The Gray Monk

The Post Office Raid (Not)

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This event was related to me by a friend who had been working for the Post Office (as was then) some years ago toward the end of the eighties. He related this as a debriefing session – a counsellor was interviewing three security guards who had been the victims of an attempted robbery, and this was their story.
It is important to note that security vans visiting post offices here in the UK do so primarily to drop off money, not (as is the case with many other stores and services) to collect it. Post Offices used to be the primary collecting point for pensioners to collect their state pensions and for those on welfare payments to collect their cash. As such, more money tends to flow out of them than flows in.

Said security guards were making their rounds in their armoured van fairly uneventfully, one in the back of the van and the other two making the deliveries at every stop. As they emerged from their last call of the day – a small, local post office in a village high street next to a bakery – three men in balaclavas armed with sawn-off shotguns leapt out of a nearby alleyway. Clearly, these guys had done their homework plotting the course of the van and ambushing it on its last port of call.

“Hand over the money!” they demanded, so with a shrug the two security guards handed over the cash bags they were carrying. Did I say these guys had done their homework? Clearly not, as having made their last delivery the bags were in fact empty. Our three desperados were not fooled for long, and realising that the cash bags were empty they made another demand:

“Hand over the cash boxes!”

Now, these cash boxes are designed with robbery in mind, and when relinquished by their owners their defences were triggered – one let off a cloud of orange dye, the other shot steel rods out of its corners to prevent it being secreted anywhere easily – so surprising the would-be armed raider that he dropped it, seriously lacerating his leg.

At this point, two elderly ladies (presumably shopping having just collected their pensions from the post office) emerged from the bakery and showing the defiant spirit that kept the Nazis from our hallowed shores many years ago, began to pelt the shotgun-armed raiders with their weapon of choice and convenience: bread rolls.

Now, while shooting someone (and being shot at) in a desperate gun-battle may add to a criminal’s street-cred, and while carrying through threat of armed force on a victim is par for the course, even our crooked trio, steeped as they were in the depths of underworld culture, found themselves unwilling to blow away two old-age pensioners just for throwing bread at them, and instead decided to seek their ill-gotten gains in the safety of the armoured van. They climbed into the cab and slammed the door shut, satisfied that they had now found the way to their prize.

Wrongly, as it turns out, for even if there had been any cash remaining in the post office van (there wasn’t), it was in the back, and they were in the front, and in the interests of security there was no way betwixt the two inside the van. Reaching this conclusion, our ruthless three sought to exit the van – only to find that, due to foresighted security measures, the doors would not open from the inside without a key – which was still in the hands of the security guards outside.

Relieved at last to be able to demonstrate their macho destructive power, the three pointed their shotguns at the windscreen, determined to blow their way out.

Did I mention this was an armoured van?

Oh yes, it did have bullet-proof glass.

All three suffered serious lacerations from the rebounding pellets, but they did inflict sufficient damage to break the glass to freedom, sliding bloodily over the bonnet of the van and still being pelted by bread rolls, they beat a limping retreat.

The counselling session was intended to help the victims of the raid avoid post-traumatic stress, but the counsellor realized that further sessions would be unnecessary after her asked each of the guards:

“Didn’t you try to apprehend the attackers?”

“No,” they each replied. “We couldn’t stop laughing.”