On Thursday 8 August, 1963, fifteen masked men stopped the night mail train from Glasgow to London and robbed it of £2,500,000. It was called the crime of the century, and the thieves were pursued relentlessly by Scotland Yard until half the gang were brought to court and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The story did not end there. First one, then another escaped from prison and fled abroad: the audacity of the original robbery was compounded by these impudent jailbreaks, and to many all over the world the Great Train Robbers actually became folk heroes.