SAFE AND SOUND
The unlikely but substantial contribution of legendary Lanarkshire safecracker Johnny Ramensky to Britain’s war effort during World War II is one of Scotland’s most engaging stories, finds Kenny Smith
The thick, heavy iron key turned in the lock. The door opened, and prisoner John Ramsay was released from Peterhead Prison. But this was no ordinary incidence of a convicted criminal being freed at the end of their sentence. This was a career criminal being released from custody, to join the British war effort in 1943.
Ramsay – better known as Johnny Ramensky – had established himself as a career criminal, who was an expert in escapology and safecracking. When he died in 1972, Ramensky had spent more than 40 of his 67 years behind bars.
Ramensky was the son of Lithuanian migrants, Wincas and Mare Ramanauckas, and was born Yonas Ramanauckas on 6 April 1905 in Glenboig, a mining village near Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire. Wincas worked in the mines, but died in 1913 at which stage Mare uprooted the family, with his sisters Agnes and Margaret, and moved to Glasgow into the tough Gorbals area where he fell in with a group of young men who were frequently in trouble. Thus began Ramensky’s many brushes with the law.
After leaving school at 14, Ramensky followed in his father’s footsteps and worked in the mines, which brought him into contact with dynamite – which would play a part in his future career. In 1921, aged 16, Ramensky was sent to borstal at the Polmont institution in Falkirk, which aimed to rehabilitate young offenders. It may have worked on some, but not on Johnny, who was released three years later.
Ramensky was young, strong and fit, and possessed of great athleticism. In Glasgow during the Depression money was so hard to come by that he took to theft. However, Ramensky refused to become a housebreaker, and instead targeted businesses and banks, rather than homes. His robberies would see him climb up external pipes to gain entry to buildings, where he would use his knowledge of explosives to open safes. He also developed a skill for picking locks.