Month: March 2020

Bruce Reynolds (1931-2013) and Gordon Goody (1930-2016) masterminded the audacious Great Train Robbery, which took place on 8th August 1963 in Buckinghamshire and netted some £2.5 million in cash. Essential to their plan was the inside knowledge of a Post Office employee, nicknamed ‘The Ulsterman’ and eventually named in 2014 as Patrick McKenna.

It was McKenna who supplied the information that the train from Glasgow to London on the 8th would be carrying more cash than their original choice of the 7th and it was McKenna who knew that there were no alarms yet fitted in the carriages. He was never caught but most of the 15-strong gang were, after fleeing their farmhouse hideout. They were given sentences of up to 30 years, though most served no more than 10.

They made several mistakes, one of which was knocking the train driver unconscious with a crowbar. The poor man was then woken up and forced to drive the front carriages to their unloading spot at Bridego Bridge because their own retired train driver, recruited by Ronnie Biggs (1929-2016), was not familiar with the new controls. Biggs was one of the minor gang members but became the most famous, as he escaped prison and lived abroad for 36 years.

(Image [cropped]: Bradford Timeline at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)

Of the many historic battles between the Scottish and English armies, the Battle of Bannockburn is the one most cherished in Scotland. Political parties campaigning for Scottish independence hold an annual Bannockburn Rally to commemorate the victory of Robert the Bruce’s army over that of King Edward II (1284-1327). For England, this was yet another failure in Edward’s calamitous reign. It was a time of rebellion and discord, but Edward was wrapped up in his personal relationships.

Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) was one of many claimants to the Scottish throne, vacant for ten years, and it seems he was the most determined, stabbing his final rival on his way to the top in 1306. By 1314 his consolidation of power culminated in his siege of Stirling Castle, held by the English.

Edward II was no tactician and although he had previously accompanied his father to Stirling, he completely underrated the difficulty of the Castle’s surrounding boggy parkland and the Bannock Burn stream. The English were caught out, confused and unable to retreat, so were slaughtered mercilessly, horses and all. The park and stream were full of steaming corpses. No prisoners were taken and thousands of horses and men lay dead by nightfall on 24th June 1314.

(Image of Robert the Bruce statue at Bannockburn: Kim Traynor at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)