The day is 8 August 1963. It is the early hours of the morning, and a group of men are waiting at a railway bridge in Buckinghamshire. They are about to rob a mail train, on its way to London from Glasgow, and they have no idea that on board they will find approximately GBP2.5 million (over GBP50 million in today's money) in cash - the largest of its time.

Among their number is Ronnie Biggs. He will be remembered long after most of the other names are forgotten, and the money spent or lost.

What is it about Ronnie Biggs that fascinates people sixty years on from the crime that made his name? Is it the man or the myth that makes Ron a latter-day Robin Hood - the odd man in the confederation of criminals who held up a train on that fateful day?

This is Ronnie Biggs' official autobiography. It tells of one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth century. From Ron's daring escape from HMP Wandsworth, to how he managed to outwit and outrun a posse of law enforcement officers as one of the world's most wanted men; from plastic surgery in Paris, and his years on the run in Brazil - complete with two kidnappings and an attempted suicide - to his return to the UK after 13,087 extraordinary days on the run.

Published for the sixtieth anniversary of Britain's most famous crime, this is a daring, exciting and often misunderstood life of a man who has seen and done it all, told in his own words.