Ronnie Biggs heads for Botany Bay

A pint of free beer awaits the one-time train robber

Ronnie Biggs, the renowned 71-year-old fugitive, has one last wish: to enjoy a pint of bitter in a Margate pub. But would he still recognise the Kent resort? And would he be welcome? BBC News Online's Chris Horrie reports.

It's been 40 or so years since train robber Ronnie Biggs last strolled down Margate High Street, but the Kent coastal resort still has a place in his affections.

Biggs: "gasping" for a pint of English bitter

Biggs says his last wish would be to sup a pint of bitter in one of the town's pubs.

But he might not be prepared for how much the place has changed.

The Dreamland amusement park, a small-scale local answer to Blackpool's Pleasure Beach, is still there. But the pier was demolished at the end of the 1970s after falling into disrepair.

The resort, once famous for drug-fuelled pitched battles between rival gangs of mods and rockers, is now cultivating a more genteel image.

Picture this

This is based on an association with the intellectual 19th Century landscape painter Turner and novelist Charles Dickens, as well as the town's quaint picture-postcard harbour.

I am a sick man. My last wish is to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter

Ronnie Biggs

A publicity officer for the town was pleased to hear Biggs had singled out Margate as a symbol of everything that was pleasant about England, but had mixed feelings about the compliment.

"We are not the Margate he remembers," she emphatically asserted.

"We've moved on and are developing as a cultural centre, based around the Turner Gallery and we've spent millions restoring Victorian railings and street lights.

Criminal associations

"But - look - I don't want us to be associated with criminals... we don't want to upset the victims," she ventured nervously.

Kent's answer to the Copacabana... Margate beach

There were no such scruples at The Red Lion pub in nearby Ramsgate where landlord Sean said he would be "delighted" to see Biggs walk through the door.

"It would be good for trade," said Sean, "and he'd feel right at home. We've not changed a bit since the '60s."

Having thought over the publicity implications, Sean then added: "In fact, he'd be so good for trade that I'd give him a free pint - definitely."

The barmaid at the Bull's Head in Margate itself was just as welcoming.

Ronnie Biggs was doing time... then he did a bunk.

Now he's joined the Sex Pistols...

And sold his soul to punk

Lyrics to 1970s Sex Pistols song

"I wouldn't recognise him myself unless I saw a picture first, because I'm too young," she explained.

"But we've got a lot of regular old boys who are originally from London. They'd know who he was and if Ronnie Biggs did turn up I think they'd be quite pleased... It would create a stir away."

The director general of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, John Abbott, last year criticised the public for entertaining "darkly exotic" images of major criminals, or for thinking that incidents like the Great Train Robbery were somehow heroic.

He said: "From David Bailey's portraits of the Kray brothers, the exotic exile of Ronnie Biggs, to films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, there has been a concerted attempt to show organised crime as 'a bit of a laugh', carried out by colourful personalities and cheeky chappies.

Botany Bay

"Such an image," he said, "is very far from the truth. Violence is associated with many aspects of serious and organised crime. The threat of force is an essential component."

And so if Ronnie Biggs ever does make it to Margate he had better watch out.

The resort boasts that it has some of the finest beaches in the whole of the UK.

And one of them is called Botany Bay.