The Biggs Time: Ronnie and Michael - Man and Boy

by Michael Biggs (Author), Michael Biggs (Author), Neil Silver (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.25

  Few people in Britain have not heard of The Great Train Robbery, the biggest and most daring crime in British history. Ronnie Biggs was one of the gang that was captured and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but escaped from Wandsworth prison and fled to Brazil, where he remained on the run until 2001, when he gave himself up and returned to Britain on 07 May 2002. Less is know in Britain of Michael Biggs, Ronnie's Brazilian son, whose birth in August 1974 saved Ronnie from being deported. Michael became a highly successful musician in his homeland, in one of the most popular child bands of recent times - they sold over 12 million records in six years. This book opens with the detailed and untold story of how Ronnie Biggs returned to Britain after suffering his second stroke at his home in Rio de Janeiro. It chronicles Ronnie's life, his version of the train robbery, what happened to the money, and his life on the loose - including how he was kidnapped twice. It is also the story of Michael Biggs and how he saved his father's life on at least four occasions, and how he has battled against the British Government to secure his ailing father's release from prison.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.25

  Ronnie Biggs would admit he's no saint. Sentenced to 30 years for his part in the Great Train Robbery - which took place on a cold English morning in August 1963 - he's the legendary gangster who escaped to taunt the British establishment, sing with the Sex Pistols and tan with bikini-clad Brazilian beach girls, Pina Colada in hand: a hard man, the rogue who got away. But for his son, 29-year-old Michael, Ronnie Biggs is the father who fed me, clothed me, loved me . Michael knew the devoted single dad trying to go straight who, when prohibited from working legally, traded on the only skill he could short of organized crime - being himself. Father and son grew up together, relying only on each other, with Michael rescuing his dad from disaster on more than one occasion, not least when Ron was kidnapped in 1981. By making a televised appeal for his return, Michael brought the Brazilian government to his father's aid - and inadvertently kick-started his own fairy-tale performing career. There followed a larger-than-life tale of sex, drugs and platinum-selling boy-band pop. Michael talks candidly about his return to London with his ailing father to face the full weight of British justice, and offers Ronnie's insights into the planning and execution of the Great Train Robbery itself. Crime, music, sex in the sun, drugs by the pool, innocence, experience, kidnapping (twice) and love - The Biggs Time is the extraordinary tale of two lives that could never be called average.