A part in a huge caper
Enough time has passed that I feel safe in recounting my tale. Yes, I had a minor role in the Great Train Robbery. Back then, I was young, and innocent. Young enough that my part would have been ignored by the authorities.
So, here we go. This all happened when I was about eight. Maybe nine. It is quite separate from another incident a full decade later, when I purloined some face towels. Still involved a train.
On the news, we learned that a huge robbery had occurred, involving the rail system. Huge. Millions of pounds. That should have been the first clue for John and I. Yes, that’s his real name. One witness had reported that the booty had been hidden, away from the tracks. And we were off!
We lived near the tracks. Trains did stop there, away from the station. And we hadn’t seen the police. All sufficient for two young lads to convince themselves that we could discover the satchels (no, we didn’t know what a satchel was, either). And our geography skills were rudimentary. Elementary school class. England??
No matter. We spent more time than I like to admit, wandering in the tall grass beside OUR tracks. I guess that ticks weren’t a risk. And we found nothing, other than some clinkers and burrdocks. However, we did searcch, which means that technically we were involved. Not accomplice level involvement. Youthfil innocence. And if the robbery had taken place in our country, rather than England, we might have become rich at a very early age.
The actual felons were caught. Most of them. And part of the money was never recovered. As for the face towels, I think they were lost, years later. During a different train trip. No movie was made about the towel caper.
