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  In those early days after we left school – and we left at fifteen – there wasn’t any real bother. Just one or two small local punch-ups, and that was it. All we cared about was our boxing. We went to bed early every night, got up early every morning, no smoking or drinking, lots of running and training. We loved it. They were the best times.

  We were getting more and more publicity in the London papers and I’ve kept every single clipping. There’s one about when we fought at Lime Grove baths in a charity boxing night for a popular East End boxer called Wally Davis. The headline says: ‘The Kray Twins Score Another Smart Double’.

  The Kray brothers of Bethnal Green once again scored a winning double.

  Reg outpointed Bill Sliney, of Kings Cross, over six rounds.

  Ron ko’d George Goodsell, of Cambridge, in the fifth of their six-round contest.

  So remorseless was Ron Kray that he sent Goodsell to the canvas no less than five times – the fifth time for keeps.

  Another article from an East End newspaper says that we could go on and become as famous as another pair of sporting twins, the cricketers Alec and Eric Bedser. The same article describes our occupation as ‘wardrobe dealers’, although I can’t ever remember dealing in wardrobes.

  I like to sit and read through these old clippings and I’ve got about seven scrapbooks filled with them. Not just boxing clippings but also the less favourable newspaper headlines we made later on as we began our climb to the top of London’s underworld.

  Those headlines really began when we were sixteen and got arrested after the fight outside Barry’s Dance Hall in Hackney – the fight which Reg has mentioned – in which the lad Harvey got a bit of a thrashing. It was well deserved, but he did what very few people in the East End did in those days: he broke the unofficial wall of silence and ratted on us to the’ law. Unforgivable.

  Reg and I went up to the Old Bailey on a GBH charge, but the judge – Judge McClure – dismissed the case through lack of evidence. But before we left the dock he said to us, ‘Don’t go around thinking you are the Sabini brothers.’ The Sabini brothers had been the bosses in London for some years previously. Years later our relations with them are close and Johnny Sabini, though now an older man, comes to see me in Broadmoor. Years later, of course, Reg and I were the bosses of London, and we were far bigger than the Sabinis had ever been.

  2

  CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

  RON: 1950–53

  I hate uniforms. I’ve always hated them. I hate them for what they stand for. And I hate the people who wear them. Without their uniforms they’re usually nothing. Nobodies.

  I had my first real problem with a man with a uniform in the summer of 1950. I was seventeen at the time, and after that I seemed to have nothing but problems with little men who suddenly felt big when they’d got their uniform on. I was standing with Reg and a few of my other mates outside a cafe in the Bethnal Green Road on a Saturday afternoon. We weren’t causing any bother, just standing around, having a chat and eyeing up the girls. Although, to be honest, even in those days I thought girls were a waste of bloody time. You could always have more of a laugh with the lads than you could with any girl.

  Anyway, we’re standing there, when suddenly – wallop. I feel this bloody great shove in my back which almost sends me arse over tit. I turned round and there’s this young copper.

  ‘Come on, now, move along,’ he says. ‘You’re obstructing this pavement.’

  I couldn’t help myself. I smacked him straight in the gob. He didn’t know where he was, not till he woke up, flat on his back, on the pavement. We all scarpered a bit sharpish.

  I knew I wouldn’t get away with it and, sure enough, just a few minutes later a squad car pulled up alongside us, two coppers jumped out, slapped me around a bit and slung me in the back of their car.

  It all happened so quick Reggie could do nothing about it. He didn’t have time to get involved. But he knew, as well as I did, that if you smacked a copper in the mouth and you got caught, well God help you when the other coppers got you back to the nick. They’d beat the f— out of you. And that’s exactly what happened to me.

  Dear old Reggie couldn’t exactly come in and attack the whole police station single-handed, he does the next best thing. He walks back down the Bethnal Green Road, finds the young copper who pushed me in the first place, taps him on the shoulder, and when he turns round he smacks him straight in the gob. That’s twins for you. Double trouble!

  And we were in trouble, all right. Up in front of the magistrates I pleaded provocation, Reg said he’d only acted in my defence – which, in a way, he had – and dear Father Hetherington spoke on our behalf. We were lucky – we got probation. But, of course, it was just a few more bad headlines in the East End press to go with the good ones we were getting for our boxing. Even so, at that stage we weren’t villains, just a couple of tough lads who could handle themselves if anyone got stroppy.

  We might still have stayed on the straight and narrow, but a few months later, in the spring of 1952 – March, I’m sure it was – something happened that changed the whole course of life for Reg and me. The army. We were called up to the Tower of London to join the Royal Fusiliers for national service. We had a good chat about it and we decided that even though we were against the army on principle, and even though we hated the thought of wearing a bloody stupid uniform, we would give it a go as long as they would let us be PTIs (physical training instructors). After all, we were ideal men for the job, being young and fit. Not only that, but it would be very good for our boxing as well. We’d stay in good shape and probably get some good experience against the army champions. So, having made up our minds, we put on our best blue suits and went along to the Tower of London.

  The first thing we came up against was a bird-brain in a bloody uniform, a corporal who thought he was Winston Churchill or Montgomery. We told him we wanted to be PTIs, otherwise we didn’t want to be in the army, and he told us, ‘Bloody well do what you’re told.’

  So we started to walk towards the door and he said, ‘Where the bloody hell do you think you’re going?’ We said we were going home to Vallance Road. He said he didn’t think that was a very good idea, and then he did a very silly thing – he held on to my arm and tried to stop me leaving.

  I turned round and smacked him hard on the end of his jaw. Like the young copper, he was in dreamland for a few minutes. And Reg and I were on our way home to Vallance Road for a nice cup of tea with our mother.

  That night we went to a dance hall in Tottenham and enjoyed ourselves. The next morning the army came and collected us from Vallance Road. There was no problem, no struggle. We knew we’d have to go back, we’d no intention of going on the run and being chased year after year. There’s no fun in that. We still hoped the army would change its mind and let us be PTIs. But we weren’t stupid and we both knew that this was just the start of what turned out to be two years of war between Ron and Reg Kray and the army.

  When we got back to the Tower we were charged with being absent without leave and with striking an officer. The only trouble was they, like a lot of people before them, couldn’t decide which one of us had actually thumped the corporal. And, of course, we didn’t exactly help them.

  ‘Was it you who struck the corporal, Reg Kray?’ the CO asked.

  ‘Oh, no sir,’ said Reg.

  ‘Then it must have been you who did it, Ron Kray?’ said the CO.

  ‘What, me sir? Oh, no sir.’

  ‘Well, one of you did it.’

  ‘No sir, not us sir.’

  And so it went on. Round and round in circles – the old ‘who’s who?’ trick we’d pulled before so many times at school.

  But the CO wasn’t stupid either. As he couldn’t decide which one of us had done it, he gave us both seven days in the guardroom. We weren’t happy about it, I can tell you, and we decided we were going to make the army pay for the way it was treating us.

  Our dad came to visit us while we were
in the guardroom. He was on the run himself at the time, so it was an extremely dangerous thing to do. But he disguised himself, pretending he was one of our uncles, and got away with it.

  That was the only good thing about that week and we couldn’t wait for it to end. Our plan was quite simple. The moment they released us from the guardroom, we were going to leg it. There was no way now that we were going to make it simple for them.

  And that’s exactly what we did. In the guardroom we’d made friends with a bloke called Dickie who was also in trouble. He was from the East End as well. The three of us decided to do a bunk together. We went to stay for a while at Dickie Hughs’ home in Clinton Road, but the police soon came sniffing round there, so we had to move on. It was the same story at our own home. It was a tricky time and we relied heavily on others to help us.

  But East Enders, in particular, do help each other in times of trouble, especially if it means getting one over on the dreaded law. We had some great friends at that time. There was a man called Jack, who used to work in a cafe in the East End. When Reg and I were on the run he’d kindly give us supper every night – chips, sausages and eggs, cups of tea, even cigarettes. We will never forget his kindness. Years later he went to our mother’s funeral. He was a good man. So was another Jewish guy we knew as Yossel, who used to frequent a Lyons Corner House in the West End. He used to buy all the young guys who were on the run from the army a really hearty breakfast. I don’t know why – maybe he just hated the army. But we were grateful for the man’s kindness and grateful, also, that he used to take our mother flowers when we were in Parkhurst.

  It was around this time that Reg and I started getting into bad habits. Until then we’d been really fit, really looked after ourselves. Now, though, we started to smoke and drink and keep what might be termed bad company. Don’t ask me why, I guess it was inevitable. It may have been mainly my fault, I don’t know, but it was certainly a case of twins wanting to be together and be alike.

  We still loved a good punch-up and I can recall one tremendous scrap at the Royal Ballroom in Tottenham during the time we were on the run. It started the way those fights always did, with Reg, Dickie Hughs and me swaggering in like we owned the joint, knowing full well it was full of lads from Tottenham. Then we’d start to eye up the local crumpet, make a comment or two to them, knowing it would drive some of the local lads wild. One of them walked up to Reg and told him to ‘Piss off.’ Whack! The Tottenham lad was on the floor, minus four or five teeth, and suddenly it was like a saloon in the old Wild West – everybody slugging everybody else, chairs flying everywhere – it didn’t matter who you hit as long as you kept hitting them – and Reg and me, side by side, smashing the bastards up. It was great. Meanwhile, on the stage, there’s Lita Roza singing her heart out and Ray Ellington and his band trying to play on as if nothing was happening! Years later we became great friends of Lita Roza, though she never did share our fond memories for those epic nights at the Royal!

  Was it stupid? Yes, of course it was. Were we yobbos? Yes, of course we were. I don’t know why we did it. It seems silly now, and I feel sorry for any innocent bystanders caught up in our battles. If you were one of them, well, my apologies. I’ve quietened down a bit now.

  During that particular spell on the run, which lasted a few weeks, we even ‘borrowed’ a car and went to Southend. We sent the commanding officer at the Tower a postcard from the seaside, saying something like ‘Having a lovely time, wish you were here. Best of luck, Ron, Reg and Dick.’ At least the CO had a sense of humour. When we got back to the Tower we found he’d stuck our card on the wall.

  But our freedom couldn’t last and, quite honestly, we didn’t want it to. We didn’t want to be like our dad, permanently on the run. We had to get this stupid army business out of the way, once and for all.

  We were finally spotted in a cafe in the Mile End Road by a copper by the name of Fisher. We gave up without a struggle and it was back to the detention cells. Another dust-up with the officers and we were off to the detention barracks at Colchester for a month. Then it was back to the Tower and, just to show ’em, Reg and I decided to do another bunk. We stayed with various friends around London and even managed to do a bit of unofficial boxing.

  I remember I boxed at an unlicensed show at Bexley in Kent. I was matched against a farmer and he started to butt me in the face. So I kneed him in the groin. The crowd wanted to lynch me, but I won the fight and collected a fiver. Apart from that we were always clean fighters and later we did a lot for kids’ boxing clubs in the East End. We would take people like Rocky Marciano and George Rail along to meet the local kids.

  It was during this particular spell on the run that Reg and I discovered our love of snooker and realized the possibilities of making money out of snooker halls. We also began making really useful contacts in the criminal underworld, contacts that were to stand us in good stead in later years.

  Ironically, this particular spell of freedom was almost ended by the copper who caught us before – Fisher. But this time we weren’t in such good humour. We were sitting in another cafe in the Mile End Road when up he came.

  ‘Come on, you bloody deserters,’ he said. Perhaps it was the way he said it, but I took umbrage and smacked him in the gob.

  They caught us a few weeks later and this time did us for assaulting a police officer in the course of his duty. For that we got a month in Wormwood Scrubs. We also got some bad headlines in the East End newspapers, but we made more useful contacts in the Scrubs for our future careers as criminals.

  After the Scrubs we were taken by an army escort to Canterbury barracks. They kept us waiting three months for a court martial, so we really played them up.

  By now it was the spring of 1953 and I guess this was the time I started to go a bit mad. I wouldn’t wash, I would only shave half my face, I would act the fool. I thought it was funny at the time and that I knew exactly what I was doing. Now, though, I’m not so sure. Three years later I was certified insane.

  Eventually we escaped from Canterbury. It was quite easy to get out of the barracks because they left ladders lying around. They clearly thought no one was going to bother to escape.

  We’d fixed up to have a mate waiting with a van outside the barracks and he was going to drive us to London and freedom. Unfortunately, just a few miles up the road, the van broke down. So we all started walking to London until along came some motorcycle police and an army truck, and we were on the way back. We didn’t struggle, there was no point. They gave us nine months’ imprisonment at Shepton Mallet. After that they gave up on the Kray twins and kicked us out of the British Army. We regarded it as a victory. While we were in Shepton Mallet we met Charlie Richardson, who was also doing nine months. We got along fine with him without realizing that our paths were going to cross so dramatically in the years to come.

  Actually, because of another misdemeanour in Shepton Mallet, Reg was due out three days after me. It seemed a pity that we wouldn’t be ending our careers in the army on the same day, so I asked the captain if I could stay for an extra three days. He said to me, ‘If you do anything wrong I’ll be forced to keep you.’ So I got myself caught smoking a cigarette on duty and was given the extra three days. And so ended the distinguished military careers of Ronald and Reginald Kray.

  REG: 1951–55

  By 1954 we were free men again. It was the year we were twenty-one. Not only did we have the key of the door to Vallance Road, so to speak, but we also had the key of the door to our very first business venture – a billiard hall called the Regal in Mile End.

  Before we took over local thugs had been causing a lot of trouble: tables were being ripped, glasses broken, there were fights all the time and staff kept coming and going. Decent people were frightened to go in there. The guy running it even bought a vicious Alsatian dog which he kept behind the counter. But that didn’t worry the local tearaways – they used to chuck fireworks over the counter and eventually drove the dog mad.

 
It has been claimed that Ron and I were the ringleaders behind all this trouble, deliberately trying to cause problems so that we could muscle in ourselves. This was not the case. There had been many problems at the Regal long before we came on the scene. Eventually the owner of the building got fed up and chucked out the Regal’s manager. So Ron and I went to see the owner, who said he’d let us have the lease if we could guarantee to keep the place under control and undamaged. He said he’d give us a month’s trial.

  As soon as we took over the trouble stopped. It was very simple: the punters, the local tearaways, knew that if there was any trouble, if anything got broken, Ron and I would simply break their bones.

  We eventually got the lease for three years. We borrowed some money, moved in fourteen tables, second-hand but in good nick, and redecorated the place. We worked hard and it was packed day and night. We were only paying five quid a week in rent and soon were making a lot of money.

  It was then that we got our first experience of the so-called protection racket. A Maltese gang came in and demanded protection money. We went straight for them with knives and never saw them again. They’ve not got a lot of bottle, these continentals, especially when the knives come out.

  I’d better explain how the protection racket works, because it was big business then and it’s still big business now in almost all large cities. A gang would offer to protect clubs, pubs, shops and the like from other gangs, in return for a fee. Often, of course, the business concerned was not in any danger from other gangs, but if the owner or manager of the business was to make this point and refuse to pay the protection fee, he would generally find that his business had been burgled, set fire to or generally smashed up. By then, of course, he was more than ready to pay his fee. Very few business owners went to the law because, if they did, the matter became personal and they themselves would become the target of the gang.