Bruce Reynolds, the mastermind of the Great Train Robbery, has died only months before the 50th anniversary of one of Britain’s most infamous crimes.
Reynolds, who was jailed for 25 years for the 1963 robbery, died at the age of 81 after being ill for several months.
He had recently updated his book, The Autobiography Of A Thief, for the August anniversary of the raid on a Glasgow to Euston Post Office train.
The 17-strong gang got away with £2.6 million — about £40 million today — in an elaborately planned robbery which was later the subject of numerous books and films.
Reynolds went on the run in Mexico and Canada for five years before he was caught while the gang’s most famous member, Ronnie Biggs, lived as a fugitive in Brazil for 36 years after escaping from Wandsworth prison before finally returning to Britain to face jail in 2001.
Leonard “Nipper” Read, the Scotland Yard detective who successfully pursued the robbers, told the Guardian today: “It really is the end of an era. It was certainly a well-organised operation and Reynolds was the pioneer.”
Reynolds, a thief and antiques dealer nicknamed Napoleon, was known as a natty dresser and was said to be the inspiration for Michael Caine’s 1965 film depiction of fictional spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File.
He served 10 years in jail and on his release in 1978 he lived alone in a flat in Edgware Road. More recently he lived in Croydon.
In his memoirs he described the robbery as a “curse” and in a recent article referred to the lines of Mamet’s screenplay for the film, Heist: “Anybody can get the goods, the hard part’s getting away.”
His death was announced by Reynolds’s son Nick, a musician with Alabama 3, the band that produced The Sopranos theme tune, Woke Up This Morning.
More than £2 million of the gang’s haul was never recovered.
