Wannabe in My Gang?

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  The Kray twins donated a signed photograph and a picture that Ronnie had painted in Broadmoor. The picture looked as if a three-year-old had painted it. It was a house on a hill. The hill was green. The house was orange and red. There was a tree by the side of it that looked more like a stick with a green blob on the top. The sky was black and to me that said more about the state of Ronnie’s mind than his obvious lack of artistic talent.

  I wasn’t sure anybody would want to hang it on a wall in their home, but I was certain somebody would buy it just because ‘a Kray had painted it’. I was sitting in the garden one afternoon when the telephone rang. Debra answered it and then called out to me.

  ‘Bernie, there’s a man on the phone. He says his name is Reggie Kray and he wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Here we go,’ I said. ‘Some fucking unemployed fool I’ve met with nothing better to do than play jokes on people.’

  I went in and picked up the receiver. The man on the other end of the line sounded elderly, weak and almost effeminate.

  ‘All right, Bernie? This is Reggie Kray.’

  ‘Oh yes, and what can I do for you, Reggie?’ I still thought someone was trying to wind me up so I was being sarcastic.

  ‘I’ve read the article you sent me about the boy James Fallon. My brother and I have sent you a painting, but we just wondered if we could do any more to help. We just wanted to offer our assistance.’

  I have to admit that I was quite shocked when I realised it was in fact Reggie Kray who was on the phone.

  I had always imagined him to be a powerful, menacing man who would speak with a deep intimidating tone. How wrong I was; he sounded just like Corporal Jones off the TV series Dad’s Army.

  I told Reggie that I was organising a charity auction in Wolverhampton and that was going to be it, as far as I was concerned, so I didn’t really need any help.

  ‘Well, we just wanted you to know that we’re thinking about the boy and if we can help you, we will,’ said Reg.

  We exchanged pleasantries and Reg said that he would keep in touch by letter to see how James was getting on. I put the phone down and thought no more about it.

  The Krays had earned their infamous reputation from the way they had controlled the East End of London during the 1960s. They had beaten, stabbed, shot and even murdered rival gang members on their way to the top of the criminal heap, but were as well known for their charitable acts as their violent outbursts and many in the East End saw them as Robin Hood-type figures. I couldn’t see anything wrong with the Krays being associated with the Fallon cause. In fact I thought it could only have been a positive thing. They knew a lot of people and never failed to generate interest where the media was concerned. To raise money for James, I would have to give his plight as much exposure as possible and the name Kray would certainly help me achieve that. For now, I didn’t need anything other than the items they had so kindly donated, as they would be enough to give me the publicity I needed.

  I booked the Connaught Hotel in Wolverhampton, which is one of the better hotels in the city. I also secured the services of a local band called The Sect, who agreed to play free of charge. A local DJ also agreed that he would provide his services for free. I was reasonably confident that the event was going to be a success.

  Ticket sales, however, were non-existent. I could only put the lack of local support down to two factors.

  Firstly, at that time, the mid- to late ’80s, there was a lot of anti-South African feeling in reaction to the apartheid laws. Trade sanctions had been imposed against the country by Britain and many other Western nations. It wasn’t politically correct for people to have anything to do with the country and, particularly, with white South Africans.

  The main reason, I guessed, was that as young men growing up in the Wolverhampton area, my elder brothers and I had been nothing but trouble. We had all been imprisoned and convicted of numerous violent offences and people felt intimidated by us. I just don’t think that anybody wanted to be involved with anything we were doing, regardless of what or who we were doing it for.

  My attitude was ‘Fuck them’ – I wasn’t going to let their petty mindset interfere with my efforts to help a child. As the event drew nearer, my elder brother Paul, who lived in Brixton, south London, my younger brother Michael, who still lived in Wolverhampton, and I decided to visit the pubs and clubs in the city in order to generate interest and sell tickets.

  We were going from pub to pub, leaving tickets with landlords and asking customers to buy them, but they were all claiming to be short of money or ‘busy that night’. I hate fucking ponces and tight people.

  Rightly or wrongly, their attitude didn’t put me in the best of moods. I was annoyed that so-called ‘decent people’ could hold petty prejudices and in a sad attempt to spite me, withhold a meagre £5 note from a 10-year-old paralysed boy who was fighting for his life.

  As we continued touting the tickets, we came across what I can only describe as a group of drunken louts who were hanging about in the street. They were behaving like drugged-up monkeys, hurling wastepaper bins, screeching and throwing chips at one other.

  As we walked by, somebody threw a chip that hit me on the back and one of them called me a ‘wanker’. I turned around and asked who had thrown the chip. Nobody said anything, so I asked who had called me a wanker. Again, nobody answered so I started to walk away with my brothers. I really wasn’t in the mood to be dealing with these people. Once more, the abuse started and one or two of them were mimicking me and laughing. They’d had their chance, so I walked up to who I thought was the culprit and punched him in the face.

  He immediately lost his swaggering bravado and started whimpering, ‘Please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me. I haven’t done anything.’ One of his friends began to run to a nearby telephone box – so as to ring the police, I assumed. I didn’t relish the thought of being arrested for the likes of these people, so I ran over to try and stop him. Meanwhile the man I had hit, Stuart Darley, was getting brave again and shouting further obscenities, so I left his friend and walked back over to where he was standing. I hit him again to shut his drunken mouth. I know what some people might say – it’s violent, it’s wicked – but vulnerable people like my elderly mother have to walk those same streets and endure that sort of intimidating, loutish behaviour. The gang quickly dispersed. My brothers and I carried on with what we had set out to do.

  The following day, my brother Paul and I returned to our homes in the south and Michael remained in Wolverhampton. Around midday I got a phone call from Michael, who said that the police had arrested him that morning and charged him with assault. They told Michael that they were also going to arrest Paul and me, so we should contact them at the earliest opportunity. It was typical: somebody starts something, comes unstuck and calls the police. No doubt it would have been a different story if the gang had kicked some old man around the streets after he had objected to being called names and having food thrown at him.

  I wasn’t too concerned. In my mind, I had done no wrong and the police could wait. I wasn’t going to jump into my car and go to hand myself in; I would make myself available to them when it suited me.

  The event for James was scheduled to take place later that week and everything seemed to be in place. The local newspaper advertised the event and I had even managed to get it a plug on the local radio station. The venue and the entertainment were booked and all the items I had to auction were in Wolverhampton, so my presence was not essential. If I did attend and the police arrested me, then it would have been embarrassing for James’s grandparents and everyone concerned, so I thought, for everyone’s sake, it would be best if I stayed away. I rang James’s grandmother and explained that I wouldn’t be able to attend the event because of ‘personal problems’. I didn’t tell her about the police because I didn’t want to concern her; I just said that everything was sorted and that all she needed to do was turn up. The night after the charity auction, Michael rang me and said that
there was an article in The Express and Star about the event.

  He warned me that it didn’t make pleasant reading:

  CHARITY NIGHT FOR CRASH BOY A SHAMBLES

  A charity evening in aid of a former Codsall boy who was horribly injured in a car crash raised barely £40 after only 20 people turned up.

  The disco and auction at Wolverhampton’s Connaught Hotel last night was described as a shambles by the boy’s grandmother, Mrs Rita Nicholson.

  Mrs Nicholson of Wilkes Road, Codsall, hoped to raise hundreds of pounds for equipment desperately needed for her 11-year-old grandson, James Fallon. He had a seven-hour operation after a road smash in South Africa last September. James, formerly of Wilkes Road, Codsall, is now back at home with his parents in Johannesburg, but they have been told he will never recover from his paralysis.

  His grandparents aimed to buy him a computer he can work with his eyes so he can start to communicate with those around him again. Mrs Nicholson said: ‘I don’t know why people didn’t turn up last night but it was disappointing. The hotel has offered to let us have the room again some time in the autumn and we will be trying to organise another and more successful event.’

  I was absolutely appalled by, and ashamed of, what had happened. I couldn’t understand how people could snub such a young boy who was suffering so much. I didn’t care what they thought about me, but it bothered me that people could turn their back on a boy like James.

  A few days later, Reggie Kray wrote to me and asked me how the event had gone. I sent him the newspaper article and explained to him why I had not been able to attend. I told him that I wasn’t going to let it end there; I was determined to do something to help James. It felt personal now. I told Reg that if the offer he and his brother Ron had made earlier still stood, I wanted to take them up on it. When Reggie received the letter, he telephoned me and said that I shouldn’t worry about other people because he and his brother Ronnie would now assist me with my efforts to help James. One of the many aids James needed cost about £40,000 – a specialised computer that would be attached to James so that he could communicate with people by moving his eyes.

  Reg said that he and Ron were going to try and raise the money to buy this computer. To show he was sincere, Reg sent me a letter pledging all proceeds from his book Slang to James. I had no idea how much this gesture was worth. I guessed it would be several thousand pounds so I was extremely happy when I rang to tell the Fallons the news. Good news for them had, after all, been rare of late. Reggie’s kind offer was reported in several national newspapers and it seemed his generosity knew no limits. The Sun reported that the book would make £80,000, and James’s mother was quoted as saying, ‘I don’t care what the Krays have done in the past, to us they are saints.’

  Reggie, flattered by the positive publicity that he had received, started ringing me four or five times a day. He said that he knew a lot of people in London, including celebrities, who would help, so, by hook or by crook and using his contacts we could pull this off.

  ‘You will have to link up with a few of my people,’ Reg said. ‘I will give them your number and they will call you within the next few days.’

  What should have been a straightforward fundraising event was turning into a bit of a roller-coaster ride. The police were looking for me, I had been snubbed by the people I grew up with and the event had been a shambles. I had surely endured all of the lows, but now, with the Krays on board, I felt I could achieve what I had set out to do.

  My efforts to raise funds for James were now taking up most of my time. I didn’t think about it or realise until later, but my own family were beginning to suffer because I was working fewer hours and this had resulted in a dramatic fall in my income. My weakness is that I never do things by half – it’s all or nothing with me – and to be honest this has never caused me anything other than grief. The blinkers were on and I was determined to show the locals that their childish snub had not deterred me.

  The first of ‘Reggie’s people’ to telephone me was a Scotsman named James Campbell, who lived in Chigwell, Essex. He introduced himself, as is common with people who knew the Krays, not with ‘My name’s James Campbell’, but with ‘My name’s James. I’m a friend of the Krays.’ Reggie, he said, had asked him to get in touch with me and I was to expect another call from a man named Peter Gillett. Campbell told me that Gillett had recently formed a PR company called Progress Management, which had been set up to sell Kray merchandise and campaign for the release of the twins. ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘that will be great. I need as much help as I can get at the moment’.

  ‘Give us a couple of weeks while I look at a few possible events,’ Campbell said, ‘and then I will be back in touch with you.’

  I felt better about the situation, to be honest. With other people now taking on some of the work I could dedicate more time to putting my own affairs in order and earn some much-needed money for my family.

  About a week later I got a call from Peter Gillett, who introduced himself as Reggie Kray’s ‘adopted son’. Gillett had got to know Reggie whilst serving time for armed robbery in Parkhurst Prison. They soon became romantically linked after they had both been interviewed by the press.

  Reg was quoted as saying: ‘Peter is the best friend I have ever had. He makes me feel young again.’

  Gillett, however, was a little more forthcoming when he was asked about his feelings for Reg: ‘It’s an intimate relationship, but we aren’t bent. It’s like a homosexual affair without sex and I’m closer to Reg than I have ever been to anyone, even my wife.’

  Gillett’s ambition was ‘to be a pop star’ so Reg used his contacts to promote him, but his singing career never did take off. Instead of stardom, he settled for forming Progress Management, which was nowhere near as lucrative or glamorous.

  I asked Gillett what I could do for him and to my surprise he accused me of trying to con Reggie Kray out of several thousand pounds. I asked him what the fuck he was on about and who the fuck did he think he was talking to. Gillett claimed that he had done checks on the Fallon family. He said he had found out that Elaine Fallon lived in a huge house with servants and had a bottomless pit of money at her disposal. To cap it all, he claimed that the fundraising for James was a con made up by me to get money out of Reggie Kray.

  I politely told him to fuck off and put the phone down. I was totally shocked by what I had heard as I knew the Fallon family were far from rich. I had lived on the same council estate as them and I knew they wouldn’t dream of using their son’s tragic accident to con money out of people. I was still shaking with fury when I sat down to write Reggie a letter. I asked him who the hell this Gillett was, phoning me up and accusing me and the Fallons of conning people.

  ‘If you and yours are going to give us all this shit,’ I told him, ‘then I can do without your money and your help.’

  It caused quite a lot of bad feeling to say the least. I didn’t want to trouble the Fallons with Gillett’s allegations, but I felt I had to put them in the picture just in case he contacted them directly. I rang James’s grandmother and explained to her about the various allegations being made. She said that she was ‘really annoyed about this Peter Gillett. Elaine has a modest, three-bedroom, one-storey house. She has no servants whatsoever. They are in debt up to their eyes. They have had to borrow money for the equipment James needs.’ I told her not to worry about it – I had contacted Reggie and I would let her know what he had to say.

  When Reggie received my letter, he rang me and explained that I should ignore Gillett as people intent on causing trouble had given him the wrong information. ‘He’s only looking out for me,’ Reg said. ‘Somebody told him all that knowing he would react and I might fall out with him over it.’

  I wished I had stuck with my original decision to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to the Krays, but I thought that perhaps it was ‘all just a misunderstanding’, as Reg said.

  Shortly after my introduction to Campbell and Gillett, I receiv
ed a phone call from a lady who introduced herself as Kate Howard. Kate said she was Ronnie Kray’s fiancée and he had asked her to contact me. She said that Ronnie had heard about the shambles in Wolverhampton and wanted James’s mother’s address so he could send her a cheque for £500 to make amends. If I needed any more help with James, I was to speak to Kate and she would get things done if possible. I thanked Kate and told her I would keep her up to date with James and the efforts to raise funds for him.

  Kate, a tubby bleached blonde, had only recently got to know the twins. She had written to Reggie in Gartree Prison after she had read a book about their lives. This was how most of their associates had got to know the Krays; few appeared to be true friends and most were more like members of some macabre fan club. Reg said that there was something in Kate’s letter that made him think that he could do business with her. What ‘business’ was beyond me. Kate, I learned, ran a chauffeur-driven car-hire company and, as a side line, a tacky ‘strip-o-gram’ service.

  Reggie had put Gillett in touch with Kate in July 1988 and despite the fact Kate was married, she and Gillett quickly became lovers. Kate began talking to friends about how she was going to live with Gillett and Reggie in a country mansion once Reggie was released. Her plans were dashed, however, when one afternoon, whilst in bed with Gillett, she let it slip that her husband was dying of multiple sclerosis. Disgusted that Kate was sharing his bed whilst her husband was so ill, Gillett ordered her out of the house. A few days later he took her to Gartree Prison in an attempt to convince Reg that he shouldn’t have anything more to do with her. Gillett reckoned she was lacking in sensitivity and principles.