The Great Train Robbery, the Second Gang by Jim Morris

Author:Jim Morris [Morris, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: eBookPartnership.com
Published: 2014-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

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After a thirty-five-year silence, Bobby Welch agreed to talk. I met him at his South London home. The late Jim Hussey also joined us for a chat. I couldn’t trace Roger Cordrey; one story was that he’d gone to live in Sweden where his son and daughter-in-law are active in horse racing and his grandson is a leading jockey. Another clue was South Devon, but this drew a blank: I did hear he’d passed away.

I also met Tommy Wisbey separately.

Tommy and Jim both returned to prison in the late eighties for drug offences – the less said of that evil trade, the better. But Bob went straight. Some would say he had no choice as he was only mobile on crutches, but that only stopped him doing certain tasks that involved mobility.

Out of all of them, I got on best with Bob, which is in contrast to the other writer who worked with him in 1976, Piers Paul Read. There could be all sorts of different reasons for this.

I’m under no illusions: all of the train robbers used violence at some stage in their criminal careers. But it seemed one of the reasons one of the other books on the train robbery was written as the fiftieth anniversary approached was to dispel this idea they were all ‘Jack-the-lads’ and just amiable rogues. They were a dangerous bunch if confronted. But whereas some writers have wanted to play the violence down, or glamourise or minimalise it, one particular writer seemed to want to exaggerate it and make it seem more than it was.

I’ve therefore prepared a list of violent acts the train robbers undertook in the Great Train Robbery:

1. They coshed Jack Mills. If Mr Mills was right that after the first blow he sank to his knees and when he became aware of his surroundings again he was still on his knees, then that kicks into touch any nonsense about him hitting his head against the inside of the locomotive cab. So he must have been struck at least five times, as the doctor who later treated him attested.

2. Frank Dewhurst, in the HVP coach, was hit across the base of his neck and then caught a blow across his shoulders. He went down at about the same time as all five of the GPO staff were being herded up to the front of the HVP carriage. One robber guarded the GPO staff and kicked Mr Dewhurst and then asked him if he was all right; it doesn’t sound as though it was a violent a kick intended to further injure.

3. Leslie Penn was struck across the shoulder and then sustained a blow to his arms as he lifted them to protect his head.

4. Thomas Kett was struck on the arm.

Joseph Ware said he was unharmed, and John O’Connor told the GPO Investigation Branch that he wasn’t struck. Add to this, though, the fear of an axe-wielding robber.

It’s not an attractive catalogue. This is not playing anything down, and all of the information has been taken from the victims respective statements.

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