Armed and Dangerous--This is the True Story of How I Carried Out Scotland's Biggest Bank Robbery

by James Crosbie

  I was still skint and I still needed money. My mind went back to the ‘window-repairing’ job I had done to get out of the RAF. I remembered how easy it had been and I decided to have another go. I searched for a suitable situation. What I was looking for was a small but busy shop in a location which directly faced a park, a factory, a graveyard, spare ground or anything like that, just as long as there was no chance of anyone being directly opposite. My bike came in useful for that and I found literally dozens of suitable set-ups. The thing that made it possible was that in those days every shop, except those in the city centre, closed from 1.00 pm until 2.30 pm for their dinner break.

  I made my choice: it was a newsagent’s opposite a graveyard wall with only a few other shops beside it. Not that that made much difference; they all closed for dinner at the same time anyway. It just meant that the street wasn’t particularly busy at that time.

  Everything went as easy as my first one. I pedalled up on my bike and propped it against the shop’s window. Quickly, I spread out my ‘tool kit’ and went to work. I was very conscious of a few people passing by and alert for any sign of suspicion from them, but even the folk that did glance at me kept on going. Nobody even gave me as much as a second glance. I knew I was safe. Less than five minutes from the start, I was out and pedalling away on my bike. Good, I thought as I left the area behind, I don’t need to worry about being skint again. The thought of capture on probation had never entered my head.

  So things changed for me. I was able to hand my mother whatever money I got from the unemployment office and used my own money for everyday expenses. Even with the odd extra item that I bought, the money from that second glazing job lasted me three or four weeks.

  In the course of the next few months I must have done about six jobs with never a sign of any bother. I even had people coming up to me while I was working to ask if the shop was open. ‘Sorry,’ I’d say. ‘Closed for dinner. I’m only here to fix the door during the break so as not to interfere with business.’ Off they would go, completely unsuspecting. Each job being individually small meant that nothing ever appeared in the papers either and that was good for me. One bit of publicity about the mystery ‘glazier’ would have had people diving on me the moment I spread my tools. The police are a lot smarter in that department nowadays.

  I also discovered that certain types of shops held more money than others; butchers’ shops, for example, were always busy and taking cash. Furthermore, it wasn’t the type of shop people were expected to break into. I had hit on a good thing. That was until one day in the south side of the city when I got my tools out and put my hammer through a butcher’s door and disturbed the staff at their dinner inside. Luckily my bike was handy!

  My career in the glazing business was about to come to a very abrupt and unexpected end. I had been looking for a shop when I came across this chemist’s. At first I was just going to pass on by, but then I had second thoughts and stopped to peer in through the door. Yes, it looked reasonable enough and chemist’s were always busy. As well as the thought of the money, I could see a display cabinet full of expensive-looking cameras. Strangely enough, up until then I had never even attempted to take any goods, having limited my target to cash in the tills only. I should have stuck to that! However, I had made my choice and prepared to go to work.

  Bike parked, tools out, bash, bash and through the glass of the door, all very blasé. I was inside, having a last look at the street before going for the till, when an old road sweeper appeared outside the door. He considerately cleared up all the broken glass from around the door and made a right good job of it too.

  Meanwhile, I did the till and removed half-a-dozen cameras from the display cabinet. I got away from the job by telling the old man some tale about forgetting a tool or something. I asked him to stand guard for me for ten minutes or so until I got back and he was happy to oblige. I’d like to know how he explained it all to the shopkeeper.

  When I got home, I inspected the half-dozen cameras I had stolen. They certainly looked very expensive, brand new and full of interesting shiny knobs. One of them even had a flash fitting on it. At that time I had no idea of where to sell the cameras; then I remembered my ‘uncle George’, actually a lifelong friend of my father’s whom I had grown up knowing as almost one of the family. He had actually been best man at my father’s wedding. George owned a general store in Springburn Road and, among other things, he was a well-known local amateur photographer.

  George had a good look at three of the cameras and told me that he didn’t want them himself, but might be able to find a buyer for me. I left the cameras with him and went off to pass the rest of the day in the snooker hall until it was time to go home for my tea.

  When I got home, I had the surprise of my life. Uncle George was sitting at the table beside my mother and father with the three cameras on display in front of them. I hadn’t considered the fact that George was an honest man like my father. It was only because he was so close to my parents that he had not gone straight to the police. I was lucky there, all right! My explanation was that one of the older men in Alfie’s snooker hall had asked me if I could get rid of the cameras for him. I had told him that my uncle George was a photographer and might know someone who would want them. So I was given the cameras to take round to show to him and that was all there was to it. If he wanted, I told George, I’d just take them back to the guy in Alfie’s.

  I was sent out of the living room while George and my parents had a serious discussion. I was solemnly warned that the only reason the police weren’t being informed was to save my mother and father the shame. I was not getting the cameras back and George would attend to them. Further to that, I was becoming too much trouble for my parents. The new made-to-measure suit I had bought, plus the other increases to my wardrobe, had not gone as unnoticed as I had thought and suspicions about my recent affluence had already been voiced between my parents. I was to get my case packed because I was being sent off that very night to stay with my aunt Anne, my mother’s elder sister, in London, until something more permanent was sorted out.

  I had the other three cameras hidden in my grandmother’s unused bedroom, as well as over a hundred pounds in cash inside the piano in our own room. I really wasn’t very bothered about my expulsion, looking on it as a new experience to be enjoyed rather than seeing it as a punishment. And I knew too that I had been lucky with George not going to the police, which would have been a catastrophe! All in all, I thought that I had come out of a tight corner not too badly.

  I didn’t realise just exactly how lucky I had been, or how strong the friendship between my father and George must have been, until my father said something to me from the railway platform just before my train pulled out for London. ‘You didn’t know that your uncle George was a special constable, did you, James?’

  I hadn’t known. When my father told me that, I knew that I had indeed been very lucky. Since then, I’ve often thought about the strength of friendship my parents and George must have shared for him to protect them like that. Uncle George was a good man.

  Chapter Six

  The Great Escapes

  Throughout my childhood auntie Annie visited us regularly and we also went to stay with her in London several times. The first house I remember in London was in Marcus Street, Wandsworth. We went there several times and I can still remember paddling in a big outdoor public swimming pool and losing a pair of shoes there once – that caused a bit of a panic in those days of clothing coupons.

  I actually cycled to London once at the age of 16 for my annual holiday. It took me three days to get there, which was really good going. By then my aunt had married a widower, Bill Smith, a school-keeper and they lived in the schoolhouse in Capland Street near the Edgware Road. Now they were living in a schoolhouse in Shepherds Bush, just off Uxbridge Road and that was where I was sent.

  My stay at my auntie Anne’s was short-lived. One evening there was a television news report about a bank van loaded with
cash being hijacked outside a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Glasgow. I was riveted, really impressed by this audacious act, especially as it had happened in my home city. At the end of the news report I said something along the lines of, ‘That was terrific! What a job those guys pulled off. They must be really clever.’

  My aunt got very upset about my attitude and told me off in no uncertain terms. How dare I admire these criminals and, if that was the way I thought, then I was not welcome in her house. I went up to my room a bit dismayed at this, because I still thought the robbers had done really well.

  The very next day, my father turned up at the door, probably summoned by a phone call. After a talk with my aunt, my case was packed again. This time it was to my auntie Peggy and uncle Peter in Northampton Street, Islington. They were a different kettle of fish from auntie Anne. Actually my auntie Peggy, whom I still visit, was my father’s cousin on his mother’s side. Her name was Peggy Kilcoyne and she was a cousin of Benny Lynch, the world flyweight boxing champion from the Gorbals who had been brought up with her family. Peggy and Peter were typical working-class Glasgow people. Both had hearts of gold and would share their last with you. Even though they had five sons and two daughters of their own living in their three-bedroom council flat, I was immediately made welcome and became one of the family. I must admit I was very happy with my auntie Peggy.

  I got a job with the Phoenix Electrical Company of Marshalsea Road, Borough, as a third-year apprentice electrician. After a few weeks of jobbing around with a tradesman I was sent to work on a new building, Sun House in Fenchurch Street. The work was quite interesting too; I was left more or less on my own to install all the flat under-floor trunking for the cables.

  One of the other apprentices there was Bob Shilton from Kilburn and we became good pals. He invited me home to his parents’ house in Cambridge Road, Kilburn, for Sunday dinner a couple of times and we went to the local dances together. We would pick up girls at these places – nothing deep or serious, just enjoying female company and carrying on a little.

  My tastes got a little more expensive and I found myself looking for an opportunity to get more money. There was a row of shops opposite Northampton Street and I had noticed that there were no bars on one or two of the rear windows. One night I went down and managed to squeeze through the small top window of one of them. I searched around but there was nothing really worth taking. I suppose that was why there were no bars on the windows – I should have thought of that before I went in. One thing I did find, though, was a small safe in the back shop and I felt quite excited about it.

  There was plenty of light coming in through the window and I had a good look at the safe. Its hinges stuck out and I could see their pivots going into metal sleeves that protruded just above and below the safe door. There were plenty of tools in the shop, including a hacksaw. That was it.

  I worked for hours sawing those steel pins and when I finally got through them it made not the slightest bit of difference to the strength of the door. It still stuck in there as tight as a tungsten trapdoor. I didn’t know about the lock tongues inside sliding into slots on three sides of the safe. I thought that if I just cut through the hinge pins the door would fall open.

  I nearly gave myself a hernia pulling and hauling at that door. What a disappointment. Hours of work, sweating like a pig, clothes all dirty and all for nothing. I found it harder to get out of the window than it had been to get in. There was nothing on the outside I could grip to help pull myself out. I was beginning to think I’d got myself stuck when, with a last desperate thrust, I got my hips through the space and fell on to the ground outside.

  My next effort was more successful – a licensed grocer’s in Essex Road. I spotted this shop late one evening when I was prowling about. I noticed that it was closed and there were no lights showing, so I climbed a wall and got in through an upstairs window into a storeroom. Once inside, an internal door let me downstairs and I soon found the office. I didn’t get a large amount of money – it must have been too well hidden – but there were quite a few small bundles of notes and a couple of five-pound bags of silver in a drawer. I took this, then filled an empty rubbish sack with all the fags I could find and set off for home.

  Everyone was in bed when I got back to Northampton Street, so I got the sack into the bedroom unseen. John and Peter, two of my ‘cousins’ with whom I shared the room, were either asleep or too sleepy to care what I was doing. I stuffed the sack under the bed before getting ready for bed myself. I had the idea that I’d take the cigarettes down to Sun House a little at a time and sell them to the woman who ran the workers’ canteen there. I should have known that you couldn’t hide anything in a house full of people, especially with a couple of young children running about as well. About two days later, I was asked by my auntie Peggy to explain the cigarettes under my bed. One of the kids had found them and pulled them out. Needless to say my aunt wasn’t very pleased about it.

  There were no excuses and, although I never admitted stealing them, I think that fact was just taken for granted. My uncle Peter was told when he came home from work and I was in everyone’s bad books. I was told that I had to get them out of the house that very night. I had to get rid of the fags as quick as I could.

  By now I was nearly 19 and I decided it was time I rented a place on my own. My auntie Peggy and uncle Peter raised no objections, but made me promise to keep in touch with my mother and to feel free to come round to visit them any time I liked. So I left Northampton Street on good terms with everyone.

  I had already discussed my plans with Bobby at work and he had introduced me to a pal of his, Don Tye from Paddington. Don was about the same age as me and lived with his parents. He wanted to move out to get some independence, so we agreed to find a place together. In those days it was easier to find a bedsit than it is today and the third or fourth place we looked at, with a Mr and Mrs Jones of Paddington, seemed very friendly. The room was really big and well furnished with a good pair of twin beds. The Joneses rented out three other rooms in their house. Our room was on the first floor and had a large bay window and another single window looking out on to the tree-lined Bravington Road.

  Within a few days we more or less became part of the Jones family. Mr and Mrs Jones, Ted and Mabel, had a daughter of seventeen and adopted twin girls who were about four years old. I gave up my job with Phoenix Electrical and began to enjoy a new lifestyle. Bobby and Don were old pals and knew all the interesting places to go in the West End. It was they who introduced me to what I suppose you would call the fast life. Every day we would go up west to the Harmony Inn, a café in Archer Street, directly behind the old Windmill Theatre. This café was a meeting place for spivs – old time Del Boys. You could buy and sell anything in the Harmony Inn and we were soon involved in the buying and selling of the latest fad item – see-though wristwatches. These were wristwatches that had transparent backs to them so you could see all the works inside. They were really quite good value too, not back-street rubbish done up to con the punters. I don’t know where they came from, but they were available in the Harmony for about £2 a piece in batches of ten and sold for around £5 each. Most days we could shift two or three each, quite good money at that time.

  Then there were the jazz clubs. They became the places to visit. Studio 51 in Great Newport Street was our favourite haunt and we were there most nights until early the following morning. I remember some of the names: Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Phil Siemens, Allan Ganley and loads of other guest stars.

  There were other clubs we went to as well, but Studio 51 was our favourite. It was all great fun, but we were spending money faster than we were making it, taking taxis everywhere, eating our meals in restaurants, paying to get into the clubs and buying other people drinks. I had even started buying clothes from shops like Cecil Gee in Tottenham Court Road. The money just seemed to drain away faster than water through a sieve.

  By now there was a regular little gang of us who would meet
in the Harmony and discuss all sorts of scams to earn money. One of the basic earners was the ‘jump up’. This involved looking out for a delivery van or lorry and jumping up on it to grab any valuable-looking parcel, hoping to be lucky with its contents. As often as not, we got a load of unsaleable rubbish, but now and again we had a nice touch: a carton of good pullovers, a case of booze, small electrical goods and stuff like that, but it was all very hit and miss. Whenever we got something we could sell we would get rid of it in the Harmony within hours, minutes sometimes.

  ‘Creeping’ was another method of trying to make a few quid. It involved walking into office buildings and simply wandering about looking into offices and rooms for anything of value, adding machines, typewriters, desk ornaments, anything that we might be able to sell. The trouble we caused must have been out of all proportion to the value of the goods we nicked.

  When we did get a good tickle, we would stop working until we were nearly skint again. Some days we would get down to the Harmony using the last coppers we had for tube fare and a cup of lemon tea to sit and sip. It was a fast and exciting lifestyle, but we weren’t going anywhere. We needed something a bit more certain than casual jump ups and creeping.

  Don introduced me to a cousin of his, Jack Witney, who had more progressive ideas. Furthermore, Jack could drive, something I’d not had the chance to learn. With Jack on the firm, our horizons expanded and we began to look further afield than the West End. I got on well with Jack. He was a more determined thief than Don and looked upon thieving as a full-time job – a bit like myself.

  Jack had a false driving licence and some good ID he’d got hold of one way or another. In those days, driving licences were just small squares of printed paper stuck inside a little red cover that you could get from any post office by applying for a provisional licence in any name you liked. There was no tell-tale coded number on them to give your age or date of birth, so any driving licence could be used by anyone else. I’ll never forget the name on the licence Jack had: Cyril Frederick Chinnery, 46 Leaver Gardens, Greenford, Middlesex. Poor Cyril, as my mother would have put it, his heart must have been roasted. Using Cyril’s licence we hired cars for one day; it cost about £2 a day then, with a fiver deposit. We would keep the car out for weeks because the police didn’t put late unreturned hires on their stolen list and weren’t looking out for them. It was a civil matter, a debt between the hirer and the hire company. We must have had at least half-a-dozen cars out in Cyril’s name and we left them if they ran out of petrol or we just decided we wanted a change.