It was a scene that would surely have brought a smirk to the lived-in face of Ronnie Biggs.

Sitting in front of a Monopoly board clutching a handful of dodgy-looking money was Charles Pollard, the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police.

But this was no ordinary Monopoly board.

This was the most famous Monopoly board in English criminal history, passed on to Thames Valley Police courtesy of the Great Train Robbers. The board was discovered when police raided Leatherslade Farm, near Thame, soon after the robbers had fled their bolt hole.

The gang - who back in 1963 snatched more than £2.6m from the Glasgow to London mail train - played on the board using piles of real banknotes.

Monopoly had apparently been a welcome diversion from the monotony of counting their loot.

Now the board, handcuffs and other items found in the isolated farm, or near the scene of the robbery 30 miles away, form the star attractions at the Thames Valley Police museum at Sulhamstead, near Pangbourne.

Usually material from the Great Train Robbery archive can only be viewed by appointment. But to mark National Museums Week the police are inviting visitors to step back in crime. A special public exhibition was open today and from 11am to 4pm tomorrow.

Museum curator Sue Healy said the aim was to give a picture of the force's whole history.

"The exhibits include materials relating to high profile cases - but we will also be tracing not only the history of Thames Valley, but the police service in general," she said.

"We may even have people coming along who recognise a relative who used to serve in Thames Valley Police. It is not meant to be a Black Museum. We want it to appeal to families."

The helmet of Major John Howard, the Oxford police officer who led the 1944 liberation of Europe with the D Company of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, is on display. There is also a birch, apparently used by police to punish boys in the reign of Queen Victoria. Many of the displays have been made possible by a bequest from the former Deputy Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police, Mr Len Dolby, who died last year.

As Mr Pollard left the Monopoly Board his thoughts were closer to home than Ronnie Biggs and company. "There was no policing at all before 1829, the community was self policing," he noted. "The exhibition should remind us that the community still has a big role in policing in the 1990s."

You can be sure not many players have left that Monopoly board with such pure thoughts.

Story date: Friday 21 May

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.