Boreham Wood garage manager Mr Stanley Christianson, 45, of Ripon Way, chased two "hold up" bandits out of his garage on Sunday - with their own shotgun.

The incident happened at The Hyde, Hendon, where Mr Christianson works as a part-time night manager of the Hillfield filling station.

Two gunmen, both in their early 20s, walked into the garage at 1.10am, pointed a loaded .410 shotgun at Mr Christianson’s head and ordered him to empty the till.

"This is a hold-up," they told him.

But they had picked on the wrong man. For Mr Christianson, an ex-soldier in the Regular Army, had received a crash course in Commando training and unarmed combat during the war.

Calmly he removed his glasses and stepped forward a few paces. "Stand back or I’ll kill you," shouted one of the men.

Mr Christianson swept a stool up off the floor and hurled it at his attackers. It hit one of the raiders in the face and smashed a pair of dark glasses he was wearing.

While both men were off their guard, Mr Christianson sprang forward and grabbed the gun barrel. A battle followed, Mr Christianson was kicked and punched but he hung on.

"Directly I had the gun they fled," he told an ‘Observer’ reporter. "I chased them out of the garage forecourt and then went back to telephone the police."

Four years ago, Mr Christianson foiled a £3,000 wages robbery outside his home by climbing on to the bonnet of the raiders’ getaway car.

[From the Watford Observer of September 24, 1965]

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