Off the rails

Though much abused and used incorrectly, it is some irony that Ronnie Biggs, the most famous of the Great Train Robbers (primarily by absconding from Wandsworth Prison in 1965 and and never being brought to book until voluntarily coming back to the UK in 2001), has died on the very day that a drama from the thieves' point of view is told, thereby glorifying the actions of him and his associates (followed tomorrow by the tale from the police's PoV as a counter-balance).  But maybe that was belated justice of a kind, denying him a potential last swig of celebrity.
I had thought actually that Biggs had died years ago - like many who had thought the same of Peter O'Toole, possibly confusing the thespian with his fellow wild ones, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed.  I was particularly incensed at the time that he came back to the UK to sponge off the NHS because he thought the Brazilian health service that he could afford wasn't up to his needs.  He would have been brought back by Jack Slipper had Biggs not been so fecund, fathering a son with a Brazilian woman, thereby annulling his extradition.  A film of his exploits Prisoner of Rio was released in 1988 where he was played by Paul Freeman (best known for the suave, villainous French archaeologist Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark whose body explodes in divine fury), starring alongside Steven Berkoff and Desmond Llewellyn.  He even had the dubious honour of being associated at one remove with Phil Collins in Buster, a movie based on the characters (principally another of the robbers, Buster Edwards) and events of the robbery.
Biggs was finally freed from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds, after a series of strokes - Jack Straw, then Justice Secretary, saying he was not expected to recover - he then went on to emulate convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, living for a considerable time afterwards and well enough to attend the funeral of Bruce Reynolds, the heist's mastermind, flashing a 'V' for victory sign at the photographers.  Maybe it is best not to remember Biggs today (leaving that for his family), but rather Jack Mills, the train driver hit with an iron bar during the raid, who never worked again and died from his injuries seven years later.  Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers' union, struck the right tone: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity, and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.  Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."