Music: Spotify Prison Playlist

I greet the news that Ronnie Biggs is to be released on compassionate grounds with great disappointment. The man has served only eight years of the 30-year sentence he received for armed train robbery in 1964, during which the driver Jack Mills was bludgeoned with an iron bar. There were 15 men in the ‘Great Train Robbery’ gang and all of them were caught.

Hang on, they did one job and all 15 of them get caught? Not exactly what I would call ‘great’ train robbers.

Now, think of ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’ by Phil Collins from the film Buster in which Collins starred as train robber and florist Buster Edwards. Unfortunately, all the fucking flowers in Holland couldn’t save that piss-stained railway arch of a film from what it really was: utter shite.

Then I remember distinctly being a kid in the mid 1970s and living under a Tory government which had us endure a three-day week brought on by strikes and political unrest, and being sick of the sight of Biggs being papped by the red tops while he was living the high life on a beach in Rio surrounded by booze and girls.

Which brings us to Exhibit A, m’lord: ‘No One Is Innocent’ by The Sex Pistols. This nasty piece of cash from chaos was put together by Paul Cook and Steve Jones when the pair slid south to Rio after the Sex Pistols had imploded in 1978. Rotten left the band in Texas and Vicious had… well, Vicious had whatever he could get his dirty little hands on. Check out this clip from The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle in which Biggs, sounding like Terry Thomas, says to Steve Jones, “I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t we get together and start composing some music?” It was the death of punk right there and then. And he wasn’t much better at writing lyrics than he was at robbing trains:

Ronnie Biggs was doing time until he done a bunk
Now he says he’s seen the light and he sold his soul to punk
God save Martin Boorman and Nazis on the run
They wasn’t being wicked God that was their idea of fun
God save Myra Hindley God save Ian Brady
Even though he’s horrible and she ain’t what you call a lady

Early release has been granted by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, and the 79-year-old Biggs is said to be “delighted” at the news, although he has pneumonia and has to be fed through a tube. Shame it wasn’t fed on a tube, as sitting on the Central Line in August in his ‘condition’ would most certainly kill him off. Click here for our Spotify Prison Playlist.

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