Charmian Brent, the former wife of great train robber Ronnie Biggs, dies

Updated

Great train robber Ronnie Biggs' former wife, Charmian Brent, has died in Melbourne. She was 75.

Brent was just 17 when she met and fell in love with Biggs, a petty criminal who had spent time in prison.

Biggs was part of a large group of men who in 1963 hijacked a Royal Mail train while it was travelling from Glasgow to London, known as the Great Train Robbery.

The men stole 2.6 million British pounds - said to be equivalent to about 40 million pounds ($76.5 million) today - which a bank had sent by registered mail.

Brent maintained she had no idea that her husband was involved in the heist and went into shock when he brought home his share of 110,000 pounds.

The couple later fled to Melbourne before Biggs went on to Brazil, leaving her in Australia. They divorced in 1976.

In 2001, when Biggs finally surrendered and returned to prison in Britain after being 36 years on the run, the former Mrs Biggs was featured on the ABC's Australian Story.

She featured again in 2013 on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the robbery.

In the intervening years, her life story was laid bare in a British, BAFTA award-winning ITV television series Mrs Biggs.

Sadly for Brent, who changed her name by deed poll, there was no escaping her ex-husband's notoriety.

"The hardest thing of all to cope with is being thought of as criminal in intent because you're associated with a known criminal when, in fact, I never was that way inclined and never have been," she told Australian Story in 2001.

"It's horrible to be tarred with that brush and there's nothing that you can do about it."

When Brent met the charming Biggs, her father, a school principal, was horrified. He forbade his daughter from seeing the petty criminal, so the couple eloped.

"I trusted him. I had made him promise me when we were married that he would never engage in any criminal activity ever again," she said.

"I felt that all he really needed was a family life and people to love him and that he had enough brains to get on in the world without resorting to crime.

"I firmly believed that I was providing the answer to his prayers, I suppose."

The Great Train Robbery

I loved him very much. And I didn't want the children to grow up without a father, so the possibility that we were going to go somewhere else in the world together and start life afresh was what I wanted. Charmian Brent on moving to Melbourne.

It was August 1963.

Bruce Reynolds led a large group of men, including his friend Biggs, on the audacious hijacking of the Royal Mail train.

Brent said she had had absolutely no idea that her husband was involved.

"My family had turned their back on me for marrying him. I had two small children, one of whom was only five months old," she said.

"So, I mean it's circumstances like that you need family to give you an alternative and if you haven't got one, you have to stick with the situation you're in."

Biggs was sentenced to 30 years' jail for his part in the robbery but made his legendary escape from Wandsworth prison 15 months later and made his way to Australia.

"I loved him very much," Brent said tearfully in 2001.

"And I didn't want the children to grow up without a father, so the possibility that we were going to go somewhere else in the world together and start life afresh was what I wanted."

A new life in Australia

The cold, hard reality was I didn't have anywhere else to go. I certainly wasn't going to turn him in, so you have to swallow it and get over it and get on with the next day. Charmian Brent

They settled in Melbourne and had a third son.

Biggs worked as a carpenter while his wife worked night shift in a biscuit factory. She told Australian Story they didn't have anything of the proceeds of the robbery.

It had paid for his legal fees, his escape from prison, false passports, plastic surgery in Paris to change his appearance and their trip to Australia.

"I have to say, ultimately, I hated being on the run and that could affect the relationship," Brent said.

"Sometimes tempers got rather frayed and we'd have strong words about how I didn't like the situation.

"And the cold, hard reality was I didn't have anywhere else to go. I certainly wasn't going to turn him in, so you have to swallow it and get over it and get on with the next day."

Home movies featured in Australian Story in 2001 showed their happy social life in Melbourne with other young families, but that was short-lived.

When their baby was five months' old they read that Interpol was looking for Biggs in Melbourne. He immediately went into hiding.

The next morning Brent was arrested and taken into custody. She wept uncontrollably when her children were taken away.

Packer helped secure release from custody

The story sparked worldwide media interest, and media tycoon Frank Packer helped to arrange her release three days later.

"I was paid $65,000 for the story but the tax man took $40,000 of it," she said in 2001.

"It's a case that's in all the law books now. So I was left with enough money to buy this house, which was $19,000 at the time."

The rest, she said, paid for Biggs' escape from Australia six months later.

Brent saw Biggs only once more in Australia after he fled the family home.

They could only communicate through third parties. A friend took her in the boot of her car to meet him in a park where she spent just one hour with him the night before he sailed to South America.

"It was way out in the outer suburbs. We walked in the dark together and we knew then that we might not see each other again," she said.

"It was very sad, but we did see each other again but we never lived together ever again."

Brent avoided extradition to the UK because her third son was born in Australia.

She changed her name, got a job, and made a life for her young family in Melbourne.

Hate letters sent after son's death

Six months after Biggs' flight from Australia there was a drastic turn of events – their eldest son, eight-year-old Nicky, died in a car accident. Brent was the driver.

Her friend, the late Joan Walter, said Brent received many hate letters from people saying they were pleased that she had been punished by having a son killed.

Supportive friends suggested Brent enrol in university.

"And going to university was a lifesaver," she said.

"It was fantastic, and it really engrossed me every living moment for all the time that I was there and it gave me a new feeling about myself and was by far the most satisfying thing I've ever done in my life."

Brent's long-time friend, Val Reilly, told Australian Story, that she was anything but a gangster's moll who had no education and background.

"And that's where I first met her, in an honours English tutorial and her insight into literature was quite well recognised and quite well acknowledged," Ms Reilly said.

"At the end of her university studies she had a double English major with first-class honours."

Story sold to fund fight for freedom

Finally free of Biggs, although she truly never was free of him until he died a year ago, Brent emerged from the burden of his notoriety to follow her own path to intellectual fulfillment.

Then in 1974 Biggs was discovered in Rio de Janeiro and arrested and imprisoned.

A Sydney newspaper flew Brent to visit him. She had not seen him for five years. Her fee for the story funded his fight for freedom.

I wouldn't say it was a grand passion reawakened or anything. It was just comfortable and it was friendly and it was nice and it was something that I hadn't had in a long time and I really enjoyed it. Charmian Brent

Brent was shocked to discover that Biggs had a pregnant girlfriend, Raimunda. He was hoping the baby would prevent his extradition, but he needed to be free to marry Raimunda.

In the end, Biggs' Brazilian baby did save him from extradition.

Brent accepted her fate and divorced him, but her life was shattered again in 1981 when Biggs was kidnapped by British mercenaries and taken to Barbados.

Once again she was forced to sell her story to help with his legal fees to avoid extradition.

Biggs was able to return to Rio de Janeiro but was ungrateful for his ex-wife's help.

Finally, she thought she was over him.

'I learned to get over Ron a long time ago'

Years later, Brent developed cancer. Her father had died in Britain and she wanted to make peace with her mother.

Biggs reached out and suggested she visit him on the way back from the UK, and for the first time since Biggs fled Melbourne they had time together completely alone.

"And it felt like when we were first married," she said.

"I wouldn't say it was a grand passion reawakened or anything. It was just comfortable and it was friendly and it was nice and it was something that I hadn't had in a long time and I really enjoyed it."

Months later, Biggs had a stroke and was in need of medical care – something which he would get in prison.

Brent said Bruce Reynolds brokered a deal with the Murdoch press in the UK and for a large sum of money they flew him back to UK to surrender.

Biggs was released from prison on compassionate grounds in 2009. He died in December 2013.

During the filming of the Mrs Biggs television series, Brent was able to visit her ex-husband several times.

"I've learned to get over Ron a long time ago I think," Brent said last year.

"I felt when I walked away from the nursing home on the last occasion last year that I'd done all that I could do. I don't feel that it's a burden any more.

"I've never found the sort of intensity that I'm looking for in a relationship again. I've never lived with anybody else.

"I've had a few situations that set out looking promising but ultimately came to nothing. There've been times when I've been desperately lonely."

Living with pain of husband's notoriety

Her greatest joy in recent times, she told Australian Story last year, was meeting friends one day a week "to read epic poems like the Odyssey and the Iliad".

She also met another group every Tuesday to read Shakespeare and watch Shakespearean movies, and "once a fortnight I read Proust in French with another girl I did French with at uni".

But Brent lived forever with the pain of notoriety and public perception that she had lived off ill-gotten gains – from the robbery and cheque book journalism – but this was far from the truth.

Twenty-five years after Nicky died, Brent was required to pay several thousand dollars to be allowed to keep his plaque under the rose bush at the crematorium.

She did not have the money so she brought the plaque and ashes home.

Brent died on December 11, leaving behind her two surviving sons and four grandchildren.

Her greatest concern had always been to protect their anonymity.

They had had little contact with their father since he left Australia.

Topics: death, melbourne-3000

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