Krayzy Days
Micky Fawcett
Brought to you by KeVkRaY
© Micky Fawcett 2013
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain by Pen Press
All paper used in the printing of this book has been made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests.
ISBN: 978-1-78003-525-3
Printed and bound in the UK
Pen Press is an imprint of
Indepenpress Publishing Limited
25 Eastern Place
Brighton
BN2 1GJ
A catalogue record of this book is available from
the British Library
Cover design by Jacqueline Abromeit
Steve ‘Legs’ Diamond – RIP Legs
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Double R
Chapter 2
The Jars and the Corner
Chapter 3
At Home with the Krays
Chapter 4
Shooting George Dixon
Chapter 5
Having a Quiet Drink in The Hammer Club
Chapter 6
In Danger in The Kentucky
Chapter 7
A Search for the Body at The Glenrae Hotel
Chapter 8
Sticking the Krays Up
Chapter 9
Life Saver
Chapter 10
Billy Hill and the Unione Corse v the Krays
Chapter 11
Leaving the Krays
Chapter 12
Assassinate Reggie
Chapter 13
The Steamship
Chapter 14
Feuding with the Tibbs
Chapter 15
The End of the War
Chapter 16
Back in the Ring
Chapter 17
Boxing with Banksy
Introduction
We were going to kill Reggie Kray. I had a .38 revolver and we were waiting for him late one night outside John Bigg Point, a block of flats in Stratford, East London. Reggie and I had once been close and for years I knew the Kray twins as well as anyone. But now their world was in disarray. They were lost in their own celebrity; a fame which brought with it a circle of yes-men and hangers-on. Wannabe gangsters who fuelled brother Ronnie’s madness. Only a few of us who had been around for longer could see the twins were heading for disaster. If we didn’t do anything they would take us down with them.
I had begun planning to hit the Krays not long after Ronnie shot George Cornell dead in The Blind Beggar pub. Cornell was a member of a rival gang and the Krays had a deadly feud with them, but even so, Ronnie wasn’t going to get away with killing him in front of so many witnesses. I made the decision to walk away from the Krays and I took a few of my trusted friends with me.
That night when Reggie left the club to take a girlfriend home, I received a coded telephone call. It was all prearranged. We had to go after them as soon as we saw an opportunity. Cutting myself off from the Krays made me a marked man. Getting them first struck me then as only logical, but the truth was that I was under almost as much pressure as the twins. My own grasp on reality was slipping as I sat in a car in the shadows and believed I could shoot Reggie Kray and get away with it. I just felt that I didn’t have a choice.
I no longer recognised Reggie as the man I first met when I was starting to make a name for myself in the East End underworld. Back then the Krays had almost established their empire and I learned a lot. Reggie was quick to show his approval of the way I became a successful conman by targeting big-time fences. I became a trusted ally in the Krays’ own business frauds – schemes we called long firms. I always kept my independence but we had some fun together.
One of my earliest memories of the twins was Ronnie in expansive mood in their immaculate London club, The Double R. One of the many venues they ran, it was done out with flock wallpaper, it had an attractive bar and it was well run. That made it popular and this was a typical night. There were a few cars parked outside in Bow Road and their owners were inside with a drink while a Dean Martin-ish singer called Lenny Pugh was crooning a rendition of Volare on the mic. Couples were dotted around enjoying the relaxed atmosphere.
Ronnie hadn’t long been home from Long Grove, a mental hospital in Surrey. That night he was at his smartest. Suit, collar and tie and shoes so shiny you could see your face in them. As Reggie wasn’t around that evening it fell to Ronnie to be the genial host and he was scrupulous in doing so. He worked the whole room, picking out couples from the regular punters to thank them personally for coming along and adding, ‘I hope you have a pleasant evening.’ As if they didn’t know, he told them that he ran the place with his brothers Reggie and Charlie and if there was anything they needed, anything at all, they should just let him know.
Completing a whole circuit of the club, Ronnie ended up back at the entrance. Tony Lucraft, a tough guy from Hoxton, was perched on a low leather sofa near the door.
‘Hello, Tony, I didn’t see you sitting there,’ Ronnie said politely. He paused as if some explanation were needed for this lapse in greeting etiquette. Both twins were short-sighted. ‘I’ve got bad eyes, you know,’ he added.
‘You must have fucking bad eyes, Ron,’ said Tony. ‘I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes.’
You had to judge your moment with Ronnie. Tony might have thought that in the relaxed atmosphere he could get away with a smart comment. But without hesitation and in full view of the ordinary customers, Ronnie immediately smashed him in the face before kicking him off the sofa and attempting to stamp on him. The barman and the door staff, big men hired by the Krays to keep the place going, ran up but even with their combined muscle still Ronnie could only be pulled off his victim when they promised to throw him out. Cabaret concluded, Ronnie began another circuit of the bar, still panting and sweating from the brutal assault. He spoke to all the same couples as if the extreme violence had been no more of an inconvenience than running out of a draft beer at the bar.
‘I’m terribly sorry about that,’ he repeated to each guest, still slightly out of breath. ‘It doesn’t happen very often.’
This wasn’t the first time I’d met Ronnie, though he had been away a long time and in that time I had got to know his brother better. Reggie was more predictable, a bit less volatile. He was also much more uptight, focused on business, but I never felt safe around either of them.
I had long been aware of the Krays before I met any of them. We had lived in the same area and we had had a similar sort of upbringing. We all grew up during the Second World War and I also managed to get myself out of National Service – though not, I have to admit, in as spectacular fashion as they did when they got themselves dishonourably discharged for extremely bad behaviour. For me, school was no more of an attraction than it had been for them and like them I was never attracted by the world of straight work. I could handle myself in a fight and it wasn’t long before I met them as I made my way in the criminal world. We got on and I won myself a reputation, though I don’t say that to glorify our lifestyle. Looking back at what we all used to do actually makes me feel queasy. I see all of us around the twins drifting along a sea of booze, spending money as fast as we got it and living from day to day. I look back on it with a sort of horror now. And yet I don’t want to come over like one of those Sicilian peni
tenti, an ex-gangster sorry for everything he’s done. I’d like to tell my story straight.
The Krays knew me as Mick, never Mike or Michael. And yes, we were friendly. But I was never in what the endless accounts of the Krays always call the firm – or rather, Firm, always with a capital F. I don’t recognise the Krays I knew from what I’ve read. I’m not sure there was a firm at all. They started out fairly disorganised and it never really changed, despite what the press would have you believe about protection rackets and the like.
I came into their orbit along with what was known as the Queen’s Road mob. This was a collection of gangsters operating out of Upton Park, east of Kray territory. Crime in London was strictly divided by district. Tight-knit crews operated in each area with their own hierarchy of criminals and when they weren’t feuding most of them never mixed with their neighbours. I got to know the crews in nearby Canning Town – we all knew of each other, at least, even if most of us never strayed from our home turf. The Krays didn’t.
I was always more independent than most. I made friends over the Thames around the Elephant & Castle. I made sure I was not too close to the Krays but I always appeared loyal. I got to see the personal side of them that they did their best to keep hidden. When Frances – beautiful, tragic Frances, Reggie’s doomed wife – said that their marriage wasn’t consummated, she said it to me in front of Reggie. And when Reggie later suspected she was seeing someone else he asked me to sort it out. And I was right in the centre of the story that brought them down – the killing of George Cornell. He was never killed because he called Ronnie a poof. That was just a legend we created to hide the truth of a feud gone desperately wrong. The reality was the twins were trying to buy themselves time. They turned to me to help them.
They were terrible with business. The Krays were all smoke and mirrors and the press went along with it. I was never one of the yes-men who surrounded them in increasing numbers as they became famous. I was more restrained, or at least I liked to think so. I didn’t have the bloodlust the twins developed. Of course, it’s not too difficult to be saner than the next man if the next man is a Kray. And it’s even easier when the other next man is his twin brother. The sanity bar is not exactly raised high. By walking away I issued a challenge and that’s how I ended up sitting outside a block of flats with a revolver, waiting for Reggie. By then I even believed I might take his place. You see what I mean about sanity being relative? More than a few people certainly thought I was completely fucking mad. These days I can see why. I was a strange mix of the very cautious and the utterly reckless.
I made my money by targeting other criminals in complicated and elegant frauds. But I made sure I covered my tracks and I never looked for publicity like the Krays did. I was smarter and as a result, extremely self-confident. Arrogant, if you like. I spent all the money I got; I drank all the time and I got into fights. Sometimes I took people by surprise as I was never a big bloke. I was softly spoken and it was only after winning a couple of legendary fights that I began to get a reputation for being dangerous. Everyone began to hear I would use a weapon if I had to and before long I began to believe my own press and span out of control. I never actually killed anyone, but I came close. I always loved French gangster movies and in the end I felt like I was a character in one of them.
But everyone knows how this story ends. I didn’t shoot Reggie dead. Nobody did. All three Kray brothers died in prison. So you might think I’m making it all up. But think about this. I’m in my 70s now and it’s a bit late to start making a name for myself. So why this book? Why now?
There are already quite enough books about the Krays and London’s underworld. I’ve seen quite a lot of them myself. But most of them are full of lies or just plain wrong – I can’t finish most of them, I get that annoyed. I look myself up in the index but I don’t recognise much of what I read as being anywhere near the truth. Now I want to set the record straight.
I’m not going to tell the same old stories you can find in countless other accounts, but I am going to tell you what it was like to be part of the Krays’ intimate circle, to know them on a daily basis, to drink with them – if not exactly to relax with them.
I didn’t want to talk before and it hasn’t been easy doing it now. I’ve found myself not wanting to reveal the truth. I can’t shake that instinct of self-preservation I’ve always had. But I’ve made the decision to say what really happened and I’m not going to go back on it.
Operating independently of the twins I knew their characters and I was there to see the myths being created. It’s incredible to think how much longer the legends have lasted than the years the twins were at large. Most of what happens in this book concerning the twins took place over just a few years – around 1957 to 1967. That was as tense and dangerous a period as it was brief, but because the twins became so famous you think of them being in the public eye for longer than that. Such an adrenaline-fuelled life couldn’t last. I know I was lucky to get out when I did.
I stopped drinking in the 1970s and I calmed down a lot, though I never did quite go straight. I still had opponents, though they changed considerably over the years. In the 1980s I became a boxing trainer and faced down another tight mob – the promoters who controlled every aspect of the sport. Gangsters without guns, as someone called them. And yet my most recent opponent, you might be surprised to hear, was not a fighter of any kind, but a figure in the world of art. Banksy is the end of my story, but maybe he’s also a good place to begin.
His representatives took exception when I got involved in selling reproductions of his famous London graffiti and we started battling – though through lawyers rather than on the streets. It was a vicious fight all the same. My side wanted me to throw in the towel from the start, but I wasn’t having any of it. Who was this man who never put his face to the artwork he made? It intrigued me. I thought Banksy’s reticence might be my best chance at beating him. I’d spent my whole life doing everything I could to keep out of the limelight and I had a hunch that he would do the same. My barrister sent a letter which opened with the knockout question. ‘Who is this man?’ If he wanted to take us to court, we were going to unmask him. The challenge worked out beautifully – we never heard from them again. Now I’ve finally decided to come out of the shadows and if I’m going to be honest I’ve got to answer that same question about myself. It’s not been easy to talk about an underworld life I’ve always had to hide. But now I need to answer the question we put to Banksy.
Who is this man?
Chapter One
The Double R
Ronnie Kray gave Hoxton villain Tony Lucraft such a beating in The Double R Club I expected him to make himself scarce. I was surprised to see Tony pop up just a few days later for Ronnie’s birthday when there was a gathering in the local billiard hall. I didn’t know the victim myself but his bruises and swollen face made him unmistakeably the man from the earlier night.
Tony not only gave Ronnie a present, but had it wrapped up nicely as well. I was so astonished I still remember what it was. A jumper. This was carefully unpacked by Ronnie and held up for general admiration. The scene of heart-warming cosiness was completed by the deadpan conversation between the two.
‘I hope you like it,’ said Tony.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Ronnie in a distant monotone. ‘It’s very nice. Yes. Thank you, Tony. Thank you.’
Beatings such as the one that Ronnie gave Tony were not unusual and they were generally just as quickly forgotten in the world of the Kray twins. There was the ex-boxer from Holloway who hadn’t seen Ronnie for a while. Ronnie was in La Monde, a Chelsea nightclub, following a trip to work on a scheme in Nigeria when the boxer unwisely patted Ronnie’s midriff and commented, ‘Cor! You’ve put on a bit of weight, haven’t you?’ Ronnie had acquired a massive African knife as a souvenir, which was, as with all of his weapons, being held by a trusted colleague. It was swiftly retrieved and the boxer regretted his light-hearted comment.
Drunken brawls, f
euds and slights – imagined and real – fuelled London’s underworld. Professional gangsters running firms like City corporations existed only in the movies. Yet there was a real difference between us and the normal world, the straight people. We kept ourselves apart from regular people. The Krays were scared of their law-abiding fellow Londoners, that was the truth. There was a separate set of rules and a hierarchy for us. Money was made, lots of it on occasions. But none of it was kept. There was no guiding intelligence behind what the Krays did and they very quickly reached their limits. They were unwilling or unable to graduate beyond the streets in which they grew up. And like them, I lived apart from the straight world and at the same time spent much of my time in the same places as the people I knew all my life.
The Krays were born in Hoxton – Ronnie and Reggie in 1933, Charlie in 1926. I came from further east, down by the Thames in Silvertown. I was born a few years after Ronnie and Reggie, two doors from the docks in 1937. We were right next to where City Airport is now. The authorities said my family were in real danger when the Second World War broke out a couple of years later, the same year that my younger brother was born. The docks were a prime target for the German Luftwaffe and we were moved nearby. Custom House is just around the corner, but we didn’t stay long. An incendiary bomb fell on the house and, perhaps not surprisingly, provided me with my first memory as a very young child.
My grandfather was Thomas McKeown, a labourer from Cork who moved to New York where he met Margaret Riordan. They married in the old St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and ended up in London after my grandfather had to go looking for work. I still have a cousin in the States – same age as me. My grandparents had two boys called Mallachy and Thomas and a girl, my mum, called Margaret. She married Frederick Fawcett and they must have liked the names because they called my brother Frederick and one of my sisters was Margaret. The other was named Brenda. And in another name coincidence, my sister Margaret and my American cousin, Margaret McKeown, both went on to marry men called David Fitzgerald.
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