Inside the Kray Family

by Rita Smith

  Picture taken, we ended up outside a shop that had all the gear hanging on the front like they did. I’ve sorted through a box of spinning tops, had a bang at a drum and tried out an iron hoop, then I spotted a toy whip and nothing else would do – cost about a penny. Then I’m off, cracking this thing and in my mind driving a pair-horse van through all the people on the pavement. As we came down Kingsland Road there was a long line of carts with the horses in the shafts and every one with its head in its nosebag. What do I do? I gave the last one in line a crack across the arse. Its head came out of the bag like it had been shot. It gave a squeal and bucked right up in the air, tipping all these pans and kettles off the cart, then it took off down the road and half the line went with it. You’ve never see nothing like it. Stuff all over the place and people diving out of the way. They reckon my nephews caused a few problems in London, but I was there before them that day.

  Mum slipped us down an alley and nothing more was said, but she held on to that whip all the way home.

  I didn’t really know my grandparents on my father’s side. Well I wouldn’t expect to know my grandad because he was locked up in the madhouse at Epsom for over seventeen years. My own father took me to see him one time and I must have been small because I remember that when we got inside Long Grove Asylum and went into this room where he was, the first thing he done was grab hold of me and fling me right up in the air about five or six times. Frightened the life out of me and I wouldn’t go back again. Strangely enough this was the same place where young Ronnie was certified when he took a bad turn after a spell in prison.

  To be fair to the old boy it wasn’t madness that made him chuck me about like that and I’ve seen it many times; some adults don’t know how to show affection to a little child so they rough them up playful like.

  They tell me people put in books and what have you that he was a drunkard all his life and that’s why he went off his head, but Mother told me that he’d had a bad accident at Aldgate and was never the same after it. He was driving or riding on the back of a tall wagon, and as it went under an archway he struck his head on the brick wall and fell clean off. After that he had no end of fits and I don’t suppose they knew what to do with it in those days so he had to get on with it.

  By this time in his life he’d moved on from droving cattle and into the meat trade and I suppose that would make sense once you got fed up traipsing all over the country. I understand that at some time there was a plaque on the wall at Smithfield Market that said LEE & CODY. What that was all about I don’t know. Might have been that him and his partner was the first shop in the new part in the early 1900s. Again it makes sense to me that he was in with somebody else, because a few bob must have trickled in over the years from it, or else he couldn’t have left a tidy sum when he died. Stands to reason he couldn’t have earned a brass farthing stuck in a madhouse all them years.

  What got him put away in the first place was one night he woke all the family up by standing over the bed with a big knife in his hand. He must have had one of his turns and what with being a butcher and slaughtering all day, he got everything mixed up in his head and it was a close thing that he didn’t cut their throats like they was bullocks. My mother said they were all terrified and screaming but Helen, my grandmother, had seen this sort of thing before and got him a tea with brandy and managed to calm him down. After that she couldn’t take the risk no more so the police came, took him away and he never came home again because he was to die in that madhouse.

  So what with him going like that and his son Dewey ending up in the Claybury mental place, then later on young Ronnie – they might say there’s a streak of madness runs right through the family, but I don’t know about that. You can’t deny what’s fact and staring you in the face, but to my way of thinking each one of them had his own different reason for going on the turn. A bang on the head or too many drugs doesn’t mean there’s an illness in the whole family.

  As for my Nanny Houghton – in later years I’d hear my mother telling people that she was a spiteful old cow. I don’t remember seeing too much of her when I was a child, but when I did she was either going in or coming out of a pub and she’d say, “Come over here, Joe luv”. And then she’d give me one of them arrowroot biscuits they sold in the pubs. Other times it might be a penny, so I thought she was the best Nan in the world.

  But Mother, she wore a bandage on her wrist all her life and when she took it off to do the washing or whatever, you’d see a hole in her wrist that you could put your finger in. What it was, when she was little she was buttering bread at the table and her mother said, “That’s enough, girl, don’t do no more”.Well, being a kid she either didn’t hear or she must have cocked a deaf ’un and carried on, because next minute old Ada’s picked up a knife and stuck it straight through her arm. Temper, see – and that’s something that did run through part of the family. That wrist played her up for the rest of her life and I must have heard the story a million times. Yet when she was in her nineties and some young doctor noticed the scar and asked her what it was, she pretended she didn’t have a clue. I think she was ashamed to say to a stranger that her own mother did it.

  By the time we moved out of Hackney and into Bethnal Green our family had grown a fair bit. I’d never done a day’s schooling in my life and I was coming up to my twelfth birthday. As it turned out, when Mum thought I should have a bit of education at last, every school was full up except a Jewish one, so I ended up there. The only boy in the place that wasn’t a Jew. I didn’t mind though because it didn’t last, what with the First World War breaking out less than two years later. Never held me back though because you learned all you needed to know from the family and by taking in everything you saw.

  After me came my sister Rose in 1907. She was a pretty little thing – dark skinned and dark haired, taking after our grandmother. She should have been a boy, that one, because she was into everything. Always ready for a fight and never changed the rest of her life.

  I remember one day she was up and down the street wheeling one of those pram things you could put your foot on – pushchair. Next thing she’s run into the back of some woman’s legs and a right row went on. That’s not enough; the woman’s husband came out and stuck his three ha’pence in, just as the old man comes up the street. I knew what was going to happen. He has a go at the woman, her husband tells him to fuck off and Dad knocks seven bells out of him. While he’s doing that a big fella that’s going with one of this bloke’s daughters steps out of the house, hits the old man over the head with a lump of wood, then goes back in and shuts the door. Dad gave such a roar, goes after him, kicks the door open and beat him up. All that because of little madam Rose who stood there like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

  After that came our Violet, who we’ve always called Violi. I can see her now. When she was little she had a chubby face and real rosy cheeks. Most of the time she seemed to be in a world of her own – a proper dreamer. I’ve seen her be sent to buy a bowl of salt herrings and come back with just the bones because she’d stood on the corner and eaten all the fish. Perhaps that’s why they nicknamed her “Doodle”. May, who turned up two years later, could have been Violi’s twin, because they did look alike, what with the blond hair and blue eyes. That came from the German side and my Joe and young Charlie picked those looks up as well. May was always singing or larking about and they all called her Dinah, though don’t ask me why. There might have been an actress with that name on the music halls. Johnny was the last-born and that was about the same time the 1914–18 war broke out. I didn’t know it right then, but a couple of years later I’d find myself volunteering for that war and end up in the cavalry, what with knowing about horses and that – but that’s something else entirely.

  If ever anyone mentioned my mother’s German background she always said, “Ah, but they weren’t none of them bad ones”.

  By now we were all living in Hemming Street, just through the arch from where we’d all end up in
Vallance Road. This place was just a little two-up, two-down.

  When the old man was after renting the two upstairs rooms he took me and my mother along and swore to the landlord who lived downstairs that I was the only child. Course once we were in, up pops the three girls and his missus said, “What’s all this? Whose are all these kids?We ain’t going to stand for it, you wait till my ’usband gets in.” But when he did come in and raised his voice too loud with his wife egging him on, my father settled it by giving him a good hiding at the bottom of the stairs, which was a shame really because after they let us stay and we got to know them, they turned out to be nice people.

  I don’t think we were in those rooms more than a few weeks, when one afternoon while I was outside talking to a couple of little mates, there was this almighty bang. We all jumped and looked round but other than that didn’t take too much notice until the landlady came flying out shouting, “Get a policeman – something’s happened upstairs”. I’ve jumped the stairs as quick as you like and run into our living room and what a mess. The window was knocked half out and there was broken bits and pieces all over. Mum was white faced, the three girls were crying and little May had blood running down her face. Turned out my mother had left the gas on while they were all out, then when she came back, lit a match for the kettle. Cooker was blown to bits and it’s lucky they weren’t killed.

  There was always something or other going on. I don’t know if we were all that different from other families, but there was a story every day that went on all our lives – and I’m not even counting what those boys got up to later on.

  A lot of people, and that’s people all round the world, think they know what my father was like because of that film they called The Krays. I was nearly in it myself but Young Joe can tell you more about that. I saw the film and didn’t recognize no one, least of all my old man. The fella that played the part of my old man did a good job and I’m not knocking the film but when they put over that this old geezer was a bit soft – a figure of fun if you like – I felt it was letting down the real Jimmy Lee. Dad was comical but that was more to do with the things he did that didn’t turn out right, and the things he said that didn’t come out like he meant them. What I’m saying is he wasn’t a joker and he took life serious. But he was an entertainer and a good one at that, else he wouldn’t have toured all the local theatres and music halls like he did.

  Sometimes he used me as a prop in some of his stunts. I’d only be a nipper but he’d get one of those big glass bottles they call carboys, stick me on the neck and balance the lot on his head. But that wasn’t all. Without the bottle he’d put me up on his shoulders, do a couple of turns, then slowly balance his way along the tops of a line of beer bottles. When he got to the end of the line he’d climb up a pair of stepladders that had bottles on every tread. Then stepping on the necks again until he got to the top, he’d jump down into a barrel with me still clinging on. Brought the house down. I’ve never heard of anyone else before or since who could do that. In fact he was so confident that nobody else could match him he would stand on the stage and offer a tenner to anyone who could. Just as well it wasn’t taken up because he wouldn’t have paid out anyway.

  He used to practise by jumping out of our bedroom window into a barrel over and over again. Mother stopped him using me in the end in case there was an accident, but I was never worried.

  Licking a white-hot poker was another of his stunts and you’d hear the people in the audience gasping when he did it. He told me that as long as you had plenty of spit on your tongue it would throw the poker off before you got burned, but he never would let me try it.

  He would sing, dance and play the squeeze-box and I don’t think he was all that but at different times in his younger days he was on the same bill as Marie Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and Old Mother Riley. This was before they made names for themselves, and at the time I don’t suppose they was much better than he was. The thing with my old man was he’d have a go at anything, whether he knew what he was doing or not.

  In his mind the big chance to break away from grafting all day and ducking and diving to make ends meet was when his father died in Long Grove asylum. Now my Grandad Lee hadn’t worked for seventeen years what with being locked up, so I don’t know how he managed to get any money together. But wherever it came from he left a good lump to be shared out.

  One of my aunts had married a man with a bit of a head on him – good with figures and what have you. So he got hold of this money and said to the rest of the family who was involved, “Now it’s your money but I’ll invest it for you. If you need some just come and see me and I’ll sort it out.” So like a lot of sheep them that was due a share would go to him every now and then with cap in hand like he was doing them a favour and ask him, “Please can I have five pounds,” or two or ten – doesn’t matter. Then he’d make a big fuss about signing their names in a little book “to keep it legal, like” before he weighed out.

  Father swallowed this for about a month then I remember him saying to my mother, “Mary Ann, fuck this. I’m going to get my money,” and off he went. He came home that night and poured, and I mean poured nigh on a hundred gold sovereigns out on to the kitchen table among the brown sauce bottle, the milk jug and all the other bits and pieces. I didn’t even know what they were, what with only ever being used to coppers and tanners. Never seen such a thing in my life. My mother stood there with her mouth open and he laughed and said, “He wasn’t all that keen, Mary Ann, but he saw sense in the end,” and knowing Father we knew what that meant.

  Turned out this uncle was cheating the family anyway. What he would do was when any of them signed for say five pounds the crafty old bastard would stick a one in front of it. Dad found out about this but like he said, “That ain’t my worry. I’ve got mine and we’re going up in the world.”

  He couldn’t boil a kettle or fry an egg, so in his mind the obvious business to put this found money into was to do with cooking. He got himself a fish shop, had hundreds of handbills printed up and delivered round the doors saying fried fish, herring, soups, dinners and everything. He didn’t have a clue. Five or six weeks later the money and the shop was gone – all down the pan. But he never accepted that it was down to him. As far as he saw it “them fucking Jew bastards” had put him out of business by opening shops near his. Daren’t mention fish to him for months after.

  Next thing he’d be buying sacks of peanuts up the market and then sell them off in little bags. If you was lucky you got a big bag – if not a small one, because he never thought of measuring them out. No. Chuck them in, give the paper a twist and that was that. For a while he had my mother selling them off the back of a barrow outside the Regal until she got fed up with it. These things were down the backs of chairs and crunching under our feet for weeks until he moved on to something else. But he never gave up trying because in his mind every new thing he tried was going to be the winner.

  Fruit and veg was another caper. By this time we were living down London Road before the council changed its name to Dunbridge Road. He kept a lot of his stock in a big old tin bath out in the yard, filled up with water so he could wash it and keep it fresh. Same bath as we washed in every week funnily enough. What he never knew was our Rose, who lived upstairs, used to come down with a bucket that had a cloth over it. If he wasn’t looking or wasn’t about she’d help herself to a nice lettuce, a few bits of greens and a couple of apples then shoot back upstairs again. Thing is he’d have give her them if she asked but she just loved the devilment of it.

  Anyway, when he set up in this game he got himself an old barrow – bought not hired. But his pride and joy was a pair of gleaming white Avery scales. They were “on the book” for about ten bob a week and as far as he was concerned they set him apart from all the other traders and made him look a proper businessman. Same as always a few months down the line it all went pear shaped and he gave it up. Them posh scales must have been worth near enough a hundred quid or something like, but w
hatever, I do know they were expensive. So what does he do? He sells them off for practically nothing. Trouble was he’d never made one single payment for them.

  Time went by and the firm where he got them from was sending letters first, then blokes knocking on the door chasing him for the money. But all he said about them was “Fuck ’em – I ain’t got ’em no more”. So they took him to court. When he came up at Prescott Street Magistrates Court and was stood in front of the magistrate he said, “I’m ever so sorry, your lordship, but somebody nicked them off me barra”. The bloke says, “I have every sympathy with you but nevertheless they must be paid for”.Well the old man’s gone green at that but told them that if he suffered terrible hardship he could just about find a shilling a week and would they accept that. They did, but same as the scales, he never made a payment even though we had all kinds of people and a copper one time banging on the door. They gave up in the end.

  Years later when he was pushing on a bit he’d always tell people: “I ain’t never took what wasn’t mine an’ never owed a penny to any man.” If I was there I’d say, “What about them scales then? They nicked you over them.” And he’d give me a dirty look as if to say, “Oh yeah, the big fella knows all the answers,” sarcastic like. That’s what he called me then when he had the hump. What it was, he didn’t like me pointing out faults with jobs he’d done at home, and he’d come in and say to my mother: “Has he been in today? The big fella? Everything suit him – did he find any faults?” One time he put a light up and my mother told him it was too low, so he said, “I know, and when the big bloke comes round he’ll bomp his head and make a complaint”. It wasn’t that I was picking on him but the stunts he got up to could’ve killed the pair of them. Didn’t have a clue about electrics and I’d call in and find he’d strung all lights around the room, and outside, with nothing but bare wires.