The ‘great train robber’ Ronnie Biggs, who has just died in a north London care home, was a former council worker.
Mr Biggs worked as a carpenter for Reigate and Banstead BC after learning his skills in Wormwood scrubs, according to reports in local paper the Surrey Mirror.
His autobiography says of the job it was ‘not very well paid but plenty of tea and sympathy with the housewives’.
He was one of the men who carried out the so-called great train robbery in August 1963, netting £2.6m.
Despite a 30-year sentence, he escaped from Wansworth prison in 1965, and was on the run until he returned voluntarily in 2001.
