Me and My Brothers

by Kray, Charlie

  Life in 1965 seemed to be one long, glittering merry-go-round of star-studded events and Reggie delighted in taking Frances to all of them. He had put her on a pedestal high, high above any other female, and he seemed to live in constant fear of looking less than perfect in her eyes. When she was with him he seemed to be on a knife-edge, always worried about whether she was all right. Once we all went backstage at the London Palladium to see Judy Garland after one of her performances. The dressing-room door suddenly opened and Judy rushed out and threw open her arms to give Reggie a hug. But Reggie backed away nervously, and Judy almost fell over. Frances was not in the least concerned or worried by Judy Garland, but Reggie was terrified to get in a clinch with her in case Frances thought something was going on. That’s how he was all the time. He even took her to the opera and was invited backstage to meet the fabulous Australian singer Joan Sutherland. Nothing seemed out of reach. Mum, for instance, always dreamt of meeting the French film heart-throb Charles Boyer and, of course, the twins set it up. As they prepared to escort her to the rendezvous, Ronnie kept winding up the old man that he was about to lose her to the most romantic, charming celebrity of the day. The next day I asked Mum how it had gone and she just said, ‘Amazing.’ It was a dream come true, and the twins were delighted to have made it possible.

  Not all their thoughtfulness had such pleasing results, however. The time they extended a helping hand to American boxing hero Joe Louis, for example, rebounded on them nastily and showed how much they were marked men. Eddie Pucci told us that the former world heavyweight champion was coming to England and, as he was down on his luck, could do with some work. Joe was no song-and-dance man like Sugar Ray Robinson, but he was a gilt-edged celebrity who was still a big-name attraction and the twins – particularly Ronnie – wanted to help him. They knew some club and restaurant owners in Newcastle who would pay Louis to promote their premises and so they took the train up there, planning to spend some days trying to earn the genial giant a few bob. They had not been in the city two days when a posse of police pounced on them in their hotel room. Ronnie told them why they were there but an inspector would have none of it: the twins were the ‘London mob’ and were now trying to take over Newcastle; he wasn’t going to stand for it and he wanted them on the next train back to London. It was like something out of a western, with the sheriff giving the bad boys an ultimatum to get out of town. Ronnie said if the stories about them taking over London were true, why did they need to bother with a smaller city nearly four hundred miles away? But that argument didn’t impress the inspector. Frustrated by it all, the twins called Louis in his room and told him what was happening. Dear old Joe was bewildered. He told the police the truth, that the twins were friends trying to help him, but the inspector didn’t want to know. He handled the Brown Bomber very carefully but told him he was just an excuse; he’d heard all about the Kray twins and they were not going to bring trouble to Newcastle like they had to London. There was a train to London very soon – and the twins would have a police escort to see they caught it.

  In the end, the twins had no choice.

  They asked Louis to stay on with some friends, then phoned me with the full story. Convinced the police would try to frame them in some way, they asked me to arrange for our solicitor, Ralph Haeems, to be waiting for them.

  When the train arrived at Euston, I was surprised to see Reggie in shirtsleeves. He told me he had held his jacket the whole journey because some Newcastle police had travelled with them and he wasn’t risking anything being planted.

  When Louis returned to London he apologized to the twins for inadvertently getting them into trouble, but they told him not to worry about it. Many of the worthwhile things they did were misconstrued, they said, and they had grown used to it. Later, Eddie Pucci told us that the much-loved American hero really appreciated what the twins had done for him. But they thought nothing of it; Joe Louis had the same courage and dignity when his luck was low as he had when he was riding high as one of the greatest boxing champions ever. Ronnie and Reggie considered it an honour and privilege to help him in some small way.

  Around that time, Reggie did a favour for another world boxing champion. But this time it did not go down well at all.

  Sonny Liston, who held the heavyweight crown from 1963 until he was beaten by the then Cassius Clay in 1966, visited the twins at the Cambridge Rooms one night. After a pleasant evening drinking and chatting to various friends and acquaintances, he accepted Reggie’s offer to drive him back to the May Fair Hotel in Stratton Street. As they pulled away, Reggie drove the wrong side of some bollards in the road. I thought, ‘Good luck, Sonny, you’re going to enjoy that drive.’

  A friend of ours, John Davis, who was in the front passenger seat, told me it was a wild ride, even by Reggie’s hair-raising standards: they went through red lights, screeched round corners, narrowly missed other cars and clipped a couple of kerbs before shuddering to a halt outside the May Fair.

  Jauntily, Reggie climbed out and opened a back door for Sonny and his manager, then he pumped Sonny’s hand cheerily and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Sonny.’

  The world champion returned the handshake but then looked seriously into Reggie’s face. ‘Reggie, I’m going to tell you something,’ he said. ‘There’s no man in this world I’m afraid of…’

  Reggie nodded knowingly: it was the sort of comment you’d expect from a huge, hulking bear of a man who was heavyweight champion of the world.

  ‘…except one,’ Sonny added.

  Reggie frowned, mystified.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘You,’ said Sonny. ‘I’ve never been so terrified in my life. You’ll never drive me again. Ever.’

  Reggie laughed. And no doubt zoomed off through the Mayfair traffic in precisely the same reckless manner. He simply didn’t appreciate what it was like for his passengers. His adrenaline was always running fast; he was always in a hurry. In his life, as in his boxing, he was always lightning quick, but his brain was one step ahead. Behind the wheel of a car, though, he was a menace. A lot of it was to do with his short-sightedness.

  One night, driving me from his house in Casenove Road, he suddenly said, ‘Is that a bus coming up here?’

  ‘You are joking!’ I said, staring at the huge red monster bearing down on us.

  ‘Well, I haven’t got my glasses,’ Reggie said, matter-of-factly.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, stop then, and let me out!’ I roared.

  Once I went with him to collect a new Humber from Commercial Road. Driving back along Cambridge Heath Road we approached a badly parked lorry on our side of the road. A bus coming towards us was already alongside the lorry and the space was obviously too small for Reggie to get through. Anybody in their right mind would have stopped but Reggie steamed on through, and duly scraped the side of the car from front wing to the back.

  ‘That’s clever,’ I said. ‘You’ve ripped a car you’ve only just bought.’

  Reggie shrugged. ‘That’s all right. I can soon get it done.’

  A Buick also had an eventful life in Reggie’s hands. One night he was driving a load of his mates along Commercial Road when they came to some road works. The area was roped off, with lanterns warning drivers, and Reggie’s passengers thought he was larking about as he headed straight towards it; they were convinced he was going to swerve at the last minute. But Reggie drove straight on…and the big American car disappeared down a hole. Reggie was lucky the hole wasn’t that deep, otherwise some of those passengers – and maybe himself – could have been killed. As it was, they all climbed out unhurt. Reggie merely looked down at the wrecked car and said, ‘We’ll have to walk home.’

  The next day a police inspector called at Vallance Road, asking for Reggie.

  ‘Do you own a Buick, registration number…?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Well, I don’t know how it got down a hole in Commercial Road but you’d better get a breakdown truck to pull i
t out.’

  Reggie just said, ‘Oh.’

  He never cared about cars – or any material thing, come to that.

  The Cambridge Rooms should have been a profitable venture but Ronnie’s generous nature sent it into bankruptcy. He paid the staff too much and gave free drinks to too many people. He even took £1,000 out of the till to buy a racehorse – then gave it away!

  The horse, called Solway Cross, never won anything, and a leg injury finally ended an undistinguished racing career. We were wondering what to do with it when Ronnie had a brilliant idea: we would raffle it at a big party we planned to throw at the Cambridge Rooms in aid of an East End charity, the Peter Pan Society for Handicapped Children. The party was held towards the end of the summer of 1963 and we had a big turnout of East End bookmakers and publicans, showbusiness celebrities including our old mates Barbara Windsor, George Sewell, Victor Spinetti and Ronald Fraser, and boxing stars Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis, Terry Downes and Terry Spinks. There were a few titled gents too, including Lord Effingham and Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Evans. Guest of honour was Sonny Liston.

  The main event of the day was the raffling of Solway Cross at £1 a ticket – the entrance fee – and it was won by a Stepney publican, who said she had not time to enjoy the horse and put it up for an impromptu auction.

  Lord Effingham mounted an improvised rostrum and within a couple of minutes Solway Cross had a new owner – Ronnie Fraser. The genial actor had had a couple too many and had got landed with the horse for £200. He couldn’t believe it; he’d only joined in the bidding for a giggle. He turned to me and grumbled, ‘Apart from getting ratted, I’m going home with a filly I hardly know.’

  Fraser may not have been too pleased with that lovely summer afternoon party. But the Peter Pan Society was delighted. Their representatives went away with £1,200 all collected on the day.

  Alan Bruce Cooper’s name spelt ABC. But he was a trifle more difficult to read than the alphabet. He came on the scene around the time the El Morocco opened and we did not know what to make of him. He was rumoured to be one of the organizers of an international arms smuggling ring, supplying the IRA, Palestinian terrorists and groups of mercenaries. It was also suggested that he had a finger in gold and narcotics smuggling. At one time the twins and I even thought he was part of the Mafia.

  Three years later – as the spider’s web was closing around the twins – we discovered that the little man with the moustache and a stutter who lived in great style in Kensington and drove a Rolls Royce was indeed in a sinister line of business.

  From the moment they met him the twins were impressed with Cooper: he talked in telephone numbers and had an air of mystery that fascinated them. It was clear he was trying to involve them in some form of international intrigue, but the twins did not seem to mind. When he suggested a trip to New York, Ronnie jumped at it. People with criminal records are not allowed to have a visa for entry into the US but Cooper, who travelled on an American passport, got round this by taking Ronnie to Paris and obtaining a visa from the US Embassy there. Ronnie thought it was great fun, not only because he spent a lively week in New York but also because it was a victory against the Old Bill at home, who seemed to be going round the bend wondering where he was.

  Cooper, who was about thirty-five, captured Ronnie’s imagination with stories of how he was responsible for several assassinations in which he used highly sophisticated lethal devices, including a hunting crossbow and a briefcase containing a hypodermic syringe full of deadly poison. He was a nondescript character, who could easily have passed for an insurance salesman. But behind that bland exterior there must have been a clever man, for I checked him out and found no trace of a criminal record, either in Britain or the US. He thrived on mystery. One day he would be in his office in Mayfair then he would be off to the States, saying he had to visit a daughter who had meningitis. When he returned, there would immediately be phone calls from Madrid or Paris or Geneva or Brussels; it was difficult keeping track of him. One day he walked into the Carpenter’s Arms with a mild-mannered gentleman with glasses who looked like a school-teacher. In a dramatic whispered aside, Cooper informed me he was a hit man for the Mafia.

  A friend of ours, Tommy Cowley, said early on that Cooper was a police spy. I laughed it off. He was a harmless Walter Mitty no one should take seriously, I said.

  Chapter Nine

  The three bullets that shattered my dreams of a quiet, peaceful and successful future were fired in the saloon bar of The Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel Road, around 8.30 P.M. on 9 March 1966. The first was fired by Ronnie into the head of a man sitting at the bar. The next two were fired into the ceiling by a member of the twins’ Firm, Ian Barrie.

  The victim was George Cornell, a member of a gang operating in South London. He was known to the twins as flash and loud-mouthed and was supposedly going around town boasting that he was ‘going to put that fat poof Kray away’.

  On that Wednesday evening, Ronnie and the Firm were drinking in a pub we called The Widow’s. Suddenly Ronnie got up and said to Barrie and Scotch Jack Dickson: ‘Let’s go for a drive.’ He often suggested this if the mood took him and the other two thought nothing of it. They followed Ronnie out of the pub.

  Cornell often spent some weekdays in the East End; that night, Ronnie wanted to have a look in a few pubs to see if he was, in fact, around. There’s not much doubt Ronnie hoped he was. For he didn’t like what Cornell was saying, and was determined that if anyone was going to be ‘put away’ it would be the South Londoner, not him.

  After the fatal shots, Dickson drove back to The Widow’s. Ronnie told Reggie and their close friends, ‘I’ve done Cornell.’ He suggested they went to a pub away from the scene of the crime and within minutes they were on their way to Walthamstow.

  Earlier that day I’d seen Reggie at Vallance Road and he’d asked if I was going drinking that night. ‘We’ll be in The Widow’s,’ he said.

  ‘I may see you later,’ I replied. I never committed myself. If I fancied a drink with the boys I would go; if I didn’t, I wouldn’t. I liked to be able to please myself.

  That night I did fancy a drink. But when I got to the pub it was half empty. ‘Where did they all go?’ I asked Madge, the missus.

  She shook her head. ‘They had to see someone. Don’t know where.’

  I walked round to Vallance Road and asked Mum but she did not know where the twins were either. I nipped back to The Widow’s in case I’d missed them and no sooner had I walked in than the phone rang. Madge looked at me. ‘It’s Reggie. For you.’

  I took the phone. Reggie quickly gave me the name of a pub in Walthamstow. ‘If I was you I’d pop over here and see us.’

  When I got there Reggie motioned towards Ronnie and said, ‘He’s just done Cornell.’

  I looked at Ronnie. ‘I shot him,’ he said.

  He spoke so matter-of-factly, I couldn’t take it in at first. Then I started asking questions: Where? How? Was it bad? Was he dead?

  Ronnie told me what had happened. But he didn’t know if the shots were fatal. Just then the news came on the pub radio. Everyone was listening to it: ‘A man gunned down in a Stepney pub earlier tonight has died in hospital.’

  I looked at the faces of all Ronnie’s friends then told Ronnie, ‘You’re in trouble. Everybody knows.’

  But he just said, ‘I don’t care.’

  After a couple of drinks I decided to make a move.

  ‘Better not go home,’ Ronnie said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The law will be about.’

  ‘Why should I worry about that?’ I asked. ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘You know what they’re like. They’ll try and involve you.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances,’ I said.

  ‘Well, we’re not going to be around for a few days.’

  And they weren’t. As the law buzzed around the East End looking for witnesses to the killing, the twins stayed in Walthamstow, out of sight in a friend�
�s flat. About a week later they surfaced and carried on as if nothing had happened. The heat was off. No one was coming forward to say who had shot Cornell. Ronnie, it seemed, was getting away with murder.

  If the police were not sure who had killed Cornell there was one person who was in little doubt – the dead man’s widow. She came round to Vallance Road and threw a brick through Mum’s front window; fortunately she and the old man were out at the time. Cornell’s widow stayed outside the house, yelling insults and accusations until Aunt May told her that, no matter what the woman thought the twins had done, it was nothing to do with the parents. Finally, Mrs Cornell left. I can understand her wanting to vent her anger and hate, but her reaction did nobody any good.

  The Cornell murder shook me, naturally, but I should not have been too surprised. The twins and I had had our rows about guns. I tried to make Ronnie see that it was daft to walk around London armed to the teeth like some commando but he would reply, ‘If they’re tooled up, so will I be. They won’t have me over.’