His father, a trade-union activist at the Ford Dagenham assembly plant, married again, and the family moved to Gants Hill.

[2] On leaving school at 14½, Reynolds failed the eyesight test to join the Royal Navy,[8] and decided he wanted to become a foreign correspondent, so he applied in person for a job at Northcliffe House.

[9] By the age of 17 he had become bored with the routine and was working in the Bland/Sutton Institute of Pathology at Middlesex Hospital,[8] before joining Claud Butler as a bicycle messenger and a member of their semi-professional racing team,[5] where he first met criminals and began a life of crime.

[1] After undertaking some petty crime and spending time in HMP Wormwood Scrubs and Borstal[5] for theft[3] (from which he escaped and was eventually caught and sent to Reading Prison), he spent six weeks of the required two years doing National Service in the British Army, before absconding to return to petty crime.

[5] Reynolds organised a gang of 15 men to undertake the 1963 Great Train Robbery (which he later referred to as his "Sistine Chapel ceiling").

For Christmas 1964, the family were joined in Acapulco by fellow train robbers Buster Edwards, who had not yet been caught, and treasurer Charlie Wilson, who had escaped from HMP Winson Green.

[17] Assuming the name Keith Hiller, Reynolds began settling with his family into his childhood holiday town, before he had the urge to make contact with his old friends back in London.

[1][clarification needed] After a failed venture in the textile trade, he began trafficking and money laundering for many South London drug gangs.

[3] On release he gained a profile in the media as a "former criminal" figure, and acted as a consultant on the film Buster, with Larry Lamb portraying Reynolds.

[2] In the book, Reynolds commented on the curse that followed him around, as no one wanted to employ him either legally or illegally:[13] I became an old crook living on handouts from other old crooks.Having either spent or had removed by courts the monies that he gained through crime, by the 1990s Reynolds was living on income support in a flat in Croydon, Greater London, supplied by a charitable trust.

He was also the subject of the song "Have You Seen Bruce Richard Reynolds", originally by Nigel Denver and later covered by the UK band Alabama 3.

[19] On the day that Biggs died, 18 December 2013, the BBC broadcast the first of a two-part series, The Great Train Robbery, a dramatisation of the events, first from the criminals' perspective and then from that of the police.