Janette's Keeping It Real: It's In His Stars!

Keeping it Real: it’s in his stars

Have you heard of Bruce Reynolds? No? What about the Great Train Robbery? How about Ronnie Biggs? Now, that name strikes a chord!

What made him so famous? More interestingly, what made him happy to seek out fame, even notoriety, in a situation where most of us would probably keep schtum?

The Great Train Robbery

The Great Train Robbery was the biggest haul of its kind for a century, netting the gang a whopping £2.6 million in 1963 (around £40 million in today’s money).

Ronnie’s role in the robbery was relatively minor. He was to provide and handle the gang’s own train driver, who would move the entire train to the siding where the haul would be unloaded. But it turned out that Ronnie’s hand-picked driver was a dud; he couldn’t drive that particular type of engine. By any standards, Ronnie’s train-robbing skills were dubious.

Why so famous?

Yet Ronnie is the one everybody remembers. Bruce Reynolds, who allegedly masterminded the entire plot, is relegated to relative obscurity, though he did eventually write his own version of events.

Ronnie first hit the public eye when he escaped, first to Australia and then to Brazil, where complex extraditionlaws kept him safe from Scotland Yard. At this stage, you’d think a bloke still on the lam might duck for cover.

But not Ronnie. Not only did his house become a regular stop for tourists, where he’d regale them with (probably exaggerated) stories of the Robbery; he even recorded a hit single with members of the Sex Pistols.

He wrote a handful of books about his experiences, and has had copious numbers of books written about him; in fact, an Amazon search on “Ronnie Biggs” nets a list of books long enough to keep even me going for months.

And when he finally returned to Britain in 2001 to seek medical treatment, he continued to make public statements through his son, Michael.

He was clearly not a man to shy away from the public gaze.

But why was Ronnie so keen to keep coming back to the glare of the spotlight? Could it simply be part of a self-created ongoing mini-industry, creating income around his bad behaviour of so many years ago? Or was there more to it?

What the stars reveal

Having recently taken up the study of astrology—especially in relation to an individual’s psychological makeup—I wondered if Ronnie’s natal chart (the position of the planets at his birth) would be revealing. Without knowing the exact time of his birth, there’s a limit to what we can ascertain; but even a basic chart is revealing.

Ronnie has not only his Sun, but also his Mercury, in Leo.

Our Sun sign is the one we all read in the Sunday papers, the one we mention when someone at a party says “what sign are you?”. It’s our centre of consciousness, a key to what will make us truly happy. And Mercury, messenger of the gods, influences our mental processes and the way we think about things.

What does this mean for Ronnie, to have these two major planets in Leo?

Leo LOVES the limelight. Leo is a fire sign, a sign of taking the initiative. Leo is all about self-expression and ego-fulfilment. Leo makes the statement “I WILL”.

Someone with this much Leo in their chart could never be truly happy living the quiet, hidden life. Of course, being a Leo didn’t have anything to do with Ronnie choosing a life of crime; but I think it made a big difference to HOW Ronnie lived that life.

Where is he now?

People in Britain still either love him or hate Ronnie. I think if he’d retired quietly into obscurity, nobody would have cared much either way. But Ronnie was drawn to fame like a moth to a flame, often thumbing his nose at the establishment.

How about you? Have you forgiven Ronnie Biggs for his bumbling role in that long-ago heist; or do you think he did the crime, so he should do the time regardless of how late in life? Or has Ronnie’s Leo energy finally run its course, leaving him at last to decline quietly into an obscure old age?

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