A mail bag signed by 10 of the robbers who stole more than £2 million in the Great Train Robbery is going under the hammer. The armed gang attacked a train driver and formed a human chain to offload 120 mail sacks containing the equivalent of nearly £50 million today, in one of Britain's most infamous heists.
Now, 63 years later, a collection of items including the signed mail bag – a cream drawstring bag similar to those made by the gang members while in prison – is being auctioned. The items were gathered by the vendor's father, an avid collector of crime memorabilia. A spokesperson for Ewbank's Auctions told The Mirror: "His father knew a few characters from that world himself."
The heist and its aftermath
The gang stopped the Royal Mail Travelling Post Office train from Glasgow to London Euston at a bridge in Ledburn, Bucks, by covering a green signal light with a glove and activating a red light using a six-volt battery. They cut the lineside phone cables before attacking one of the two drivers and boarding the train.
The ten signatures on the bag belong to mastermind Bruce Reynolds, Ronnie Biggs, Buster Edwards, Charlie Wilson, Gordon Goody, Roger Cordrey, Tommy Wisbey, Bob Welch, James 'Jimmy' Hussey, and getaway driver Roy 'The Weasel' James. The gang brutalised train driver Jack Mills, striking him over the head; he returned to work but suffered chronic pain and headaches for years. Second victim David Whitby, 25 at the time, was pulled from the train and tightly bound at the bottom of an embankment; he never recovered psychologically and died of a heart attack a decade later at age 34.
Auction details and memorabilia
All ten men were captured and imprisoned. Ronnie Biggs later became a celebrity after escaping from Wandsworth in 1968 and living as a fugitive in Australia and Brazil for 36 years. Auctioneers at Ewbank's near Guildford, Surrey, estimate the bag will sell for £70 to £100.
Also on offer is a £500 Monopoly banknote from a set that was a vital clue in cracking the case – fingerprints on the game board and a ketchup bottle found at the gang's hideout at an old farmhouse in Oakley, Bucks, led officers to the criminals. Accompanying the note are signed black-and-white press photographs from 1974 depicting Ronnie Biggs with his Brazilian girlfriend Raimunda Nascimenta de Castro, and a signed sepia press photo of Bruce Reynolds. Another photo shows Reynolds in his later years playing Monopoly in 2000, signed in silver felt tip. This second lot is estimated to sell for £100 to £150.
The lots will be sold by Ewbank's Auctions on Friday, August 28.
