The robbers’ hideout

In the early hours of August 8th 1963, a gang of 15 men stormed the Glasgow to London train after tampering with signals near Mentmore, south of Leighton Buzzard. The Royal Mail train was carrying £2.6 million (£56 million in today's money). After assaulting members of the crew (one of whom never fully recovered from head trauma sustained), the gang, led by Bruce Reynolds and including Ronnie Biggs and Buster Edwards, grabbed the cash and made their getaway into the Buckinghamshire night. Their destination was Leatherslade, a run-down farm 27 miles away, between the villages of Oakley and Brill.

Calt Blake, former Brill resident, takes up the story.

August 1963 and a very young me was playing on the landing of 4 Brae Hill. Dad was in bed (he worked nights at Cowley car factory) and mum was in the kitchen with the radio on, washing clothes in the sink (no washing machine then). Then it happened: I heard a shout and mum came rushing across the landing, treading all over my toy tanks. "‘Cliff! Cliff!’ she shouted. Dad appeared in his old string vest. ‘What the hell’s going on?” (or words to that effect!) ‘They’ve found the robbers at Leatherslade!’

Within five minutes, my uncle, Cecil Jeacock, was over from 3 Brae Hill. Cyril was also on nights at Cowley and he and his wife, Kath, had heard the news, too. ‘Shall we go down?’ said Cyril to my dad. ‘Yes, mate.’ said dad. ‘We’d better go down for a nose.’ A short while later we were in Cyril’s Consul car, me sitting in the middle in between dad and Cyril, racing down the Thame Road. There was a police car at the Chilton turn but we drove on to the Crendon turn where we were met by the biggest copper I have ever seen. ‘Sorry, sir. You can’t come this way.’ Back to Brill and down Oakley Road to the junction, and another copper. ‘Sorry, sir. You can’t come this way today.’ Back to Brill, with some other nosy Brillites in their cars.

‘We will not give in, ‘ said Uncle Cyril and so we walked down Thame Road and across the fields down to Leatherslade. We got right down the path by the farm house to be met by dozens of coppers. ‘Sorry, sir. You can’t get down here today’ - and so that was that! Back to 4 Brae Hill, where mum gave us hot drinking chocolate, made with milk in a saucepan.

The robbers were no longer at Leatherslade Farm when young Calt peered through the hedge; they’d left only 24 hours after arriving, leaving behind a mess of cooking and sleeping equipment - and a game of Monopoly, which they’d played with real money.

“I was born in Brill and lived here for 60 years, first on Thame Road then Brae Hill and The Lawns. Worked for many local firms including Jennings and Prossers, Brill Sawmills, and Intents. Retired after breaking my back 10 years ago; moved to Wales three years ago. Big Sis still lives in Brill and we come home at least once a year. Love photography and keeping fit.” Calt Blake

the aftermath

In 2003, Calt attended a reunion in Oakley of some of the key players in the Great Train Robbery. John Wooley was there (in blue shirt) along with Bruce Reynolds, the mastermind of the crime (in white shirt) then aged 72. After the robbery, he’d escaped to Mexico, later moving to Canada and then France before returning to England in 1966 where he was captured and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released in 1978, wrote three books and an article for The Guardian and died in 2013.

The Great Train Robbery is remembered for the audacity of its execution, the subsequent escapades of its perpetrators (including the notorious fugitive Ronnie Biggs), and the unprecedented length of the sentences handed out. As Justice Davies put it: ‘[This is] a crime which in its impudence and enormity is the first of its kind in this country. I propose to do all in my power to ensure that it is the last of its kind … Let us clear out of the way any romantic notions of daredevilry.’

Daredevilry aside, the robbery briefly put Brill on the map and, for one small boy at least, was a thrilling adventure.

Read a detailed account on Wikipedia - or watch this rather good two-part tv drama from 2013 (on Netflix), starring Luke Evans and Paul (Peaky Blinders) Anderson. Brill gets a nice mention.

‘The crime of the century’

If you can get hold of a copy of Brillennium, John Woolley’s chapter on the The Great Train Robbery is well worth reading. Here is a brief extract that gives a flavour of Brill in the days following the discovery of the Robbers’ Hideout.

Brill Police Station and its Court Room became the temporary front-line Operational HQ of the enquiry, and everyone who was anyone in the enquiry visited it. It was a very heady and exciting time for me, a young policeman at the beginning of my career. I was rubbing shoulders with, talking to and watching policemen at the very height of their powers - men whose names were always appearing in the front-page crime stories […] These were the folk-heroes of my generation of policemen and they were all up there with me in Brill!

Hard on the heels of the forensic experts were the world’s Press who camped out at the farm as soon as the news of its discovery broke. Soon the skies of Brill were buzzing with light aeroplanes and helicopters hired by the larger newspapers and agencies, eager to get pictures of the hideout and the police activity. […]

The local pubs did a roaring trade as Fleet Street solicited interviews with the village residents. People who opinions on anything had never previously been canvassed now found their every word being hung on by the gentlemen from Lunnon’. […] There was no shortage of listeners and everyone seemed to have a story to tell.