Captain Moonlight: Memoirs of a train-robbing man

WELL, I'll go to the foot of our apples and pears] Stone me, etc. The Captain has only gone and got hold of an advance copy of Ronnie Biggs's up-and-coming memoirs, Odd Man Out. Let me give you a flavour, as the Great Train Robber and honorary Brazilian sums it all up: 'Had I heeded the advice of the old fortune teller in Hastings, things might have turned out very different. I might have spent the rest of my life freezing my nuts off on a bleak building site somewhere in Britain . . . I am also proud of the fact that my 'track record', such as it was, enabled me to be invited to work with such eminent fellow thieves and good company . . . We all knew what we were getting into and we all knew we would get 'big bird' if we were nicked.'

Ron also reveals that in his opinion 30 years was spot on as a sentence, and would still have been even if they hadn't coshed the driver. Good to see that some people agree with Michael Howard about stiff sentencing. Next: Ronnie and Reggie campaign for the reintroduction of the death penalty.