The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books)

by Robin Barratt

  The two groups stood facing each other over about twenty feet of street. A big Teddy boy, whom I later found out was called Cut-Throat John, stepped forward and shouted towards the blacks, “You fucking golliwogs! You fucking want some? Come on then!” He then ran towards the blacks with a roar and waving a cut-throat razor above his head. The Teds followed suit, roaring and running up the street towards the enemy group. The blacks hesitated for a moment and then, realizing that they were outnumbered, broke ranks and began running back the way they had come. In their panic to get away, a couple of blacks tripped and fell and were quickly swamped by kicking and slashing Teds. I heard the screams above the rest of the noise but I carried on running with the crowd. As we realized that the blacks were getting away, the crowd began to slow down. I launched my milk bottles, one at a time, over the Teds in front of me and heard them smash on the road behind the retreating blacks.

  The walk back to the club was the march of a triumphant army, all back-slapping and laughter at our victory. We had “run” the Brixton blacks and that was worth savouring. Even I, novice as I was, knew that at some stage, maybe next week or next month, they would be back in even greater numbers and things might not go our way then. But for now the Teds were riding high. I noticed a pool of blood on the tarmac near the junction and knew this was where one of the black gang had been caught and battered. As I walked by, the orange street light was reflected in the blood and it made me feel slightly sick. I wondered where the owner of that blood was and how badly he had been hurt. Then I was caught up in the moment again and dismissed the blood and any thought of the victims. I caught up with Eamon, John and Peter who were in very high spirits and we all went back into the club to take the piss out of Dave for missing all the excitement.

  Looking back, I realize that the Teds were what would now be described as “institutionally racist”. In those days a lot of people were and, if the truth were known, a lot of people still are, and not just white people either. I think we’ve just got better at hiding it these days. I’m not a hypocrite and I won’t sit here and pretend to have an attack of the vapours because I fought and verbally abused black gangs when I was younger. It happened, and I took plenty of stick from the other side as well. The 1970s was a pretty confused decade. You could hear the words “nigger” and “honky” on television most weeks and the National Front (NF) was openly recruiting and marching on our streets and football terraces, as was the Anti Nazi League (ANL). A lot of the Teds were NF members, and a few were members of the ANL, but I never joined any of these organizations. My reason for not joining any of the right-wing groups was because both my parents were Irish and the likes of the NF had plans to kick the “paddies” out of England as soon as they had dealt with the blacks and Asians. I had a couple of black friends and there were even a few black Teddy boys, such as Black Bill of Tooting, Olly the Cat of Streatham and Jester of the Shepherd’s Bush Rebels. So, although I may have been casually racist, my loyalty was to rock ’n’ roll and my hatred was for anyone outside of that sphere, whether they were black, white or brown.

  The Johnny Kidd Memorial Night at the Edwardian Club will always live in my memory as a golden time. I was on the verge of getting into something to which I felt I belonged. I believed that rock ’n’ roll was here to stay and that, like Tommy Hogan and the rest of the originals, I too would be bopping and jiving my way into middle age some day. I was proud to be part of it all and to have met such great characters and been accepted at face value. We all ended up pissed that night and singing rock ’n’ roll songs at the tops of our voices as we made our way home. It was a great summer to be a teenager.

  THE KRAYS (UK)

  Notorious British Gangsters

  Introducing … The Krays

  MASSIVE HYPE AND publicity surrounded twins Ron and Reg Kray’s deaths and funerals, as well as the demise of their older brother Charlie Kray. In this remarkable chapter Steve Wraith, a close friend of all three brothers, describes (with writer Stuart Wheatman) attending all three funerals of Krays – the most notorious gangsters in modern-day British history. Steve first contacted the Krays in 1990. He had sent a letter to both twins after the end credits of the film The Krays revealed where they were being held. Reg was the first to reply on the 14 November 1990. A second letter, from Ron, arrived shortly after. From then onwards they wrote a great many times, eventually leading to prison visits and good friendships.

  Reginald “Reggie” Kray and his twin brother Ronald “Ronnie” Kray were born on 24 October 1933 in Hoxton, East London. Reggie was born ten minutes before Ronnie. Their parents Charlie and Violet Kray already had a six-year old son also called Charlie, who was born on 9 July 1927. A sister, Violet, was born in 1929 but died in infancy. In 1939 the Kray family moved from their home in Hoxton to nearby 178 Vallance Road, Bethnal Green.

  The twins were to become the most famous gangsters of their generation and were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, violent assaults including torture, and the murders of Jack “The Hat” McVitie and George Cornell. During the 1950s and 1960s Ron and Reg Kray, along with their elder brother Charlie, were the foremost perpetrators of organized crime in London’s East End. Although Ron Kray suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, in the 1960s they became big celebrities; the nightclub they owned attracted stars and entertainers including Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland, and they were photographed by David Bailey and interviewed numerous times on television.

  At school the Kray twins showed none of their future criminal tendencies. This all started to change after their grandfather, Jimmy “Cannonball” Lee, led both boys into amateur boxing, which was at that time a popular pursuit for working-class boys in the East End. The Kray twins had then formed a gang and were achieving a degree of local notoriety for the trouble they caused. In early 1952 they were both called up for National Service in the army but deserted a number of times and on one occasion the twins assaulted a police officer who had spotted them and was trying to arrest them. They were initially held at the Tower of London (they were among the very last prisoners ever kept there) before being sent to Shepton Mallet military prison in Somerset and jailed for a month awaiting courts-martial. They ended up being given a dishonourable discharge from the army after throwing tantrums, upending their latrine bucket over a sergeant, dumping a kettle of hot tea on a prison guard, handcuffing another prison guard to the prison bars with a pair of stolen cuffs and burning their bedding.

  It was during this period in military prison that Ron started to show the first signs of mental illness. He would refuse to eat, shave only one side of his face and suffer wild mood swings. Guards at the prison were convinced he was dangerously psychotic.

  Their criminal record and dishonourable discharge ended their boxing careers and, as a result, the twins turned to crime. Together they bought a local snooker club in Bethnal Green, where they started several protection rackets and by the end of the 1950s the Krays were involved in hijacking, armed robbery and arson.

  In 1960 Reggie Kray was incarcerated for eighteen months on charges of running a protection racket and while he was in prison, Peter Rachman, the head of a violent landlord operation, gave Ronnie Kray a nightclub called Esmeralda’s Barn in Knightsbridge, London, which significantly increased the Krays’ influence.

  In the 1960s, they were widely seen as prosperous and charming celebrity nightclub owners and a large part of their fame was due to their non-criminal activities as popular figures on the celebrity circuit. “They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world … and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable”, said Ronnie Kray in his autobiography, My Story.

  The police investigated the Krays on several occasions, but the twins’ reputation for violence meant witnesses were afraid to come forward to testify.

  On 12 December 1966 the Krays assisted Frank Mitchell (nicknamed �
��The Mad Axeman”) in escaping from Dartmoor Prison. Once Mitchell was out of Dartmoor, the Krays held him at a friend’s flat in Barking Road. However, as a large man with a mental disorder, he was difficult to deal with and they decided that the only course of action was to get rid of him. His body has never been found and the Krays were acquitted of his murder.

  Ronnie Kray shot and killed George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel on 9 March 1966. A gang war between the Richardsons – the Krays’ rivals who controlled crime in south London – and the Krays had previously started when an associate of the twins, Richard Hart, had been murdered. Ronnie Kray swore to avenge Hart’s death. When George Cornell was seen at the Blind Beggar, Ron took Reg’s driver John “Scotch Jack” Dickson and Ian Barrie, his right-hand man, over to the pub and killed George.

  In October 1967 Reggie was alleged to have been encouraged by his brother Ron to kill Jack “The Hat” McVitie, a minor member of the Kray gang who had failed to fulfil a £1,500 contract paid to him in advance by the Krays to kill Leslie Payne. McVitie was lured to a basement flat in Evering Road, Stoke Newington, on the pretence of a party. As he entered, Reggie Kray pointed a handgun at his head and pulled the trigger twice, but the gun failed to discharge. Ronnie Kray then held McVitie as Reggie stabbed him in the face, neck and stomach. McVitie’s body has still not been recovered.

  When Inspector Leonard “Nipper” Read of Scotland Yard was promoted to the Murder Squad, his first assignment was to bring down the Kray twins. By the end of 1967 he had built up substantial evidence against them, but still not enough for a convincing case on any one charge, mainly because most witnesses were too scared to testify. However, Scotland Yard eventually decided to arrest the Krays on the evidence already collected, in the hope that other witnesses would be forthcoming once the Krays were in custody. On 8 May 1968 the Krays and fifteen other members of their “firm” were arrested. Once the Krays were behind bars and their reign of intimidation was over, many witnesses came forward and it became relatively easy to gain a conviction. Both Ronnie and Reg were sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of thirty years for the murders of Cornell and McVitie, the longest sentences ever passed at the Old Bailey at the time. Their brother Charlie was jailed for ten years for his part in the murders.

  Ronnie was certified insane and lived the remainder of his life in Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, dying of a massive heart attack on 17 March 1995, aged sixty-one. Initially Reggie Kray was a Category A prisoner, denied almost all liberties and not allowed to mix with other prisoners. However, in his later years, he was downgraded to Category C and transferred to Norfolk’s Wayland Prison. He was finally freed from Wayland on 26 August 2000, at the age of almost sixty-seven. He was released on compassionate grounds as a result of having inoperable cancer. The final weeks of his life were spent with his wife Roberta, whom he had married in July 1997 in a suite at the Town House Hotel at Norwich while in Maidstone prison.

  Elder brother Charlie Kray was released in 1975 after serving seven years, but returned to prison in 1997 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine worth £69 million (US$103 million) in an undercover drugs sting. He died of natural causes on 4 April 2000.

  A few months later, on 1 October 2000, Reggie Kray died in his sleep. Ten days later, he was buried alongside his brother Ronnie, in Chingford cemetery, Essex.

  FUNERALS

  By Steve Wraith and Stuart Wheatman

  The day started just like any other. It was 17 March 1995. I had opened the post office (in Gateshead, northeast England) as usual and went through my daily routine of serving the first few customers and then, when it was quiet again, retiring to the back-shop for a cuppa and a read of the paper. I always had the radio turned up high on Radio One or Virgin … as I sat down to glance at the headlines the top news story was announced across the airways: “Former East End gangster Ron Kray has died. He had previously suffered from chest pains and has died of a suspected heart attack. He was sixty-two years old.”

  The news knocked me out of my routine. I was numb. I turned the dial from station to station to confirm what I had just heard. I couldn’t believe it but it began to sink in. Ron had passed away at seven minutes past nine at Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot. Only a couple of days earlier I had sent him a get well card. Everyone knew of his illness. Death may be inevitable, but it is often unexpected.

  It did not take long for the phone to start ringing, but for a change I was lost for words. I asked the journalists to give me a couple of hours to absorb the news before I answered their questions and made comments. I needed to make some phone calls of my own first. I phoned Reg, then Charlie and then Frank and Noelle Kurylo, Janet Alsop, Gary the Gofer, Brad and Kim.

  It was still sinking in the next day, when predictably the papers were full of stories about the twins. I had declined to comment to any of the major tabloids in case I was misquoted. I did talk to the locals … the Journal, the Chronicle and the Gateshead Post whose journalists I knew I could trust. During all this, my mate Ray Cann, the tattoo artist, contacted me to see if I intended to go to the funeral and that he would be willing to give me a lift there and back. I had not even thought about the funeral at this point, but agreed and thanked Ray for the offer. I had already got to know Ray well from our early involvement putting charity events together and now we were good friends. Over the next few days the newspapers carried a different headline, or a different slant, on the Kray story. It was a feeding frenzy. They ranged from Ron’s alleged last words, to a statement he had made before his death that he was the evil twin and that Reg should be exonerated of all blame. For many it will have made for an exciting read; for me it simply hyped up the Kray Legend, and could only be detrimental to any plans of imminent release that Reg may have had.

  Four days later Reg called me with the details for the funeral. The conversation was as follows: “Hello, Steve, Reg here, have you got a pen? [I had] Good. The funeral is Wednesday, March 29th. Make your way to English’s Funeral Parlour. I want you to make sure you get there. If you can’t for whatever reason, be at St Matthew’s Church for eleven. I will make sure you are on the list there as well. I’m organizing the service, so you will get in.”

  I told him that Ron would be proud of him for all he was doing and for being strong. He agreed, saying he was now at peace. He had others to call, so after his usual “God Bless” he was gone.

  I noticed he was a lot calmer than he had been on the day that Ron died. Reg seemed to have come to terms with his brother’s death and was at peace with himself for a change. He seemed to be coping well with it. I phoned Ray and let him know that Reg had asked me to attend the service. He would start making the relevant arrangements … time off work and use of a car for us to travel down. I then phoned Michael Russen, the taxi company owner who I knew in East London, and asked if it would be okay for us to stay at his flat overnight. No problem. He too seemed excited. Okay, I see the attention of a Kray funeral and all that goes with it … but to be excited about a funeral? Never mind. My next call was to a local florist. My mate Fitzy’s wife, Colleen, worked for Sarah Gaskins, a florist’s store in Newcastle, and said they would custom make me a wreath, whatever I wanted, for a discount price. I appreciated the gesture. I had given the wreath a lot of thought and had decided that a cruise liner was appropriate, as Ron had told me on my first visit that it was his dream to go on a round the world trip. I only wish that his dream had become a reality. But he was free now – free from the torment that had imprisoned him.

  The day before the funeral Gary phoned me to organize a meeting on the day. Nine-thirty at the funeral parlour were Reg’s instructions so I arranged to meet Gary fifteen minutes earlier. He did not seem too clear on the arrangements – if he was so close to Reg why did it seem that I was telling him things for the first time? I had suspicions about Gary and his relationship with the Kray family. I decided not to dwell on it for the time being. Mid afternoon, Ray picked
me up in a borrowed car, and after a quick photo-shoot with the wreath for the Evening Chronicle, we set off on our long journey to London. We met up with Mickey Russen at Scratchwood Service Station at the end of the motorway and he drove us the rest of the way into the heart of London.

  There was a lot on my mind that night. Funerals are always horrible things to have to go through, but gangland funerals will always lack that certain emotion you are used to. Gangland funerals are foremost a sign of respect by major figures from all over the country. It is a form of etiquette. All cultures have rules, the funeral marks the fact that the person had influence and people want to travel to show their support. There are different levels of intimacy … I knew Ron well and knew that I was there for my own reasons.

  My first job the next day was to write out the card that would accompany the wreath. I wrote, “You always wanted a round the world cruise. Now you are free to enjoy it. Steve Wraith, Ray Cann, Michael Russen.” Radio Newcastle had asked me to speak to them that morning on their weekly phone-in programme with presenter Mike Parr. I had done a lot of shows with Mike so was prepared for his line of questioning. His stance was, “Why mourn the death of a psychotic gangster?” I told him and the listeners back in the northeast that Ron had been a friend and that his past did not concern me. I knew him now, not as he was in the 1960s. Due to the medication, and because he had been institutionalized for so long, he was a different man to the one the public had read about. My comments apparently caused uproar with the listeners and phone lines were jammed all day with people wishing to voice their concern about that “naive, misled youngster”. Radio Newcastle had never had it so good! The Krays were never going to get good publicity about anything. They are icons of underworld Britain … as I was mourning Ron instead of saying “good riddance”, the moral majority of listeners were saying I didn’t know what I was talking about. I knew more about it than most of them, so I did not let it bother me.