Billy said, ‘Albert, you’re a slag,’ at which point Albert said to my brother, ‘Give me the gun, Nick.’
As soon as I saw Albert with a gun in his hand, I knew he would pull the trigger. He let two or three go off, and shot Billy in the leg. I pushed Micky Bailey over the balcony to get him out of the way.
Chris, Nicky and I got hold of Albert and took the gun off him. We had to dig the bullets out of the wall and the floor. I was in the middle because I knew all the parties concerned. Billy was a good friend of mine, so I pushed him out the door, telling him, ‘I think you’d better fuck off.’ Which he did. I saw him a couple of weeks later when he came round to see me and Chris, wanting to know how he stood on it.
Albert was also rumoured to have stabbed a man called Billy Amos, who later became a supergrass, in Smithfield Meat Market over a deal involving some clothes. Albert was the buyer. Amos claimed to have been visited in hospital by some of the police who were investigating the Kray firm. He told me the police said: ‘If anything happens to Donaghue, this is yours.’ Meaning, if there were any revenge attacks on Albert, the police would fit up Amos. So obviously Albert was already co-operating with the police.
At this time, though, the only one of us who didn’t trust Albert was Reggie Kray. A couple of years before, Donaghue had fallen foul of the twins, and Reggie had shot him in the leg. I remember Reggie telling me: ‘I never really trusted him after that. How can you ever trust a person you’ve shot?’
Albert wasn’t the only member of the firm to be shot in the leg by Reggie. Another was Nobby Clarke, a villain who’d been with the twins for years. He was about five feet one, Nobby, a real character with a bad little temper, ducking and diving all around. He did a lot of running about for the twins, and he looked after one or two places, but he was really more of a companion for them. We all had a liking for Nobby. He never complained or bragged about the fact that he had been shot by Reggie. It came out of a nothing incident that blew up out of all proportion when Reggie had the hump about something.
So although the general impression of the firm was of one fearsome and united front, we had our own internal troubles every now and again. Additionally, there were undercurrents and needle matches which never actually boiled over into violence but were still very much a part of the atmosphere around the firm at that time.
Connie Whitehead, for instance, was a whipping boy for the twins, even though he’d been with them for years and was a close member of the firm, involved in everything and very capable – the typical Cockney villain who was going places. He was involved in frauds, violence and helped after both the McVitie and Cornell murders, to an extent. Chris and I both liked Connie. When we got to know him, he was a go-between for us in our early dealings with the twins. He used violence only as a last resort, but when he did, he was very useful. For some reason, Ronnie always used to take his rages out on ‘that rat Whitehead’, and the twins always wanted to know where he was – ‘Get hold of Whitehead.’ He would show at the last minute, always looking uncomfortable.
Ronnie Kray kept Tommy Cowley on his toes, too. Tommy, along with businessmen like Leslie Payne and Freddie Gore who fronted companies for the twins, worked on the financial side of the firm – strictly on deals, never violence. Ronnie would always be saying to him, ‘Go out and get me some money.’ Once there were about ten of us in a Turkish club in Liverpool Street, and Ronnie was on about Cowley all night – ‘I hope he’s out there getting me some fucking money.’
All of a sudden, Cowley appeared. Ronnie said: ‘Where the fucking hell have you been?’
Cowley replied, ‘What the fucking hell’s it got to do with you?’
It’s the only time I’ve ever seen anybody other than Reggie or Charlie Kray get away with having a go at Ronnie. He just looked at Cowley as if he didn’t exist.
Cowley was lucky. No one stood a chance against Ronnie Kray, least of all him. I recall one night in a club when a big argument broke out, involving Tommy. I saw words being exchanged. A geezer was having a go at Tommy, and Tommy didn’t want to know. I had to step in on his behalf and do the other bloke with a big glass ashtray.
Outside the small and turbulent world of the firm, bigger problems were beginning to pile up. For Reggie Kray, life turned into a nightmare with the death of his wife Frances from an overdose of barbiturates in June 1967. He went through a very, very bad time within himself, the lowest ebb of his life. For a while, I don’t think he could believe that Frances had gone. He managed to remain in control of everything that was going on, but he was very vulnerable: he was on the bottle, and people in the firm were able to influence him, whereas previously that could never have happened. It may well have been a combination of these things that led him to murder only a few months later.
Reggie had loved Frances and treated her well. After her death he thought a lot about what had happened to her – the bad circumstances under which he had lost her. At times he became virtually unapproachable. He suffered terrible remorse, although there was no way he had anything to do with her dying. It wasn’t his fault: you can’t be responsible for what another person’s going to do.
There were accusations coming from her side of the family, and bad feeling between Reggie and Frankie Shea, Frances’ brother, who had long been a friend of all of us. It was a very awkward situation, but it was understandable: you’ve got two brothers-in-law, and you’ve got a sister and a wife who’s died. Frankie had introduced Frances to Reggie, and I think he thought, ‘If it wasn’t for Reggie, she’d be alive today.’ Reggie was trying to handle the loss of a wife he adored as well as the flak from the Sheas, particularly Frances’ parents who had tried to keep her away from him after they first separated at the end of 1965. They disapproved of Reggie, and involved Frances in what Reg later referred to as a ‘tug of love’, putting pressure on her to leave him. When she did, she suffered a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide twice, but she was about to go on a reconciliation holiday with Reg at the time of her death.
A lot of people have tried to blame Ronnie Kray for the split in the first place. But to me, Ronnie’s attitude appeared to be, ‘They’re married, let them get on with it.’ I don’t believe he was in any way instrumental in breaking up the marriage.
In the dark days after Frances died Reggie seemed capable of doing anything. One night he said to me, ‘You got a car with you, Tony? Drive me round to the Vic.’ The Victory was a pub in Murray Grove, Hoxton. We got in the car and when we got to Old Street, it suddenly dawned on me: he knew Frankie Shea drank in the Vic with a fella called Twiggy Llewellyn.
Despite the fact that Frances and her family were from Hoxton, and the twins themselves had been born there, they generally didn’t like the area or anyone from it. Now Reggie was going to see the very people that he wanted to take it out on. He had a gun on him, and I realised that he was thinking about shooting Frankie Shea. By now, the animosity between them had intensified. Frankie had taken Reggie to court over a debt of £1,000, which I thought was a wrong thing to do. The reason why Reggie hadn’t paid him was purely and simply to get back at him over Frances.
Now, driving towards Hoxton, I found myself in a difficult position, knowing both parties. We’re talking about a Reggie Kray who was not the Reggie Kray that I knew – a man who was bitter about his wife dying, tending to blame the other side. In his shoes I would have felt the same – anybody would – and I understood his feelings, especially since other people were putting a lot of poison in, sticking up Frances’ name while knowing it was a sore point. At the same time I saw the other side of it all and I could never have harmed Frankie Shea; could never have seen him shot.
I parked the car opposite the Victory and sat there for half an hour talking to Reggie as a pal. In my heart of hearts, I was almost certain that Reggie could not have hurt Frankie. If he’d come face to face with him, he’d have been more likely to break down, because every time he saw him he saw Frances; or maybe he might even have given him a few qui
d rather than do anything to him. But when Reggie was in a funny mood, you could never be completely sure.
I said to him, ‘Look, Reggie, you don’t mean it. Come on, you don’t mean it.’ And as we talked, I knew that the moment of danger had passed. Reggie calmed down; he was rational again.
I remember one night at the height of the bad feeling I went into a club called Oscars in Albemarle Street, Mayfair. A lot of the chaps used to drink there at the time. I was talking to the co-owner, Peter Hogg, at the door while my Nicky went on inside. Frankie Shea, who was in there, must have seen my brother, because he came walking out immediately and bumped straight into me.
He said, ‘Am I all right? I know you and Chris are very strong with the twins now.’
I answered, ‘Frank, we go back a long way, we were boyhood friends, and I’d never do anything to harm you. I’d be insulted if you thought I would.’
One day in the Carpenters Arms I said to Reggie, ‘Don’t ask me to go against Frank.’ ‘I wouldn’t,’ he replied.
The police campaign against us was now gathering momentum. We were aware of the pressure increasing gradually, even though we still had no inkling of the lengths the gangbusters were going to, or the amount of information they were gathering. It was now more than a year since Ronnie’s murder of George Cornell in the Blind Beggar, which happened while I was in prison in March 1966.
On the face of it, things couldn’t have looked better for the Kray firm. The twins were at the height of their power and there was no opposition: the law had done them a favour by nicking the Richardson brothers, Charlie and Eddie, and the rest of their gang.
There had been a big rivalry with the Richardsons, dating back to when I first started working and drinking in the West End, with certain incidents causing a build-up of ill feeling. Looking back, there was no need for it. It was all to do with personality clashes and bravado, with everybody doing well and congregating in the same places. We all used clubs like the Astor and the Starlight, for instance, and if a member of one firm walked in and saw five members of another, words weren’t necessary. It wasn’t what was said, it was the whole feel of it. A clash had to come.
Up to then everybody had tended to keep to their own side of things, their own territory, not treading on each other’s toes within the circles. The Richardsons were powerful in south London, we were powerful on our side of the water, and we had other firms connected and allied to each of us throughout London. But then the so-called Swinging Sixties took off.
It was a boom time, and the West End was where it all happened. Everybody wanted a slice of that. The opportunities were there for all of us to get a good living, but people are greedy. Each firm wanted a bit more than the other, so of course it caused conflicts and developed into a power struggle. Several firms were getting their whack out of the West End, but the twins organised it and wound up with a larger slice. In time, though, too many people started trying to jump over each other, especially the south London lot. The Richardsons, who were well known and feared, were expanding fast.
The twins called a meet in a club just south of the river, with the intention of sorting it out. All of the firms in London were expected to attend. The Richardsons, obviously, were invited, but did not send any representatives, which was a direct challenge. So it was decided, rightly or wrongly, that something should be done about them. But unfortunately they were all nicked, barring George Cornell, before anything could happen.
There was a shoot-out in a club called Mr Smith’s in Catford, when the Richardsons and another south London gang had a confrontation. It was alleged that Eddie Richardson was one of the leaders and that he jumped up and challenged the other firm by saying, ‘No more drinks unless you ask me.’ I don’t know the truth of that, because I wasn’t there.
Eddie Richardson was more of a fighter, more of a villain, than his brother Charlie. He was the sort of man who, when he put his mind to something, would do it, and he wouldn’t take shit from anyone.
Charlie, on the other hand, never struck me as a bloodthirsty man. He was first and foremost a businessman, a car dealer, and although he knew his roots, he never suffered fools gladly; he could be hard when he had to be. Allegations were later made that he held kangaroo courts, sat with a wig and gown on, sentenced his victims to torture and generally did outlandish things. I think this was an exaggeration. Charlie never came across to me in that way, although they did have business to do, the Richardsons, and they ran a formidable empire.
They were faced with an equally heavy gang on the night of the Mr Smith’s affair, and all hell broke loose. Frankie Fraser, who was with the Richardsons, was hit by gunfire, and Dickie Hart, a good friend of the twins who happened to be there at the time, was shot dead. Although the twins were not involved in the Mr Smith’s row, their allegiance to other people, namely Dickie Hart, brought them directly into conflict. Ronnie was all for an out-and-out war, and there could only be one winner: Ronnie Kray. With the rest of the Richardsons under lock and key, Ronnie shot George Cornell through the head a day or two later as a come-back, and also as a response to Cornell’s public denouncement of him as a ‘poof’.
The words ‘underworld’ and ‘gangsters’ started coming into play more and more, and the papers were talking about ‘leading underworld characters’. What does that mean? A number of men who drank together in a pub in the East End?
These days such a thing as an underworld exists even less than it did then. Very few successful professional criminals associate with each other. They are very paranoid. They try to live a middle-class life where everything looks legal even though it isn’t. I won’t deny there are people who rob security vans and banks, using members of different firms. But I prefer to call them ‘circles’. And ‘gangster’ is a word I find very embarrassing. I hate to be called that – it’s a movie name.
The things we did, we referred to as business. We didn’t do them for fun. We didn’t see any point in gaining a reputation only to get nothing out of it. Our game didn’t involve pleasure; we did it professionally. It was a business thing, and a business thing only. It was never personal, unless the challenge to the authority of the firm was issued on a personal level. If violence had to be done in a professional way to someone else, it was always referred to as business.
Nothing was ever done without good reason. Reputations were there to be pulled down, and it was the twins’ job to make sure that nobody could do that. They succeeded brilliantly. They were a one-off: if anybody had the right to be called ‘gangsters’, they did. In a way they belonged in the Chicago days, and that’s how they were viewed at the time.
They did almost all of their own villainy, even though they didn’t have to. Granted, they had to be seen to be able to do it, where violence was concerned, but they had established that long ago. I think they were the type of people who wanted to be able to say, ‘Look, don’t worry about that, we don’t need anyone.’
When the Mafia men came over the twins looked after them well, but they let it be known that they were not going to hand over any of their business interests in London. They were the guv’nors. I think the Mafia were a bit wary of them, especially Ronnie, but they did respect them.
And so, for a while, life carried on profitably and without competition; and even though the twins, unknowingly, had one or two bad apples in the firm, they still had some good men around them. Ian Barrie, Ronnie’s personal minder and an ex-military man, had had an accident in a tank. It had caught fire, leaving him badly scarred from his ear right the way down one side of his neck. It didn’t spoil his looks, though, and I thought it gave him a better character. Ian was thoroughly trustworthy. He never spoke about what he got involved in – not even Ronnie’s shooting of Cornell, which he witnessed – and he never complained, before or after the convictions. He was genuine and gentlemanly, a very deep thinker who never showed his feelings or put anyone down. Everything he said was constructive. He did what he thought he had to do, and that was it. He gave us
help and back-up no matter what, and I never heard anyone say a bad word about him. He was very well thought of by the twins and the rest of us. Ronnie could never have picked a better man: he was a credit to Scotland.
The twins were also very lucky to have someone like Ronnie Bender around them. He was another ex-Army man, a big, jovial, good-looking fella and an accomplished all-round sportsman, hence his nickname of the Captain. He was very good-humoured by nature – until someone upset him, and then he could be a handful, as tough as they come. He wasn’t someone to rub up the wrong way: he would stand up to anybody. Ronnie was a man’s man, a bloke who proved himself at the end of the day and who always showed concern for people, regardless of his own problems. He was a diamond.
Big Pat Connolly was another very likeable character. Huge in both height and weight, Big Pat came in and out of the firm from time to time as a front-line soldier. He was a minder in various clubs, and if there was an immediate problem anywhere the twins would put him on the door. Just after the murder of George Cornell, Pat was stationed in Vallance Road with a pump action shotgun and told to stay there and mind the door of the Krays’ house. Cornell’s widow went round there, threw a brick through the window and caused a scene. Pat didn’t know what she was on about, and simply told her to go away.
Chris and I attracted more than our share of attention from the police throughout 1967: we were being investigated on suspicion of two murders. One was the killing of a man called Tony Mafia, who was a very good friend of another villain, Buller Ward.
Ward lived at Haggerston, same as us, and he knew our parents. He had close ties with leading figures in the London circles, and he looked the part. Chris and I had had our own connections with the family from an early age. One day at the beginning of the fifties, we were walking along the Regents Canal between Hoxton and Queensbridge Road when a kid fell in the water. Unbeknown to us it was Buller Ward’s son, Bonner, and he always respected us for saving him from drowning.
Inside the Firm - The Untold Story of The Krays' Reign of Terror Page 14
