CRIME Writer; THE BIG READ: BANK ROBBER SWOPS HEISTS FOR NOVELS.

Byline: Samantha Booth

HE was one of Scotland's most notorious criminals, who carried out two of the biggest bank jobs the country has seen.

But when the law finally caught up with James Crosbie and he was jailed, the robber found he had a skill that didn't involve an armed heist - he could tell a good yarn.

And today, the reformed crook makes an honest living from writing novels which draw inspiration from his old life before prison.

His latest book, Ashanti Gold, is set in Ghana, where James spent of couple of years during the 1960s. It follows the story of Glaswegian robber Colin Grant, who tries to flee the country in a plane full of gold.

Crosbie, now 72, said: "The story is about 80 per cent truth and 20 per cent fiction.

"I lived in Ghana in the early Sixties and I went to see the diamond fields and gold mines.

"I always wondered, especially when I was at the gold mines, how they could be robbed. So while the book is based on a lot of my own experiences of Ghana, the one thing that's not true is all the stuff about hijacking the gold. I suppose it is a story about what I would have liked to do at the time and about how I think it could have been done.

"Much later when I was back in Glasgow I became a private pilot and I know now that what I have written about in the book is possible."

The novel has caused such a stir that there are now talks of it being turned into a movie.

Crosbie's life today is a long way from his days as a crook in Glasgow.

In 1972, James Crosbie walked away with pounds 67,000 from a bank in Renfrewshire - at the time, Scotland's biggest bank robbery. Two years later, he bettered his own record by stealing pounds 87,000 from a bank in Glasgow.

On the run and Scotland's most wanted man, he pulled one more bank job in Edinburgh - and was caught.

James always loved words but it wasn't until he was in prison that he realised that he could make a good attempt at writing a story.

His stories soon started attracting attention from the judging panel of the Koestler Awards, an awards scheme celebrating art by prisoners created by Arthur Koestler, a famous academic and writer who was imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War.

Crosbie said: "To be honest, I used to win it near enough every time I went in for it, the first year I won two first prizes, one for plays and one for short stories."

One of his short stories has been made into a short film called The Chain, which was shown at Cannes Film Festival last year.

James said: "As usual the story is based on someone I have known. This time it was a notorious killer who used to carry a dog chain as a weapon because he was too well known to the police to risk carrying anything else.

"Whenever he saw anyone that might be the police he would simply stand holding the chain calling for a pretend dog called Rover.

"The story is about him when he gets older, about how he gets on with his family and about how he handles the youngsters, who love to give him a hard time about being past it.

"My son is a film-maker so he turned it into a film which was shown at Cannes."

Crosbie was born in Springburn in Glasgow in 1937. His dad worked as an engineer at a locomotive factory, and the young Crosbie lived with his parents and two brothers in a single end.

He said: "My mum always used to say, we may not have anything that we want, but we have everything that we need."

But that didn't stop James from getting into all kinds of trouble. He quickly discovered that he had a taste for stealing and making easy money, turning over factories, shops, warehouses and post offices. He said: "None of the rest of my family, including cousins and aunts and uncles, have ever had as much as a parking ticket, so I have been a total disgrace to the family.

"When I left school I went to the shipyards to be a welder. My father tried to stop me, he was an incredibly principled man, and he worried about where that might lead me.

"But I had watched my father coming in from work every night filthy and shattered, never taking a day off and I just couldn't understand it, I wanted more.

"I got bored quickly of the shipyards and went to join the RAF when I was 17.

"I thought you got to be a pilot when you joined the RAF, so when I found out that wasn't the case I left as soon as I could."

ON leaving the RAF, James moved to London and quickly got caught up in a life of petty crime.

But the Government wrote to him, saying he had to report to barracks and complete his national service.

This time he went to the Army to serve the rest of his required two years and once he left he felt the bright lights of London calling him once more. He became involved in everything from smuggling cigarettes to robbing shops.

He said: "There was all sorts of things going on in London in those days and it was easy to get mixed up in it all. I never really did anything violent though."

He was hailed for three and a half years for conspiracy to rob and spent his time at Verne Prison, where he agreed to make counterfeit driving licences for London's most famous gangsters, the Kray twins. When he never got paid for the work though, he refused to have any more dealings with the Krays. On his release, he came back to Glasgow and made a good attempt at going straight.

He went out to Africa for nearly two years where he worked on the cocoa mills, helping to ship thousands of pounds of cocoa milk all over the world. When the mills closed, he returned to Glasgow.

He said: "I had a good time in Africa. I had a bike that I used to cycle everywhere, except one time I remember passing a sign telling me not to interfere with the gorillas.

"Not wanting to come face to face with them I just turned around and went back the way I had come from.

"I had no choice to leave though because everything was shutting down.

"The president at the time was trying to be popular by getting rid of all the colonials, but they were the people who ran the country and without them the infrastructure just collapsed."

Back in Glasgow, he started up his own business making railings, gates and door grills, a business which quickly developed into a furniture company.

He said: "The business was a great success but, in truth, I was always up to things and the reason was simply that I found it so easy to do.

"I should have stopped while I had the business, but I just couldn't because it was just such easy cash."

In 1972, after carrying out a sizeable list of small heists, he carried out Scotland's biggest bank job at the time.

Crosbie discovered that a neighbour with financial difficulties had inside information about cash deliveries to a bank.

Not long afterwards he and one other person carried out the armed hold-up at the Hillington branch of the Clydesdale Bank, calmly driving away with pounds 67,000, a figure which could have bought several houses back then. Within minutes, cops had sealed off the area and shut down nearby Glasgow Airport. What they didn't know was that Crosbie had already calmly driven in there.

Months before he had obtained his private pilot's licence and, togged up like a businessman, had simply driven through the cop cars after waving the ID.

Crosbie should have been happy with his considerable haul, but only two years later he couldn't resist robbing another bank.

He targeted another Clydesdale Bank, this time one in Whiteinch, Glasgow, and Crosbie and the same partner made off on bicycles with pounds 87,000.

But there had been one problem - Crosbie's gun had gone off during the heist. According to Crosbie, it was accidental and nobody was hurt, but in the eyes of the law the crime was attempted murder.

He convinced his accountant that the cash haul had come from his legitimate businesses over the years and arranged to have pounds 40,000 of it invested.

The money was kept in a bag in a safe house but a friend of the householder's daughter found the cash, helped herself to pounds 27,000 and took it to her boyfriend in Possil, who went straight to the police.

Crosbie was now on the run and the most wanted man in Scotland. To make some quick cash with the idea of fleeing the country, he robbed pounds 20,000 from a bank in Edinburgh. But the next day he was recognised by three Glasgow CID officers who were in the capital city to appear in the high court. He was arrested leaving a chemist where he had been buying painkillers for a headache, making the front page of the Daily Record at the time.

He pled guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in Peterhead Prison.

But the long stretch gave him time to start writing As well as countless short stories, he also produced a collection of Porridge-style stories about the prison and its curious bunch of inmates and wardens, which were later published in a book called Peterhead Porridge.

He also wrote his own version of the events behind Scotland's two biggest bank robberies in a book which was later published as Armed & Dangerous.

Despite serving 12 years, Crosbie's criminal career wasn't quite over.

In 1996, he was caught trying to smuggle pounds 250,000 worth of cannabis through Birmingham Airport and was sentenced to another four years behind bars.

Then in 2000, the criminal was once more caught trying to smuggle cannabis - this time he was heading out of Scotland and into Iceland.

He was sentenced to another eight years and this time it seems he finally learned his lesson.

James has now been free for four years and is now happy to spend his time with his wife of 12 years, Marlene, his son Gregory, his grandson Samand his writing .

He said: "I just couldn't help myself, but I think I'mtoo old for it all now.

"My life is all about writing, cycling, seeing my family and going on holiday these days."

Ashanti Gold by James Crosbie is published by Black & White for pounds 7.99.

CAPTION(S):

BOLD: Crosbie in 1974, and left, on a cruise in Greece RAIDS: Employee Alex Macintrye outside the robbed bank in Whiteinch, James as boy with his mum and brother Tommy, behind bars on Devil's Island in French Guiana, on the Burmese border, and ex-employersS, the Krays ADVENTURE: Visit to Panama Canal, and wife Marlene