Whipped Cream Difficulties

Ronnie Biggs, one of the conspirators in the Great Train Robbery and (briefly) vocalist for the Sex Pistols, has passed away at the age of 84.

I have the feeling that Biggs was often viewed as a loveable rogue. This is worth keeping in mind:

They beat the driver senseless with an iron bar; the man never fully recovered from his head injuries.

As is this:

Safe from deportation, Biggs began living large, his brazenness as much a source of head-shaking admiration in his native land as of anger over his continued cheating of justice, especially after the train driver beaten in the robbery, Jack Mills, died without ever being able to return to his job.

(According to Wikipedia, Mills died from leukemia in 1970, and one of the robbers who wasn’t Biggs confessed to the beating last year. There does appear to be some question about whether that confession was truthful.)

Edited to add: more from the paper of record. And in case you are asking yourself, “Don’t they have newspapers in England?”: they do, but I haven’t found one I trust that doesn’t have the Biggs obit behind a pay wall.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 18th, 2013 at 6:38 am and is filed under Clippings, Law, Music, Obits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.