transport Police were active. It was suggested that Scotland Yard had received some information, because one report said they’d been tipped off as to the membership of what was now known as the ‘Red Light’ firm. The Flying Squad had taken the inquiry up, and unmarked vehicles had been observing at least one address in North London.
Meanwhile there had been activity at the scene of the crime. Police with tracker dogs had combed the area up to half a mile from the scene. They recovered one of the masks the raiders had used, but forensics being what they were in those days, the discovery didn’t take the inquiry forward in any way.
The following night, Wednesday 30 November, detectives rode the same service and asked passengers if they had seen anything suspicious or anyone behaving suspiciously the previous night. Emphasis was placed on the rear carriages immediately in front of the guard’s carriage. Little useful information was forthcoming.
The driver, forty-year-old Mr Albert Mills of West Norwood, said he felt something may have been wrong with the signal on the night of the raid:
“I was going to report that signal at Merstham when I got back to the depot. I thought there was genuine fault on it. It only stayed at red for thirty seconds at the most and I had no suspicion of any robbery. We were running a bit late and I was trying to get up to my top speed of sixty miles an hour. As I came round the bend and saw the red light I braked fiercely.”
Yet again the firm had escaped, leaving little or no evidence at all.
There were more raids in which the firm may well have reverted to their ‘divert the guard’ scheme, because of particular stock on the lines targeted being non-corridor. But there was another violent raid.
The final southern line raid, in which violence was used, is worth discussing. It involved Frank Munroe in the role of an invalid in a wheelchair and Tommy Wisbey on escort duty as his ‘carer’. The train was an old non-corridor type, and that posed a problem: getting a wheelchair into a compartment was far from easy. But the guard on the train, Mr William Defty, was a pleasant man who took the wheelchair into his compartment – this wasn’t unusual, but he allowed Tommy to stay with Frank.
The two knew exactly when to pounce because the train would stop at a red light something like four minutes into the journey – which was where Roger came in. When the train stopped Frank was at the guard double-quick and his attack rendered him unable to put up any resistance. Tommy, meanwhile, sorted out the five registered packet bags they wanted, and with the train stationary, they could simply jump down onto the tracks and get away.
One idea was that the firm had a car waiting in Wandsworth Cemetery next to the track. Earlier that day, it was reported, a hole had been cut in the fence adjacent to the railway line. Then a man in a wheelchair had visited a grave, but the car carrying him broke down and permission was sought to leave the car where it was and get the man home. The cemetery staff actually helped the man and his aide to get a cab from the entrance to the cemetery. The story ran that the car would be recovered later when the man was safely at home.
With over forty items missing it was a while before the GPO could announce the haul wasn’t worth too much, but it was suggested the police knew who they were looking for.
At about this time Roger was visited by police, who wanted to know about his interest in railways. One theory to this was that an old partner of Roger’s had mentioned him, as he too had stolen from the railways and he felt he would be in the frame. The firm visited this man, who said he’d grassed, and he got a good hiding for his trouble; but he did have a large amount of cash with him, which placated the firm.
But the fallout from the latest raid was huge and the firm had to abandon any further plans. So they looked at the trains running north out of London, of which the Irish mail train leaving Euston each night heading for Holyhead was a possibility.
*
Two other raids of note were not reported in the national newspapers. One was timed on the same day as the airport robbery (by Bruce and his firm), 27 November 1962; I’ll discuss that shortly.
The raids sound like plotlines from a farce rather than dedicated criminals out at work. One suggestion that that these two preceded the above attacks comes from Piers Paul Read, who made the point that the firm got violent when the ‘acting’ raids got a bit stale or the railway police got wise to them and advised the guards on the trains.
Bob Welch was a plausible individual, and if he put on an act it could be quite convincing. It went something like this:
In the non-corridor train Bob finds a kind-looking lady, smiles at her politely and then sits opposite. He loosens his neck tie and emits a few deep groans. Next the companion gets alarmed and starts asking if Bob is all right. Meantime, the kindly looking lady is concerned. Suddenly, Bob rolls his eyes and starts twitching, and then escalates into a full-blown ‘fit’. Coincidentally, the train is just rolling into a station.
The companion jumps up and runs for help to the guard’s carriage as Bob really gives it some drama. By and by, the guard appears, with the companion pulling at him to help. “An ambulance is needed! We need to get help!” Before the guard can draw breath he has an hysterical companion and a fitting man whose head might be heading for the door.
To backtrack slightly, a few stops prior to the drama a couple of men placed a box in the guard’s carriage. An ordinary box that the guard would have seen the like of many times and take little notice of. The men placing the box on the train would act in a way that it was heavy and full when in fact it was empty. They then take their seats in the train, as close to the guard’s carriage as can be found. As Bob is performing, in his carriage towards the front of the train, the men re-enter the guards carriage, cut open the mailbags and remove the registered packets, before piling the mailbags back up in such a way that very close scrutiny would be needed to see some kind of interference had occurred. They then put the stolen packets in their box which will be taken off a stop or three later. They have planned their activities to start after the alarm is raised by the commotion towards the front of the train – Bob’s performance - and the raid will only take a matter of a couple of minutes.
A small crowd has gathered. Bob starts to recover, and he and his companion apologise and show how grateful they are to the kind-looking lady, who has done nothing, and the guard, who has done even less.
*
There was another theft involving a box placed in the guard’s van for the prize to be placed while the guard was distracted in dealing with an incident deliberately manufactured.
The following is largely as it was described to me – I’ve just picked up the aitchs and taken out the ‘know what I means’.
It was the day of the airport job, and they were doing their own bit of business. They wanted to put something on a train and then take it off again further down the track; it went on empty and came off with registered mail in it. Bob had a little spring that he could put in a carriage door to lock it, or rather jam the lock. He was all “. . . done up like these City gentlemen” – bowler hat, lovely overcoat, a little rose in his buttonhole, umbrella and a lovely suit. He needed to get into an empty compartment and then get to where they’d want to put something in the box on the train.
Two or three stops down the line, people got off. Bob’s role was again to get the guard away from his carriage – he’d need about two minutes. So he fixed the spring in the lock and jammed the door:
“I say! I say!” he called.
The guard was about two carriages away.
“I say, my man! I want to get off.”
As the guard came down the platform Bob saw the two other members of the firm go into the guard’s carriage. They kne
w there were mailbags containing money in the guard’s carriage. And they had put the empty box on before, making out then that it was heavy.
The guard on the platform arrived at Bob’s carriage.
“I say, old man!”
“Oh, sir, sir. Just a minute, sir. I’ll get a key.”
He was too quick: no one had yet emerged from the guard’s carriage.
As the guard went to walk away Bob said, “I say, old chap. You can’t just walk away.”
“It’s all right, sir.”
So Bob hooked the guard with his umbrella and held him for about thirty seconds. Meantime, he gave him the ‘sir’ treatment.
“Oh sir, I’m just going, sir...”
Then Bob saw his associates get off the train and knew they’d done the business: they had filled their box up with two or three mail bags.
The guard went back for his key, and Bob simply took the spring out. The guard came running back, but the door was sticky – and held from the inside so the guard couldn’t open it at first. As the partners were seen to return to their compartment, the guard opened the door.
“Ah. There you are, sir. Are you all right, sir?”
“Yes. I say, old chap. Phew. I thought you were going to...”
A couple of stations later the box came off with the mail in it and was placed into the back of a car.
It didn’t work every time: they got the wrong bag once. The labels on the bags were changed. But Roger soon got the information he needed to identify the changes.
What the firm didn’t know was that the airport job was going off as this was happening.
Bob had arranged to meet with someone in the West End that evening, at about 7.00 pm “Straight guy – straight goer. He wanted my advice about something.” He left his bowler hat and umbrella and coat in the back of his car and went straight on to meet this fellow.
The West End friend said, “Oh, you done all right today.”
Bob thought, How does he know where I’ve been? He asked, “What do you mean?”
And his friend said, “Ain’t you heard it? London airport. All dressed up in bowler hats and that!”
Bob thought, Oh fuckin’ hell. I hope the Old Bill ain’t looking in my car. I could have just fallen in it.
*
Finally, there was a raid in Brighton on Wednesday 11 April 1962. I include it here because there was evidence that Bobby Welch attempted to obtain some postmen’s uniforms. Although the raiders here wore British Rail uniforms, the intent is on a parallel.
Again the firm comprised five men, but it will never be known who the fifth member of the firm was. They dressed in railwaymen’s uniforms and pushed audacity to the limit.
They calmly walked down the platform a little behind the rest of the passengers who’d alighted from the 11.40 pm arrival. They might even have doubled-back, as the post was usually carried in the rear carriage. When they saw the bag they wanted, they said to the postman unloading the mail from the train, “It’s all right, chum, we’ll look after this one for you.” The mailbag in question contained £15,000 in registered packets. They picked it up and calmly strolled down the platform before climbing down onto the line and vanishing.
There was some suggestion that the thieves had jumped down onto the track and risked death or serious injury from the electrical power supply for the trains, but it looked as though they knew what they were doing. They had escaped almost before it was realised a theft had occurred, through the sidings and out onto New England Road.
It was Mr Walter Gandey, a postman, who raised the alarm because he saw a group of men, all in peaked caps, “. . . turning over a pile of mail bags”. Mr Gandey thought it odd that at nearly midnight there would be anything like five porters at the station.
Again, it was thought to be an inside job as the firm had made off up the platform with just the one bag, and of course they knew it was the bag containing the registered mail. The GPO had changed the way they labelled the bags a good while before this raid. So they knew information had been gleaned from a postman.
Brighton CID, who were coordinating the search, issued descriptions of the men and checked boarding houses and hotels to see if any of the men had stayed there.
The police knew that information was reaching the firm from the inside and thought that if they could identify the ‘mastermind’ then they might find the source of his information, but it doesn’t seem as though they ever did.
*
In one sense the South Coast Raiders became victims of their own success. Word was active on the grapevine, and if someone just wanted to stop a train and relieve it of several million pounds then changing a signal light would be a useful part of their method. Ultimately, the two firms amalgamated for the Great Train Robbery and Roger was to be the one to rig the signals.
*
After a thirty-five-year silence, Bobby Welch agreed to talk. I met him at his South London home. The late Jim Hussey also joined us for a chat. I couldn’t trace Roger Cordrey; one story was that he’d gone to live in Sweden where his son and daughter-in-law are active in horse racing and his grandson is a leading jockey. Another clue was South Devon, but this drew a blank: I did hear he’d passed away.
I also met Tommy Wisbey separately.
Tommy and Jim both returned to prison in the late eighties for drug offences – the less said of that evil trade, the better. But Bob went straight. Some would say he had no choice as he was only mobile on crutches, but that only stopped him doing certain tasks that involved mobility.
Out of all of them, I got on best with Bob, which is in contrast to the other writer who worked with him in 1976, Piers Paul Read. There could be all sorts of different reasons for this.
I’m under no illusions: all of the train robbers used violence at some stage in their criminal careers. But it seemed one of the reasons one of the other books on the train robbery was written as the fiftieth anniversary approached was to dispel this idea they were all ‘Jack-the-lads’ and just amiable rogues. They were a dangerous bunch if confronted. But whereas some writers have wanted to play the violence down, or glamourise or minimalise it, one particular writer seemed to want to exaggerate it and make it seem more than it was.
I’ve therefore prepared a list of violent acts the train robbers undertook in the Great Train Robbery:
1.They coshed Jack Mills. If Mr Mills was right that after the first blow he sank to his knees and when he became aware of his surroundings again he was still on his knees, then that kicks into touch any nonsense about him hitting his head against the inside of the locomotive cab. So he must have been struck at least five times, as the doctor who later treated him attested.
2.Frank Dewhurst, in the HVP coach, was hit across the base of his neck and then caught a blow across his shoulders. He went down at about the same time as all five of the GPO staff were being herded up to the front of the HVP carriage. One robber guarded the GPO staff and kicked Mr Dewhurst and then asked him if he was all right; it doesn’t sound as though it was a violent a kick intended to further injure.
3.Leslie Penn was struck across the shoulder and then sustained a blow to his arms as he lifted them to protect his head.
4.Thomas Kett was struck on the arm.
Joseph Ware said he was unharmed, and John O’Connor told the GPO Investigation Branch that he wasn’t struck. Add to this, though, the fear of an axe-wielding robber.
It’s not an attractive catalogue. This is not playing anything down, and all of the information has been taken from the victims respective statements.
And as the firm were so well organised, or that they took money entrusted to the General Post Office they got thirty years. In my book A New History I compared the raid with a couple of manslaughter charges, but here I want to compare it with another theft. None of the great train robbers were involved in this theft/crime, which took place in the late 1970s.
The theft was one of a small amount of money from a man in the motor trade. When the case
came to court, the details that emerged were quite disturbing. For the prosecution, Mr Julien Bevan outlined the several hours that Billy Amies and his firm were at the house, and their behaviour.
Mr David Melbourne and his family (eight altogether) were at home watching television for the evening when the firm pounced. The firm thought there was money in the house. As to how they got in, well, they were brandishing a handgun and a sawn-off shotgun. They struck Mr Melbourne with a mallet and smashed an empty vodka bottle over his head. They also burned him with cigarettes to ‘persuade’ him to tell them where the money he had in the house was hidden. Despite protestations, the violence continued and got worse: one report labelled the attack as a “night” of violence.
One of the reasons it may not have worked was the possibility that there was no money in the house.
Billy Amies, also known as Billy the Snake, was a homosexual, and he threatened to bite Mr Melbourne’s testicles until he told them where the money was. Next, Mr Melbourne’s sixteen-year-old daughter was stripped down to her bra and knickers, and her dad was asked how he’d like to see his daughter raped.
That’s what I call extreme violence, exacerbated by the prolonged nature of the threat of further violence. As the attackers carried guns, the question has to be whether they intended to use them. In the event they didn’t, but it would have been a real gamble to assume they wouldn’t.
My intention is not to compare the savagery of the attack on this family and then lay out the violence in the Great Train Robbery. But I think it tends to muddy the waters when people argue the Great Train Robbery was a violent robbery; quite simply, it wasn’t. It was a robbery with violence; that can’t be, and never has been, denied.