Looking for the Real Weasel
Train Robber, Racer, Rogue – Who was Roy James?
by Rich Duisberg
In 1963 a UK Royal Mail train was robbed. At that time the “take” of £2.61m (£63m/$84m today) was the biggest in UK history. Most of the gang were caught, the ringleaders sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.
The crime of course attracted a great deal of publicity, both in the media at the time and subsequently numerous books. Ronnie Biggs was in the news for decades. He escaped from prison, and fled to Brazil where he fathered a child, thus avoiding extradition. Another robber, Buster Edwards, suffered the indignity of being portrayed by pop star Phil Collins in the film “Buster” which depicted his role in the robbery.
The getaway driver was our protagonist, Roy James. He received much less publicity but as this book shows, he was perhaps the most interesting of the lot.
This is the first biography and it is unconventional in that it starts in 2023 and works its way backwards; the author explains his MO early on, and this review will get into it as well.
The reason this publication will be of interest to SpeedReaders is because of the well-researched motor racing content. It starts with the discovery in New Zealand in 2018 of a 1962 Brabham BT2 owned by Denny Hulme and Graham McRae that had been acquired by Roy James. His motor racing trophies were to be auctioned by Bonhams, but subsequently withdrawn.
After his release from prison, James tried to return to racing in the 1970s including a potential pairing with Dutch driver Jan Lammers, and buying a Formula Ford Hawke from Derek Warwick. And crashing Ted Wentz’s Lola T360, breaking his leg. As a trained silversmith he was commissioned by F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone to make the Formula One Race Promoters’ Trophy.
And of course before the robbery there is considerable detail on James’ early 1960s racing. At the time he was seen as a driver of great promise. Although even then he was suspected of another robbery, and apparently turned up with a bagful of used-notes cash when buying a race car.
However this book contains much much more than the racing. Duisberg’s odyssey in attempting to follow all aspects of James’ numerous “careers” is a delight. Halfway through the book i.e. after release from prison, we get a brief summary: “In reverse order” Roy has died, been operated on, plotted a jet-ski drugs trip to the Netherlands, buried a machine gun, fell out with the press, told lies about Nazis, shot his father-in-law, attempted to blow up a safe, tried to go straight, crashed quite a few cars trying to resurrect his career in motorsport and met a topless hang-gliding actress.
If that doesn’t attract your interest . . . And we haven’t gotten to “the crime of the century.”
No surprise, James merits a chapter in Crispian Belsey’s Driven to Crime, reviewed elsewhere here. The robbery total still eclipses the $34m tax fraud that Gene Haas was imprisoned for, although James probably received a modern equivalent of £1m for the crime.
This book is not primarily about motorsport but Duisberg has done a considerable amount of due diligence with regard to this. Every now and then a gem is uncovered. For example his conversations with 1960s British driver Peter Proctor and references to his autobiography Pedals and Pistons (worth hunting down).
There are not that many factual elements available to document James’ life. What Duisberg has undertaken is “looking for” his subject. The blind alleys he goes down and the digressions with the “interesting” characters he encounters make this highly entertaining—not many motoring books manage to reference the publication Teach Your Dog Welsh!
Of necessity a lot of the background is 1960s/70s/80s UK culture and the occasional slang may baffle some readers. Of course this is what Wikipedia is for.
And finally, what about “The Weasel” nickname? James was always unhappy about being associated with it, and it was possibly a media invention. Whilst he was still in prison for the train robbery he wrote to the press complaining that the nickname was “a great embarrassment to his parents.”
Duisberg is a contributor to numerous car magazines such as Classic Retro Modern and is also a presenter on YouTube. His collection of articles in “Nothing handles like a hire car” (a P J O’Rourke quote) is worth checking out. His previous (self-published) books have in the main been distillations of his magazine articles. Triggered by an interest in a James’ obituary, this is his first biography which enables him to thread together dozens of discrete subjects into an informative and amusing whole.
No index (which would possibly be longer than the book itself) and only one photograph—the author as a child.
Copyright 2025, Paul Lea (speedreaders.info).
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