Author: Mike Palmer
ISBN No: 9781-4717-8990-8
Review date: 29/04/2024
No of pages: 137
Publisher:
Publisher URL:
http://www.lulu.com
Year of publication: 20/08/2013
Brief:
It’s the story of ‘the world’s greatest safe cracker’, to quote from the sub-title of the book. It’s about Roy Saunders, a lad from south London who was (to quote Mike) ‘one of the world’s finest safe engineers’
price
£9.99
If you remember the security industry of the 1970s and 1980s, and above all the safe sector of that era when Britain ruled, you are in for a treat if you read Mike Palmer’s book Peckham Boy.
It’s the story of ‘the world’s greatest safe cracker’, to quote from the sub-title of the book. It’s about Roy Saunders, a lad from south London who was (to quote Mike) ‘one of the world’s finest safe engineers’. “many people have condemned Roy Saunders for what followed; particularly fellow locksmiths and safe engineers. Their trustworthiness is of paramount importance; they simply could not go about their business. It was as if Roy’s actions had cast a shadow over their entire profession. But had they been aware of the circumstances preceding this fall from grace, they may not have been so unforgiving.” Although what Mike Palmer calls the fall from grace came to a crown court verdict in 1993, before most of us had heard of the internet, it is easy to search for details of Saunders’ crime: an attempted theft from Cartier’s the central London jewellery shop.
How a man turns from good to bad nags away at humanity because it is not a question easily answered or even faced. It has brought much great and famous literature, and the Star Wars films for example. Cleverly Mike gives us the ending – the court case – and then the bulk of the story; Roy Saunders’ life. He became an apprentice, learned well, did his National Service, and travelled the world as his skills were in demand. Besides the many anecdotes, readers with long memories may recall the Spaghetti House siege in Knightsbridge in 1975. Police used a fibre optic endoscope – a first in British policing – to observe the crime scene and put pressure on the hostage-takers through tailored radio reports (how quaint by 21st century standards!). As Mike puts it: “In the latter part of the 1970s Roy was at the top of his game. He was making good money; the insurers thought he walked on water; he was the Met Police’s hero and the safe industry loved him or hated him in equal measure, depending on whose safes he happened to be criticising at the time.” To explain that as an aside, while Mike hails the 70s as ‘the pinnacle of British safe making’ with two market leaders Chubb and Sons and John Tann, the manufacturers did not take kindly to a Cockney telling them of their products’ shortcomings. Recognition did come: an amusing page has the story of the annoyance of John Tann director Josh Levy, who thought that he was going to win the ABIS (Association of Burglary Insurance Surveyors) award in 1979 for contribution to crime prevention. The chairman Ken Bolton describing the award winner was in fact building up to giving it to Roy Saunders. So proud was Roy of that award, he ‘had it placed alongside millions of pounds of gold bars in Brinks MAT’s main bullion vault’.
(Mike tells me that Josh Levy did get the ABIS award, to his delight, some years later – as indeed, did Mike.)
And yes, the Brinks MAT robbery, and the Brixton riots of 1981 are covered. So is the sad story of how Roy was shot in the thigh by an LA policeman in 1984 when trying to be a good Samaritan to a mugged man. After Roy sought compensation for six years, as Mike summed up: “He had lost a thriving business, a testicle and very nearly his life, all because he went to the aid of a police officer.” There seemed no justice; Roy Saunders felt let down. “The bitterness ate away at him like a cancer.”
And yet other people have downs besides ups in their lives and they do not turn to crime. Now in his late 50s, slower thanks to his injuries, and having to call on old friends and colleagues cap in hand for work, he was tempted ‘to step over the line’ or to copy Star Wars, to go to the ‘dark side’: to become a criminal safe cracker. Mike does ask how Roy felt about that, but does not get much out of him: “To be honest, I never felt anything at all.” The crime itself and the trial wind up the book in a few pages; the four-year prison sentence is passed over in a mere few lines. “He makes no attempt to justify crossing the line into criminality and accepts his guilt without argument.” He still feels anger at his treatment by the US legal system. There is not a happy ending here; but then Mike Palmer is telling a true story, not a Hollywood one. Mike and Roy are friends; as Mike writes, he sought to make others understand what brought Roy Saunders to his fall from grace. It’s not a defence: “Roy has never sought any justification for what he did – but it attempts to shed some light on the extraordinary life of an ordinary man who rose to the very peak of his trade before plunging into virtual obscurity.”
I began by saying readers who recall those times and characters – such as Victor Green, founder of IFSEC – would have a treat. And so they will. It’s also an easy to read, salutary tale. The seems no end of books glorying in crime – such as about the Kray twins, or the so-called Great Train Robbery (featured in the June issue of Professional Security). Those books have their market; some people evidently enjoy reading about crimes that they only dream about and would never do themselves (?). Roy Saunders’s story speaks more pressingly to a private security audience. Why did this much-respected man risk everything – his good name, his livelihood, even if he felt a lifetime of work had got him nowhere? As Mike put it: “He had broken the code of ethics of the locksmith and safe engineer; crossing the line into criminality. This cast a shadow over the integrity of everyone in the industry. There was little room for sympathy.” Even if readers share that lack of sympathy, they have to admit that this book has a message: chance events can change a man for the worse, as well as for the better; and in no time it can be too late to change back again – at least as far as criminal justice or society are concerned. It’s a question for the philosophers and it’s a troubling message for us all. Mike Palmer has done us a service by putting Roy Saunders’ story in front of us. And just to add, Roy is still going, having just turned 80.
You can buy the book through www.lulu.com – type in Peckham Boy. Any queries you can contact Mike Palmer – [email protected]
