In the end there wasn’t a scrap – thanks to another con called Bobby Cummines.
Reggie told me: ‘Me and Ron liked Bobby. We met him at the Old Bailey. We were on trial for murder. He was being done for a sawn-off shotgun. And he was only sixteen, for fuck’s sake. Both me and Ron thought the little fella had a lot of guts.’
So when Reg and Bobby found themselves banged up at Parkhurst, it was natural that they would become friends. And it was Bobby, in his new role as peacemaker, who brokered a deal between Reg and Charlie. Both would keep a respectful distance between each other – there would be no violence – as neither wanted the authorities to punish them with additional time on top of the already massive sentences they were serving.
As Reggie put it to me: ‘Bobby probably had a blade from a pair of shears hidden inside his shirt. Nobody takes any chances inside Parkhurst. It’s dog eats dog. It’s survival of the fittest. In any event, after that, me and Charlie got along OK. We agreed to not agree, if you see what I mean. There wasn’t any bother.’
Ironically, after the peace talks, Bobby probably got closer to Charlie than he’d even been to Reggie. Charlie, a big reader and a far deeper and more thoughtful and intelligent man than most people ever gave him credit for, found a willing disciple in Bobby. He taught Bobby a lot, and I believe that Bobby will give Charlie Richardson much of the credit for his new path in life.
Charlie Richardson, not a man given to false praise, told me before he died: ‘Bobby Cummines is a very intelligent man. If he’d not chosen to be a villain he could have been the fuckin’ prime minister! What a waste. Still, it didn’t turn out badly for him, did it? Got himself a gong from the Queen. And they’ll probably make him a fuckin’ Sir one day! I wouldn’t put it past the little feller. And good luck to him.’
I first met Bobby Cummines in St Matthew’s Church, in Bethnal Green, in the East End. It’s the church where all three of the Kray brothers – Reg, Ron and long-suffering older brother, Charlie – had their funeral services. It’s also close to their old home in Valence Street. Bobby himself cut quite a striking figure as he entered the church; smaller than I expected, but tough and wiry. He was a fit little bugger, and was always turned out immaculately. On this occasion he wore a beautifully tailored, expensive grey suit, gleaming black shoes, crisp white shirt and a red tie. His hair was neat and tidy. In fact, that’s probably the perfect word to sum up Bobby – neat.
With him was a most attractive Japanese lady whom he introduced as his wife, Ami. And with them was their son, a quiet and respectful young lad.
During that cold, crisp but sunny winter Saturday we were filming an hour-long documentary for Sky Television’s Crime Investigation Channel on the legacy of the Kray twins.
The day had started in The Carpenter’s Arms pub in Cheshire Street – which Reg and Ron had once owned – just a short walk from St Matthew’s Church. They bought it for their mum, and as a sort of private club for them and members of the Kray firm. A painting of Reg and Ron still hangs in the bar.
This particular morning, we’d interviewed two of the original Kray firm. Even though it was before ten o’clock in the morning, they’d managed to polish off the contents of a bottle of brandy, but were still relatively coherent as they tottered off to another nearby boozer.
After that, we recorded several links for the programme and then walked the few hundred yards down the road to the church. We did the interview with Bobby Cummines, sitting in a pew near the front of the church. It was, as ever with Bobby, a cracking interview. He told it as it was – as he always does – in those far from halcyon days with Reg Kray and the other inmates of Parkhurst Prison.
He described a daily battle for survival and a regime of fear.
As Bobby put it: ‘You had to give respect to everyone. You had to speak to everyone. If you didn’t wish some of the prisoners “Good morning”, the chances were that they would take it as a slight and come after you.’
Bobby himself was always tooled up with the blade from a pair of shears – just in case. He painted a graphic picture of that time. He gave a full description of Reggie Kray and told how he coped with the prospects of endless years of incarceration. Bobby also described how Reggie dealt with the daily threat of attacks from one of the ‘young pretenders’, who thought they could make a name for themselves by taking out King Kray.
Reg was always prepared for an attack and always surrounded himself with young thugs who were prepared to die for this underworld legend.
It was a gripping interview. So it was natural that when Sky commissioned a series called Fred Dinenage’s Murder Casebook, looking back at murder cases from the past, one of our regular contributors would be Bobby Cummines.
Bobby understood the criminal mind and, just as important, he’s so articulate that he can explain it to the viewer. We interviewed him a couple of times at Arundel jail in Sussex, which is no longer in use. It was built in 1836 beneath Arundel Town Hall and used to house inmates after they had been convicted in the courtroom upstairs.
The old cells were still there. It’s a spooky place, a hotbed for the paranormal – it’s claimed it’s full of ghosts. I don’t know about that. But I do know that Bobby refused to allow himself to be filmed behind bars in one of the cells. Too many bad memories, perhaps?
Later, when we were making a film about Charlie Richardson, we interviewed Bobby on the set of the ITV drama series, The Bill. And very realistic that was, too.
Again Bobby was in top form, maybe even more so than on the Kray documentary, because he’d been very close to Charlie in Parkhurst. Many people say it was Richardson who got Bobby thinking about the future, who persuaded Bobby to read books, and changed the course his life would take. But that’s for Bobby himself to describe in this book.
All I would add is that I’ve interviewed a lot of criminals over the years, but few have impressed me as much as Bobby Cummines. What a pity he chose the path he did so early in his life. Otherwise, as Charlie Richardson said, maybe he could have ended up as our prime minister. Who knows? Maybe one day he will …
I wouldn’t put it past the little fella.
Fred Dinenage, January 2014
APPENDIX I
BOBBY’S GLOSSARY
I thought it would be interesting to write down some of the words and phrases used by firms in London in the 1970s. You will see examples in the book, although I have tried to explain them where possible.
A bit of bird or a stretch: jail sentence
A bit of work: criminal activity
A blade: knife or a razor
A blag: armed robbery
A bullseye: £50
A diamond: a solid person with the highest possible reputation
A drink: giving someone money
A face: well-known villain
A fixer: peacemaker
A grand: £1,000
A piece: handgun
A ruck: a fight
A score: £20
A ton: £100
Apples and pears: stairs
Bag man: one who takes the bag from a security man or takes money from the tills
Barnet: hair
Bent gear: stolen goods
Bit of tom: jewellery
Boat race: face
Brown bread: dead
Bung: bribe
Chokey or block: solitary confinement
Cleaning money: money laundering
Cockle: £10
Contract: a death sentence
Creeper: burglar
Deps: depositions of a trial
Dog and bone: telephone
Educate: teach or punish
Ghosted: removal of disruptive prisoner to another jail
Going copper, cat’s arse or grass: police informant
Going up the steps: going to the Old Bailey
Heavy game: crimes involving violence or death
Jam jar: car
Jekyll and Hyde: snide or fake
Jump up: stealing from the
backs of lorries
Kiss the Axminster: get on the floor
Kneecapping: shooting someone in the legs
Long firm: organised fraud
Mule: drug smuggler
Nanny goat: coat
Nonce: sex offender
On the firm: part of a crime family
On your toes: on the run
Pavement man: one who controls the street
Peter: prison cell or a safe
Plates of meat: feet
Pop one in the ceiling: shotgun fired at the ceiling
Pushing up daises: person is buried
Rat: a person without honour
Safe house: where you meet before the robbery and go back afterwards
Saucepan lids: the kids
Sawn-off: cut-down shotgun
Screws: prison officers
Snide gear: counterfeit goods
Spiller: illegal drinking and gambling club
Stinger: shotgun cartridge with buckshot taken out and rock salt put in
Strong arm: demanding money with menaces
Sweeney: police’s heavy mob
Thrupenny bits: tits
Tool merchant: someone who uses weapons or supplies them
Trouble and strife: wife
Well recommended: someone from another firm who comes on to your firm
Whacked: killed
Wheel man: driver for villains
APPENDIX II
BOBBY’S POEMS
I hope you enjoyed my poem, ‘The one who locked my door’. Here are a few others, written in solitary confinement:
TONGUE IN CHEEK
Now I don’t mind this solitary
Because my thoughts, like birds, take flight
I can go just where I choose
You can never deny me that right
In my mind I have travelled
Even to where you are
Hovering high above you
And you thought me just a star
I think they have begun to realise
Solitary is no punishment to me
As I sit in the middle of this bare cell
And smile back at them happily
I see the havoc in their minds
If only they really knew
I am sure they would sit down with me
And come and travel too
FOR YOU
I wish that for a day you could be me
See the world through my eyes
Then you could see how I now see
And my pain you would realise
You would hear the voice of my soul
Give comfort to those in pain
You will understand I judge no man
For nobody is without blame
You will understand how deep I feel
You will know, too, the depths of my love
For all the things that move upon this earth
And the birds that fly above
But in a way I am glad you’re not me
That you cannot feel as I do
For each of us is a priceless jewel
Which means you are priceless too
LOVE’S POWER
I have killed
It meant nothing to me
I have lived like a king
It meant nothing to me
I have been tortured
It meant nothing to me
I have dared myself to dream
It meant nothing to me
I have made my own philosophy
It meant nothing to me
I have made violence my voice
It meant nothing to me
I have been a god
It meant nothing to me
I fell in love
It made me mortal
A PRISON SUICIDE
What kind of perverse, sick system
Can make a man turn to the rope?
What kind of brutal apathy
Can take away all hope?
What frame of mind were you in?
That your friends you could not tell?
What kind of suffering did you feel
That made your life a hell?
What was your final thought, my friend
That you had upon this Earth?
The thought that said ‘End it all’
And return to the place before birth
What was it that made your soul
Decide it wanted to be free?
It was the penal code devised by man
That you suffered along with me
PAPER TIGERS
He struts along this cell block
He thinks he’s a chap
He is easily recognised
He talks mostly crap
He will tell you he’s a gangster
But there’s no need for alarm
He is only a paper tiger
Says a red band on his arm
He is an empty vessel
That makes so much noise
But please don’t disillusion him
He is one of the boys
He deludes himself in thinking
He’s the cock of the walk
But they’ve given him a red band
To prove he’s only talk.
[Note: A prisoner who was trusted by staff was known as a ‘trustee’ and wore a red band. They could walk around the prison unescorted. They were not trusted by the other prisoners!]
THOSE WHO STUDY LAW
A wig, a gown, a bible, a pen
These are the tools of your trade
And you quote strange words from your dusty books
A list of laws men have made
You choose your words so carefully
So they cannot be twisted by knaves
For you are duty bound to uphold the laws
They dictate how men behave
But justice and laws are two strange things
And they do not always agree
And it is at such time that a jury
Must decide what the verdict must be
It is at such times we pray to God
That their verdict will be correct
Because if it’s wrong, no matter which way
Then the laws are in neglect.
THAT HAPPY LITTLE BIRD
A bird flew around my window
Singing songs no man had heard
Such happiness he gave me
That happy little bird
He sang me songs of freedom
Freedom no human knew
The current of the winds of time
On which my little friend flew
He told me all life’s secrets
As I fed him milk and bread
Of all the heroes of mythology
Who for a thousand years lay dead
Walking around the yard today
What I saw brought a tear to my eye
Some prison cat had killed that bird
No more would he sail the sky
THE SIMPLE LIFE
I Am Not A Gangster Page 22
