Kray twins
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Ronald Kray (24 October 1933 – 17 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 1933 – 1 October 2000) were identical twin brothers, and the foremost organised crime leaders in North and East London in the 1960s.
Ronald — commonly referred to as Ron or Ronnie — suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had the more dominant personality of the two. His brother is usually just referred to as Reg or Reggie.
Their rivals in South London were the Richardson brothers accompanied by Frankie Fraser.
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[edit] Early life
The Kray twins were born on 24 October 1933 in Hoxton, in the East End of London, to Charlie Kray and Violet Lee. Reggie was born 10 minutes before Ronnie. Charlie and Violet already had a six-year old son, also called Charlie. A sister died in infancy. When the twins were three years old they were struck down with diphtheria but recovered.
Until 1939, having previously lived in Stene Street, Hoxton (now called Shoreditch), the Kray family moved to 178 Vallance Road, Bethnal Green. At the start of the Second World War, Charlie Kray Senior was called up into the army, but deserted and went on the run for 12 years. During this time he roamed the country, buying and selling silver, gold and clothing. He saw little of his sons, who grew close to their mother during his absence.
The frequent presence of military police hardened an anti-authoritarian attitude in Ron and Reg, who were both to desert from the army later in life.
The twins first attended Wood Close School and then Daneford Street School. There they showed none of their future criminal tendencies. A teacher there said of them: "Salt of the earth, the twins; never the slightest trouble to anyone who knew how to handle them." "If there was anything to be done in school, they'd be utterly co-operative… they'd always be the first to help. Nothing was too much trouble."
The influence of their grandfather, Jimmy "Cannonball" Lee, led both boys into amateur boxing, at that time a popular pursuit for working-class children in the East End. An element of competition between them spurred them on, and they achieved some success. They are said never to have lost a bout before turning professional at age 28.
[edit] National service
The fighting did not stop at the edge of the ring, and the Kray twins quickly became famous for their gang of roughs and the mayhem they caused. They narrowly avoided prison several times and in early 1952 they were called up for National Service. They deserted several times, each time being recaptured. The army seemed to hold to the hope of turning them around and making good soldiers of them, but it was not to be.
While absent without leave, the twins assaulted a police officer who had spotted them and was trying to arrest them. They were jailed for a month and afterwards sent to a military prison in Somerset awaiting court-martial. Their behaviour in prison was so bad that in the end they were given a dishonourable discharge from the service; for the last few weeks of their imprisonment, when their fate was a certainty any way, they ruled the holding room they were in. They threw tantrums, upended their latrine bucket over a sergeant, handcuffed a guard to the prison bars with a pair of stolen cuffs, and burnt their bedding. Eventually they were discharged, but not before escaping from the guardhouse and being recaptured by the army one last time.
It was during this period 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, sitting still for hours before erupting into a violent frenzy. It is not clear whether at this stage it was another prank to annoy their guards, or if Ron had become unbalanced. Three years later he would be certified insane while in prison.
[edit] Criminal careers
Their criminal record and dishonourable discharge having ended their boxing careers, the boys turned to crime, buying a seedy snooker club in Bethnal Green, and starting several protection rackets. By the end of the 1950s, the Krays were involved in hijacking, armed robbery and arson, through which means they acquired a small empire of clubs and other properties.
In the 1960s, they were well placed, as prosperous nightclub owners, to be a part of the 'swinging' London scene. A large part of their fame is due to their non-criminal activities as figures on the celebrity circuit, being photographed by David Bailey on more than one occasion; their associates included the Webster Family and showbusiness characters such as the actors George Sewell and Barbara Windsor. The Krays came into the public eye, however, when Ron's homosexual friendship with Lord Boothby, a Conservative peer, was alluded to in a tabloid exposé.
The criminal activities of the twins several times came to the attention of the police, but the Kray name had grown to such a reputation for violence that witnesses would not come forward.
Their criminal activities continued behind their apparent social success. In October 1967, Reg was persuaded by his brother to kill Jack "the Hat" McVitie, an unimportant member of the Kray gang who had stepped out of line. The Krays killed Jack the Hat by stabbing him in the eye. The Kray’s elder brother, Charlie, was persuaded to assist with the concealment of McVitie’s body; a task he performed so successfully that McVitie’s body was never found. Later Charlie served a 10-year prison sentence, as an accessory to the murder, for his trouble.
This wasn't the first murder the twins had committed. They were also implicated in the deaths of Frank Mitchell and George Cornell, the latter being shot at the notorious Blind Beggar pub by Ronnie on 9 March 1966. Despite a substantial reputation for violence, the twins were convicted of killing only McVitie and Cornell, though they are believed to have continued to hold influence in the underworld until their deaths.
[edit] Arrest and trial
When Inspector Leonard "Nipper" Read of Scotland Yard was promoted to the Murder Squad, his first assignment was to bring down the Kray twins. It was not his first involvement with Reg and Ron; during the first half of 1964 Read had been investigating their activities, but the publicity and official denials surrounding allegations of Ron's relationship with Boothby had made all the evidence he had collected useless. Read attacked the problem of convicting the twins with renewed activity in 1967, but frequently came up against the famed East End wall of silence, which discouraged anyone from providing information to the police.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1967 Read had built up a substantial body of evidence against the Krays. There were a number of witness statements incriminating them, as well as other evidence, but none of it added up to a convincing case on any one charge. Most of the statements were given on the condition that they were not used until the Krays were in detention, making a warrant almost impossible to obtain.
Early in 1968 the twins had sent a man named Elvey to Glasgow to buy explosives for rigging a car bomb. Police detained him in Scotland and he confessed he had been involved in three botched murder attempts. However, this evidence was seriously weakened by the heavy involvement of a man named Cooper, who claimed to be an agent for the United States Treasury Department investigating links between the American mafia and the Kray gang. The botched murder attempts were his work, in an attempt to pin something on the Krays. Read tried using Cooper as a trap for Ron and Reg, but they stayed away from him.
Eventually, a high-level Scotland Yard conference 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. Early on 9 May 1968, the Krays and a number of the senior members of their "firm" were arrested. Their reign of intimidation over, many witnesses came forward, and it was relatively easy to gain a conviction. The twins did not really have a defence, other than flat denials of all charges, and discrediting witnesses by pointing out their criminal pasts. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 30 years, for the murders of Cornell and McVitie. Their brother Charlie was jailed for 10 years for his part in the murders.
[edit] Imprisonment
There was a long-running campaign, with much celebrity support, to have the twins released from prison, but successive Home Secretaries vetoed the idea. The twins were allowed out for the day in August 1982 to attend their mother's funeral. They didn't request to attend their father's funeral when he died in March 1983.
Ronnie was eventually once more certified insane and lived out the remainder of his life detained in Broadmoor Hospital in Crowthorne, dying on 17 March 1995 of a massive heart attack aged 61. His funeral was a huge event. It was held on 29 March 1995 and people lined the streets for it.
Reg was a different story, however. For many years he was Category A prisoner, one who is denied almost all liberties, and cannot mix with other prisoners. Such treatment frequently sends men mad, but Reg seemed to maintain some sense of humour about his situation, writing a fitness manual (never published) called The Reg Kray Book of Exercises for People in Confined Spaces. He served over the recommended 30 years which he was jailed for in 1969. He was finally freed from Norfolk's Wayland Prison on 26 August 2000 on compassionate grounds as a result of having inoperable cancer. He spent the final days of his life in his suite at the Townhouse Hotel at Norwich, having left Norwich Hospital on 22 September 2000. On 1 October 2000, Reggie Kray died in his sleep. He died a free man, the only one of the brothers to do so. Ten days later he was buried alongside his brother Ronnie.
Charlie Kray was released in 1975 after serving seven years, but returned to prison in 1997 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine. He died of natural causes on 4 April 2000, just six months before Reg's death.
[edit] Criminology
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The Kray twins were tried as separate, responsible adults. Ronnie dominated his brother. He was also a paranoid schizophrenic psychotic. Many times in his career, Reg Kray expressed a desire to leave crime and "go straight", but each time was prevented either by persuasion from Ron, or by the knowledge that Ron would not cope on his own. Reg's several attempted murders, and the murder of Jack McVitie, were all done at Ron's prompting, to show that he was equal to Ron's earlier murders. Ron, a bisexual, generally preferred the company of other men. However, he married a woman while at Broadmoor. Before his marriage, Ron frequently berated Reg for his relationships with women. Reg's marriage to Frances Shea in 1965 lasted only eight weeks, although the marriage was never formally ended. She later committed suicide and many blamed Ron for their unhappiness.
When Ron spent three years in prison, Reg turned the "firm" around, putting it on a sound financial footing, and removing many of the more violent and less appealing aspects, if not actually turning it legal. Some speculate that without Ron, Reg would have turned the "firm" into one of the largest and most successful criminal organisations in Europe; however, the Kray business was always built on their reputation for savage violence, and it was Ron who was responsible for it. The twins were never able to survive well apart.
[edit] Cultural References
The feature film The Krays (1990), written by the Bethnal Green born artist and dramatist Philip Ridley, starred Gary and Martin Kemp of the band Spandau Ballet as the Krays. In The Getaway, a gangster named Charlie Jolson says that he used to run London "with real men like Ronnie and Reggie". There are many books about their reign of terror: among the most critically acclaimed is The Profession of Violence by John Pearson. They were also the inspiration behind the Monty Python "Piranha Brothers" sketch. This sketch was rooted in fact; even the tale of nailing someone to the floor is based on the murder of Jack "the Hat" McVitie, who was pinned to the floor with a long knife.
A number of artists mention the Kray twins in songs:
- The Pop Rivets included Kray Twins on their first album Greatest Hits (1978), featuring the singer and artist Billy Childish.
- The all-female British new wave band Mo-Dettes wrote a song about them, also called Kray Twins, on their 1980 album The Story So Far.
- The first single by the electronic band Renegade Soundwave featured Kray Twins; Ron and Reg were on the cover artwork of the single, released by the Mute label in 1987.
- Morrissey sings about the twins in The Last of the Famous International Playboys (1989).
- Blur mention Ronnie in Charmless Man (The Great Escape, 1995).
- Oasis featured both Ronnie and Reggie on the cover of the unofficial interview CD, 'Wibbling Rivalry'
- London Sikh DJ's The Kray Twins are named after the twins who released 'What We Do ft. Twista Leathal B and Kyote'
- Patsy Kensit is the god-daughter of Reggie Kray.
Association with (or former association with) the Krays is also seen as a sign of prestige in many differing social circles, or an indication of cockney authenticity. This attitude was spoofed in the British television series The Young Ones with Robbie Coltrane as a bouncer claiming "...and I was at Violet's funeral", a reference to the twins' mother.
The TV series EastEnders has featured a gangland organisation called The Firm.
[edit] External links
Krays TV interview (1965)
See also BBC website for Richard Whitmore's report on the Kray trial
