A fitting funeral is held for 84-year-old Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs.
The Rev. Dave Tomlinson, (who had conducted the funeral of Biggs's fellow robber Bruce Reynolds in 2013), told the congregation in the standing-room-only chapel, "Jesus didn't hang out with hoity-toity, holier-than-thou religious people, he seemed much more at home with the sinners." He added that he anticipated Biggs's arrival at a metaphorical pearly gate "will create a bit of a stir."
Ronnie Biggs's wicker coffin, draped in the flags of Great Britain and Brazil and an Arsenal scarf, and accompanied by an escort of Hell's Angels and the London Dixieland jazz band playing "Just a Closer Walk with Thee", arrived at Golders Green crematorium in the midst of rain and storm. It departed at the end of a ceremony in which Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas and Oscar Wilde all received a mention, to the strains of "The Stripper".
"This is," said the Rev. Tomlinson, with priestly understatement, "unlike any funeral I've ever taken."
Even after finishing his updated autobiography a couple of years ago, said Chris Pickard, his friend and ghost writer, Biggs had been keen to write more. He regretted that they would now be unable to finish their planned project: "Ronnie Biggs's Crookery Book for Single Men on the Run". The first recipe was to have been for porridge.
With closing words from the Rev., Biggs's coffin slipped away. Outside the chapel, the strains of "The Stripper" gave way to "Bring Me Sunshine" as the police, in their final meeting with Biggs, handled the traffic as the mourners headed down the road to the Refectory bar.
Golders Green crematorium has seen it all in the century or so since it opened. Biggs joins a distinguished list of those whose funerals were held there, from Sigmund Freud and Bram Stoker to TS Eliot and Joe Orton, the playwright who, in "Loot", encapsulated the enduring fascination with cops and robbers that shows no sign of abating.
Parts of this story were borrowed from The Guardian.
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