We’ve read the books, seen the TV specials. We’ve heard Ronnie Biggs and Bruce Reynolds reel off their usual spiel. We think we know the full story by now. But the truth is, we’ve never heard the actual inside story.
Because no one’s ever learned the identity of the missing mastermind – the elusive and mysterious “Ulsterman.”
Until now.
In A Tale of Two Thieves, we are transported back to a bygone era when criminals lived by a code, a time when the life of a thief was almost honourable and every day held the potential for a new caper.
Over 50 years after the heist, one of the robbers, Gordon Goody, has finally agreed to go fully on record and reveal all the unknown facts about that fateful night and his life of crime, including the identity of the “mythical” Ulsterman. The Ulsterman has gone down in British criminal history as the man who walked away and disappeared into the ether with over £2 million pounds. Welcome to A Tale of Two Thieves.
Gordon Goody was a career thief. His daring exploits—the BBC and Heathrow Airport Heist to name two—were legendary. His passion for ‘the work’ helped him to amass well over a million pounds. Yet until October 3rd 1963, when he was arrested for the Train Robbery, his criminal life was totally under the radar.
“The Ulsterman” was a working man, with a lifetime of government service throughout his working life. A straight man and an honest one, yet without him there would have been no Great Train Robbery. For decades known only as “The Ulsterman,” he was the inside man on the robbery. His identity has been the subject of intense scrutiny by the public and law enforcement alike, but has always remained a fiercely guarded secret… until earlier this year, when Gordon revealed it to us.
The film brings us to the intersection of these two lives. Two very diverse characters who in tandem managed to pull off the most spectacular crime of the 20th Century: The Great Train Robbery.