Former Leighton Buzzard Observer reporters who covered the Great Train Robbery reunited for first time in nearly 60 years

The reunion came about after Leighton Rose Care Home asked Anne Hammond, 92, about her working life as part of National Careers Week.

And Anne, who has been a resident at the home since September 2025, told them about days as a reporter.

She started as a trainee reporter, aged 16, at the LBO (then part of Home Counties Newspapers Ltd), working her way up to the role of chief reporter.

She was employed by the paper from 1950 to 1974, before returning to work on a freelance basis in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Anne was one of the first reporters on the scene of The Great Train Robbery on August 8 1963, and worked alongside John Flewin, who had joined the paper eight months earlier as a trainee.

The pair were reunited on March 4 at Leighton Rose Care Home as Anne looked back on her working life for the Observer.

Anne recalled: "I always wanted to be a reporter, as far as I could remember back.

"When I moved to Leighton Buzzard from Wales as a child, I went to Cedars School, and I remember the headmaster saying to me ‘what do you want to do when you leave school?’

"I said I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. He said ‘I wanted to be a chimney sweeper when I was your age but it never happened’.

"When I left school I popped into the newspaper’s offices over the road, had a word with the editor Ken Knight, and got in as a trainee."

Anne worked her way through the paper’s ranks, becoming chief reporter in 1970, which she said was her favourite role.

Reflecting on her early days Anne said: "I worked with The Reader for the first six months, proofreading and making sure there were no spelling mistakes. The Reader was a little man who was a nervous wreck, because if anything was wrong he would get it."

Anne added: "I remember marking up the diary every morning, doing funeral reports, sometimes weddings, and I made big friends with policemen on the beat.

"The paper didn’t really change during my time there. It was always a broadsheet and we certainly didn’t see it as a tabloid."

One event that was not marked in the diary but which catapulted Leighton Buzzard and the surrounding area into the national spotlight was The Great Train Robbery in August 1963.

The incident involved a gang of 15 robbers intercepting a Royal Mail train travelling from Glasgow to London at Bridego Railway Bridge, just outside the village of Mentmore, a few miles from Leighton Buzzard.

The gang stole £2.61 million after tampering with lineside signals to bring the train to a stop.

John Flewin, a trainee on the paper at the time of the robbery, recalled: "Ivor Leonard {a former LBO photographer but who was not at the paper at the time}, was first on the scene, and his photos went around the world. He was there at 3am, half an hour after it happened.

"Dougal McCreath, then the editor, known as Mac, rang me just before 7am saying ‘there’s been a robbery on a train, come and pick me up’, because he didn’t drive."

Recalling her memories of the day Anne added: "I was doing the calls then and was told ‘some money has been stolen on a train’. I called at Linslade Police Station and said to Mac ‘I think I need to get there’ and he said ‘I think you had better.’

"I remember all of the world’s press was outside the doors of Cheddington Station.

"I had known the police locally for years and we had a great relationship. You would just walk in on a crime scene and go and ask questions. I had no idea what I was dealing with here.

"David Whitby (the firemen of the train involved) was in the waiting room. I asked him how did you feel, and he said I am absolutely shattered.

"Some big coppers then came and grabbed me and said you are not supposed to be in here.

"When I came out I was asked if I saw David Whitby. I said I had and that he was shattered. That was our scoop!"

Both agreed they realised the enormity of The Great Train Robbery at the time, with Anne writing a story in 1999, after returning as a freelance, looking back at the event.

Meanwhile, John gives audio-visual presentations to four or five different clubs or societies every year about The Great Train Robbery.

Anne went on to cover every court appearance of the robbers at both Linslade and Aylesbury.

"One of the funniest things was that all the press men from London used to walk down to the train station, along Wing Road, and on the way they would pass a greengrocer's shop," she said.

"They saw brussel sprouts on a stem and because they had never seen anything like it, flocked in and bought them.

"I remember all of the world’s press sat there with sticks of brussel sprouts!" she added, before John chipped in "they spent the rest of the time in the pub opposite!" [now The Ship].

Anne has covered many stories and events for the Observer over the years, but one she remembers is from just after she started, when a tornado hit the town on May 21 1950, damaging 300 houses.

She recalled: "I was living at the time in a prefab with my parents on Clarence Road, and I remember looking out the window thinking that is very strange because clouds went in different directions at the same time.

"A hell of a wind got up, then massive great hailstones, more big wind, and all the plants in the garden were flattened.

"I had only just started at the time, but was able to do the running back and forth for reporters who knew what they were doing!"

Despite many years in journalism, Anne did briefly move to ‘the other side’, working for South Bedfordshire District Council where she was responsible for press and public relations, and later tourism.

Anne explained: "I covered the local council, which was then Leighton Linslade Urban District Council, so the officers knew that I understood the council workings inside out.

"A restructure led to them becoming South Beds District Council and they wanted a press officer. The chief executive Robert Cranmer spoke to me, and I applied not expecting to get it, and got the job.

"It was mainly dealing with journalists. The telephone rang all day long and having been a reporter, I knew the questions they would ask. It helped that I knew what answers they wanted, even if I couldn’t always give them those answers!

"The council decided they wanted to go into tourism as part of an industry expansion, and formed a tourism association. In 1991 I was awarded The Henry Lawrence Trophy by the Thames & Chiltern Tourist Board for my work to promote South Bedfordshire.

"I never won a trophy for being a journalist - you just did the job."

It was a job that Anne did very well for many years, and as well as the memories she was able to recall in such great detail, she also has a career folder at the care home with her work – along with her coveted tourism trophy.

Photos by Jane Russell.