A FORMER taxi driver who once drove a Great Train Robber to prison in Oxford has died aged 82.

Norman ‘Topper’ Brown, was born in St Ebbe’s in 1927 to parents Beatrice and Thomas Brown, a boatman for Salter’s Steamers.

Described by his family as a “happy-go-lucky joker”, Mr Brown was well known in Oxford through his association with the Waterman’s Arms’ Aunt Sally team, his job as a taxi driver, and later as caretaker at the Cowley Conservative Club.

Mr Brown began his working life at 14 delivering coal around the city from the back of a horse and cart, before he was drafted to fight in the Second World War.

He was later discharged after being shot in the leg.

He met his wife Mary Griffin at a New Year’s Eve Party in 1954 in the Paradise House pub, in Paradise Square, and they married six months later at St Giles’ Register Office.

Mrs Brown said: “He was a happy-go-lucky character, liked a joke and a drink. In his day he was the life and soul of the party.

“He was well known in Oxford for his antics. He loved to get out to work and even when he retired he carried on working at the Conservative Club.

“He couldn’t bear to be indoors.”

After Mr Brown returned from fighting in the war he began a career as a taxi driver and worked for several local firms including the now defunct Citax. He then took on a contract with the prison service, during which time he had the job of driving one of the Great Train Robbers to the city’s former prison.

His daughter Ann remembered that her father would often give free lifts to her friends and their children if he saw them waiting at a bus stop.

She said: “I would say to him – ‘Dad, you didn’t have to do that’, but he said he just couldn’t have driven past them in the rain.

“That’s just what he was like. He would do anything for anyone.”

He leaves his wife Mary, daughter Ann and grandchildren Eugene, Lydia, Marlin, and Brittanie.

Mr Brown’s funeral will be held at St Barnabas Church, in Jericho, on Friday, at 10am. All are welcome.