Retirement Fund

Army Benevolent Fund

"Did you witness the robbery sir?" the Police Officer asked.   

Blinking hell, I was part of it but right now things were beginning to go a little pear-shaped and out of sync with the original plan. ‘So what? I thought to myself, ‘I’ve been in much tighter spots than this.  I'll just have to put Plan B into action’.

The whole idea of a robbery came up one night back at HQ when the three of us were having a little drink in the Mess.   We were all coming up to our fifties and would be released from the Army Special Air Services within the next couple of months.   Hard living and hard spending meant that we would be unable to continue the life-style that being single and in the army gave us for the past twenty-seven years.

None of us had a Pension Plan and although the bit of money the Army would give us on discharge would keep us going for a year or two, it meant that we would have to settle down in civvy-street and get ourselves a mundane job.   The thought of it turned my stomach………..

It had been a joke when I first mentioned that we could supplement our savings by doing a blag and was shocked when Steve innocently asked what that was.   Being a country boy it never dawned on me that he would not be familiar with the London term for robbery.

Now Johnny, having been in the Ops Room for the last ten years or so immediately got stuck into the idea and his planning was purely military.   The bank we had chosen was known to hold a large sum of money close to the holidays and the route to the London motorway was a mere mile away.   No part of the plan was passed until there were at least three options on every point……………..

And that was indeed one of those options that I was now preparing to put into action...

As Johnny and Steve were driving steadily down the motorway, away from the town towards London having switched cars twice, I was told later that Steve thought it quite funny that I had been collared by one of the local police officers. 

"Paddy will have a bit of explaining to do.  He’s going to have to think on his feet if he is to keep his head above water" he had laughed.   Johnny also thought it funny at the time and when he told me later, he said that he was sure I would be able to cover myself with a good story.  Even when in the  deepest crap, he knew I could be relied upon.

The uniformed officer had arrived as the getaway car sped off and when he saw me grab a small child out of its path had remarked “Yes sir, you just saved the day - blaggers, no respect for human life. They would have surely killed the child if you had not grabbed her".

Now that I was more or less in the arms of the law, the back-up plan was that I would confuse the issue by giving a false description and index mark of the car and confusing descriptions of the robbers.  Still, with the car switches, it was only a little bit extra to set the police on the wrong trail for even a few minutes.

My part in the whole affair was that I would be a 'Pavement Artist' while the others did the actual bank robbery. I would merely be on standby outside the bank on the pavement in case things went wrong inside. My training and experiences in the Army SAS Unit had equipped me for all sorts of eventualities such as this.  It would be nothing compared with our covert actions behind enemy lines during the first Gulf War.  

Although I had a snub-nosed Smith and Wesson revolver tucked into the back of my belt, I had insisted that the actual bullet-heads be removed from the cartridges and cotton wool stuffed into them instead. If need be, the bangs and powder smoke would cause havoc if we had to fire them giving us time to make good our escape.

The mother of the little girl came running up and began to thank me profusely "Please" she said "I would like you to sign something as a memento for little Joanne, please".   "Don't worry dear", I answered, "you can get my name and all that from the police. Tell her to send me a Thank You card".

When the officer had asked for a description of the driver I had said, "Honestly guvnor, I thought they were making a film the way things went. I thought it was that new bloke from the telly last night who was the lead man". He looked at me and nodded his head. I was happy that he seemed to know whom I meant. "And the other one?" he asked. "Just a geezer" I answered "nothing special, except that he was as bald as a coot". I knew that was a lie as Steve was as black as the ace of spades and had an obvious short Afro hairstyle. He was a good bloke but inclined to go off half-cocked at times.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a mobile TV unit arrived. It appears that it had been covering a local event and had been redirected here for News 24.

"So you thought it was a film?" the interviewer asked as they began setting up a camera and microphone, "was that before or after you realised it was for real?" I almost told him how stupid his question was in fact. ‘Before or after what?’  I thought. "I think you would be better off asking some of the people who were in the bank" I suggested.

I had made sure that the camera was not yet running and in any case I had kept my back towards it.   

With that a man from the dry cleaner’s shop opposite, whom I had been watching since the raid, made his way over to the camera man. "It was him - it was him" he shouted at the interviewer, pointing at me.

Bloody Hell, I nearly wet my pants - surely he can't know my part in it. "Yes" he repeated "that man is a hero, he saved the little girl from certain death.  He deserves a medal". "Phew" I thought out loud "you frightened the life out of me. If you say that again, I will have a heart attack", I jokingly added thinking of all the medals I had been presented with when doing active service overseas.

As the police officer was now well away from me taking notes from other 'real' witnesses, I saw my chance and slipped quietly away into the crowd and down a side street that we had checked a week earlier. After all, no one had my name and I had no record at Criminal Records. There was a very slight possibility that any possible TV picture might identify me, but if traced I could always claim that I wanted no publicity because of my Army connections.   

In any event, I would, if the result of the robbery was what we had expected, be spending the rest of our years on the Costa del Crime in Spain with some of the other big boys from the criminal world.

We had collected our retirement fund at last - without firing a single shot in anger...........

---------Mike-----------