Everything, it seemed, was going smoothly. But the following afternoon Diana phoned our home in Kent, steaming.
‘That bastard Reg,’ she fumed. ‘Can you believe it? He’s told me that Charlie can’t be buried at Chingford. There are only two spaces left in the family plot and he wants them for himself, and Bradley Allardyce.’ Bradley was a young prisoner who Reggie called his ‘adopted son’.
Diana was disgusted that Reggie could be so disrespectful to his older brother, but was not surprised: she had seen Charlie hurt many times by Reggie’s outbursts, which is why she’d always had as little to do with him as possible. There was no love lost between them.
Claudine came on the phone, sobbing. Her voice breaking, she told Sue she loved Charlie dearly. To her, he was Dad, always had been, and he’d even given her away on her wedding day. She never wanted him buried with the twins; she wanted him cremated and his ashes scattered around a tree she planned to plant beside South Norwood lake, which she could see from the balcony of the flat, in Cantley Gardens. Often, sitting next to her on the balcony taking the sun, Charlie had said to her what a lovely, peaceful spot it was, and Claudine could think of no resting place more fitting for a man she loved and respected so much – someone who had never let her down. She wanted to be able to take her daughter, Georgia May, to the place where Charlie was at rest, whenever she needed to talk something over with him.
The problem was that Charlie had always said he wanted to be buried beside Gary. To deny him that was unthinkable, so Diana started to consider having Gary’s body exhumed and reburied, with Charlie, in the cemetery of the local church, where Claudine had married.
In the end it didn’t come to that: Reggie had a change of heart and gave Charlie priority over his young prison buddy. He told Diana he would be taking over the arrangements for the funeral, and, to avoid further upset, Diana left him to it.
Having had no contact with Reggie over the funeral, and not wanting to fuel possible tension, Sue said she’d understand if Diana changed her mind about her speaking. Diana was horrified and said that was one area where Reggie would not have his way: Charlie might not be getting the quiet funeral he wished for, but all those who came to mourn his passing would, most certainly, hear the voice he liked so much.
Charlie would have been embarrassed – mortified, perhaps – by the show his brother put on for his farewell. True, it was not as ostentatious as the hyperbolic affair Reggie orchestrated for Ronnie: no black-plumed horses clip-clopped in front of a glass-sided hearse; only eighteen limousines, not twenty-nine, ferried family and friends; considerably fewer menacing minders patrolled outside English’s funeral parlour, and St Matthew’s Church, further along Bethnal Green Road; and a mere 5,000 or so curious onlookers thronged the streets outside the church and along the funeral route to Chingford Cemetery. But for such a courteous, engaging and dignified gentleman, who had made it clear he wanted a low-key farewell, with the minimum of fuss, the occasion of that sunny Wednesday 19 April was a disgrace. And an insult to Charlie’s memory.
That he ignored his older brother’s dying wish, thus affording him the lack of respect and love he had all his life, says more about Reggie Kray’s self-obsessed, selfish and arrogant manner than anything I can.
Thankfully, and ironically, the saving grace was that in staging such a public funeral, albeit for his own glorification, Reggie did provide an opportunity for those who knew Charlie to pay their last respects. The streets and high office windows may have been crammed with gawpers and wannabe gangsters who had thrilled to the Kray legend, but inside St Matthew’s 300 people generated a warmth that, I’m sure, could only have come from those who genuinely knew and liked Charlie.
That warmth clearly did not exist between Reggie and Diana. The animosity between them, fuelled by Reggie’s outrageous behaviour over the burial plot, was symbolized by the seating arrangements, handled on the day by Flanagan but carefully planned by Reggie: Diana was in the front row, to the right of Charlie’s coffin, with Claudine and her son, Dean, and his family; Reggie was on the other side, handcuffed to a Wayland Prison officer, but clinging to his wife, Roberta, like a kid in the back row of the pictures. The gulf was only a matter of feet, but Charlie’s soulmate and his brother were worlds apart, as they had been for twenty-five years. They barely glanced at each other throughout the fifty-minute ceremony.
That Charlie was by far the most popular of the three brothers became evident when Freddie Foreman’s son, Jamie, stepped up to the lectern to read out messages from Charlie’s friends and acquaintances. Jamie, an accomplished TV and movie actor, is experienced in delivering written lines under testing conditions, but the emotion of the occasion and his love for Charlie got to him that day. Poor Jamie’s voice frequently cracked, and the loud sniffing among many of the congregation showed that he was not alone in being touched by such an enormous demonstration of affection.
Stepping down from the lectern, near to tears, Jamie said: ‘Charlie’s smile will be ingrained on my heart.’
After the hymn ‘Fight The Good Fight’, Sue stepped up to read her own tribute to Charlie. Few, if any, of the congregation, I suspect, would have expected to hear Shakespeare recited at his funeral, but that’s how my wife started her address.
And when he shall die, take him,
And cut him out in tiny stars,
And he shall make the heavens so bright
That all the world will be in love with night.
To Sue, those beautiful words, from Romeo and Juliet, seemed to sum up Charlie perfectly, because she went on to say: ‘My friend Charlie’s bright smile lit up any room…’ To a hushed church, she read her own tribute:
‘I have very clear images of Charlie all over our home – sharing dinner in the dining room, drinking coffee in the kitchen, partying in our lounge – but most clearly I can see him sitting in our garden, when he and my husband, Robin, were working on his book.
Charlie was a delight to work with. Of course, he always looked the business. Smart and clean and smelling sweet, he’d arrive, on time, with that wonderful smile to greet me. He would work hard with us, but, more important, I can still hear his wonderful laughter when recalling some of the great times he’d enjoyed with friends.
Many of you here will have your own memories of those stories: time spent with Charlie, your friend.
But, of course, he was far more than a friend to dear Diana.
Her memories span more than thirty years, from that wonderful moment when Charlie tracked her down and they were reunited, seven years after their chance meeting in Leicester.’
And then Sue read out the words she had written for Diana:
‘Charlie and I were a partnership. Like all relationships, it had its highs and lows. We shared a wonderful life that spun us in all directions. We had a superb time which we enjoyed to the full. There was lots of laughter and joy and the occasional sadness. There were so many good times shared with friends from all walks of life – most of you are here today. We all adored Charlie’s laughter and his wit. Something, I know, each and every one of us will always treasure.
I know, too, he has taken with him a small piece of each and every one of you here today. We have all lost someone very special.
It is a comfort to me that on the wet and windy night at the end, Charlie was sitting waiting for me. He said he knew I would come. I am so grateful I shared that time with him.
I will especially miss Charlie’s wonderful big blue, blue eyes. A picture of his enchanting smile will remain forever in my heart, until the day when I also walk into the light and am reunited with my Charlie.
Charlie, I just want to tell you how much I love you.
I love you twenty-two quid.’
Sue went on to read ‘Stop All the Clocks’, by W. H. Auden, on Diana’s behalf, then the beautiful words about fatherhood, written by Tony Holland, the creator of East-Enders, for Claudine and Dean. She finished her tribute with the poem by an anonymous writer, ‘Weep Not
For Me’.
Not to be outdone, Reggie had recorded himself reciting the poem ‘Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep’, and his feeble voice echoed through the church on loudspeakers, leaving most, if not all, of the congregation bemused.
Five years before, Dave Courtney had talked Reggie out of playing his own recorded tribute at Ronnie’s funeral, and it was lamentable that Reggie didn’t have anyone with the guts to give him the same advice this time. Reggie deserves praise for wanting to make a personal contribution, but, quite honestly, his voice did not have the gravitas to make his reading anything but embarrassing for everyone who heard it. But, then, in his later years, Reggie always felt he knew best. And, judging by his reaction to the noisy crowds after the service, I’m sure he felt it was as much his day as Charlie’s. As the oak casket was carried from the church, to Shirley Bassey singing ‘As Long As He Needs Me’, and Reggie emerged into the bright sunshine, he gave a regal wave to the crowds, enthusiastically responding to Frankie Fraser’s call for ‘Three cheers for Reggie’.
‘As Long As He Needs Me’? In all my experience, Reggie was never there when Charlie needed him.
The Reggie Kray ‘Roadshow’ continued, as it had done at Ronnie’s funeral, with crowds lining the route to Chingford Cemetery and what has become known as ‘Kray Corner’ – the plot where Reggie’s parents, brother, nephew and wife are buried.
He paid his respects at each grave, then, with Roberta beside him, looked on stoically as Charlie’s coffin was lowered into the ground next to his beloved Gary. Who knows whether Reggie gave a thought to the unimaginable hurt he’d caused Diana and Claudine by planning to deny Charlie the right to slip into eternity with the son he adored so much?
As Reg was hugged and kissed by mourners, Diana said: ‘Charlie would have loved this sunshine.’ But her words were drowned by more cries of ‘Three cheers for Reg’, and ‘Take the cuffs off’, as Reggie was taken from the graveside to the blue people carrier waiting to take him back to Norfolk.
We had all come to bury Charlie, the Gentleman, but thousands had come to hail Reggie, the Gangster.
And that’s just the way he’d planned it.
A Personal View
As Me and My Brothers is an autobiography, one would expect Charlie to come out of it as a good guy; a very likeable, non-violent, law-abiding individual who paid a dreadful price for his brothers’ murderous ways. But that is the truth. And if this book does nothing else but convince people that Charlie was not a gangster, then I’m happy. And I know Charlie would have been, too.
I didn’t know him as well as some people – Wilf Pine and Albert Chapman and, of course, Diana, for example – but, as Charlie’s first publisher, then his ghostwriter, I spent hundreds of hours over many months getting close to him and unquestionably saw the man behind the myth, understood, as much as one could, the anger, bitterness and downright frustration he felt.
After his conviction in the McVitie case, it was open season for the media where Charlie was concerned. To newspapers and TV alike, he was an accessory to murder, was a willing party in all the madness and mayhem the twins brought to sixties London. And, on his release from prison, in 1975, journalists still believed he was the twins’ mouthpiece, was the brain behind their businesses that supposedly capitalized on their infamy.
I have personal experience of how that wrongful conviction earned Charlie his shameful reputation.
In 1987, when I was collaborating with Charlie for a rewrite of the first edition of Me and My Brothers, I was a sub-editor on the Daily Express, working in the late afternoon and night. One of my colleagues, Bill Montgomery, knew I was ghosting Charlie’s story, but knew nothing of how we were doing it. When I told him I’d spent the morning taping Charlie in my garden, he was horrified.
‘You allow that man in your house?’
‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Because he’s one of the Krays,’ Bill said. ‘They murdered people, for God’s sake.’
‘Charlie didn’t murder anyone,’ I told him quietly.
‘He may not have wielded the knife that killed McVitie, but he did his brothers’ dirty work. Got rid of a dead body.’
‘No he didn’t,’ I said. ‘Charlie had nothing to do with the murder. He was stitched up by the police.’
Bill scoffed. ‘How can you be sure he’s telling the truth?’
‘How can you be so sure he’s not,’ I said. ‘You’ve never even met the man.’
‘And I don’t want to.’
‘Because he’s a Kray?’
‘Yeah, if you want to put it that way. They’re all gangsters.’
‘Charlie wasn’t a gangster, Bill,’ I said. ‘The twins were the gangsters.’
‘They were all the same, Robbie,’ he said. ‘All the same.’
I didn’t want a row, so I forced a smile. ‘Let’s agree to disagree, Bill. Let’s leave it there.’
And we did. We never spoke about Charlie, or his book, again – even when it was published the following September and I took a copy into the office. But that conversation played on my mind and brought into sharp focus the enormity of the problem the Kray name gave Charlie. If a seasoned sub-editor, responsible for writing headlines and editing reporters’ copy in a national newspaper, believed it to be true, what price the millions of readers? If a journalist with forty years’ experience detested the Kray name so much what hope did that give Charlie?
I can understand why Charlie decided not to fight to clear his name. But, given the way his life panned out, I’m not sure that well-intentioned advice of Ronnie’s psychiatrist was right. On his release from prison, Charlie was so distressed and humiliated by people’s reaction to him that his happy-go-lucky personality changed and he had no self-confidence.
What he so needed was a platform to give his side of what, for him, was a desperately tragic story. The Press and TV weren’t going to give it to him, but the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg might have. After all, in 1975 he had a very strong case to put before it, because, shortly after his conviction, the prosecution’s main witness, Ronald Hart, made a statement on oath stating he had lied about Charlie’s involvement in the McVitie case. Then, later, both Tony and Chris Lambrianou confessed that they, with Ronnie Bender, had taken McVitie’s body from Evering Road.
We’ll never know whether Charlie would have been allowed to win such an action; probably not, since it would have meant reopening the whole case and that would have brought into the open the reason Charlie had been convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. But, at the very least, the fact that the Kray twins’ elder brother was challenging his conviction, and had compelling new evidence to support him, would have made headlines and provided the platform Charlie needed; given him the chance to tell the world he did not do what he’d been imprisoned for.
And that would have given him a purpose in life.
As it was, he drifted rather aimlessly, wanting so much to get involved in some legitimate venture but not having the wherewithal to pull anything together. Much has been said – in the papers and on the internet – about Charlie being the brains behind the twins’ so-called empire, but that’s rubbish. Successful businessmen have vision – and Charlie had none. If you outlined a scheme that would earn him, say, £100,000 over two years and then gave him an alternative of five grand in his hand now, Charlie would take the second option, no question.
Whether it was because he’d been robbed of precious years of his life and wanted to make up for lost time, I don’t know, but Charlie always looked to today, not tomorrow. If ever anyone epitomized the old adage ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, it was him.
That’s why I knew, sitting in Redbridge Magistrates’ Court two days after Charlie’s arrest, that all the headlines of him masterminding a £78 million two-year drugs deal were ludicrous. Such an elaborate operation would require careful planning and attention to detail – not Charlie’s strengths at all.
Like Charli
e and all his friends, I’m at a loss to know why he was targeted. For, make no mistake, he was targeted. And, despite the prosecution arguing to the contrary, he was entrapped. Some people have said that Charlie was in the wrong place at the wrong time, unwittingly mingling with known drug dealers, who were under police surveillance. But this doesn’t add up; no one but Charlie and his two co-defendants were arrested. More likely is the theory of one of the leading barristers in the case: that Jack and his undercover team had run up enormous expenses in a drug operation which, after several months’ surveillance, had produced no results. Under pressure to make arrests, they met the likeable, but woefully naive, Patsy Manning, who boasted of his long friendship with Charlie. Now, who better than the last of the Krays to get the police off the hook? What a career boost that would be for Jack. But after the introductions were made, Charlie did not keep in touch with Jack; the undercover man kept ringing him. If Jack had not made contact, that would have been the end of it. But the Geordies were determined to lure Charlie into their carefully spun web and, sadly, he was so gullible, so trusting – and so broke – that he was a pathetically easy victim. Having said that, I was intrigued to learn at the trial that, although the police had dozens of hours of Charlie on tape, only a few were used in evidence. The majority of the recordings were either of such poor sound quality, or so banal, that they proved nothing – except, perhaps, that the police had to tape Charlie for many hours before they got him to say what they wanted. Knowing how much he giggled and ran off at the mouth when he was having ‘a good drink’, I’m sure he proved very frustrating.
Lest anyone doubts Charlie’s poor financial state at that time, I can vouch that he was broke. Penniless, in fact. As I told the court, I rang Charlie at Judy’s home shortly after we’d been to David Bailey’s studios for a photo shoot for a Sunday Telegraph magazine feature I’d set up. When I asked how he was, Charlie was typically chirpy, but then said: ‘To be truthful, Rob, I’m not too clever. I can’t even afford a packet of fags.’
Me and My Brothers Page 42