Inside the Kray Family

by Rita Smith

  Violi was all over the place, giggling and fidgeting about, and I could see that though she was a bit brave, what with bringing this Charlie home, she was worried about father coming home from the market where he went every Sunday. Of course he did turn up and things got a bit frosty. The old man never even spoke to him. He asked for a cup of tea, sat himself in the armchair and stuck the paper in front of his face.

  Give him his due, Charlie kept smiling, but he left after about ten minutes and I wasn’t far behind him because I knew it was going to go off. Later Violi told me the old man went up the wall. “He’s old enough to be your father. He ain’t no good. You keep away from him,” and so on. She told him she wouldn’t see Charlie no more but she never meant it. I mean from a young girl’s point of view he was the business – good looking, bit of a joker and he had a few quid in his pocket – nothing else mattered.

  So with Rose and May making excuses for her and Mum turning a blind eye, she carried on seeing him behind the old man’s back. Things got a bit strained because the old man wasn’t daft and was always asking where she was going and where she had been. Mum and my sisters didn’t know where it would end up or they wouldn’t have gone against the old man. None of us did. We thought it would all blow over, knowing what young girls are like. Then it all went wrong.

  I came in and Mother said, “Our Violi’s gone”. I said, “What do you mean, gone? What’s been said?” She said, “Nothing. Her stuff ’s gone out the bedroom and she ain’t been to work.” You didn’t have to be too clever to work out where she’d taken off to and word came back very quick that her and Charlie had slipped down the registry in Kingsland Road and got married. Wasn’t even legal because she lied about her age and said she was eighteen, so it could have been stopped with her only being sixteen, but nobody took it up.

  The old man took it all inside and was hurt very badly. Being the man he was, we half expected him to go after Charlie, but he never did. At first he shouted and swore she was no daughter of his and she’d never set foot in the house again, but that didn’t last and he went all quiet – like the spark had been knocked out of him.

  We all missed having her at home because she was always laughing or singing around the place, but we had to get on with it.

  When Christmas came round it must have got him thinking because he said to me, “Joe, let’s go and get our Violi back.” He must have forgotten she was married and there was no bringing her back, but he was so keen I didn’t have the heart to say anything. We went down to where she was living in with his parents, and as we stopped outside we could hear a party going on. He banged on the door and some bloke I didn’t know stuck his head out and asked what we wanted. We told him and at the same time Jimmy Kray’s shouted from inside: “Who is it?” This geezer said, “It’s Jimmy Lee and he wants a word with his girl”. So Kray shouted back: “Tell the old bastard to fuck off.”

  I’ve never seen the old man as wild as he was then, and if I hadn’t stopped him he would’ve smashed the door in and killed somebody. I didn’t see no need for that, though I was mad myself. All the way home he kept shaking his head and saying “Why is she doing this?”

  They say that Jimmy Kray was a tough nut and a tearaway, but I think a lot of that talk came from young Ronnie, who always did have what you might call a romantic head on him. From what I knew of Jimmy he was really a quiet sort of chap and I never did hear of him going out of his way looking for any trouble. So all I can think was that he’d had a bit too much drink when he shouted at my father.

  A long time after, Violi told me she was upstairs too frightened to come down and crying because she knew her dad would be upset. What none of us knew was that when she’d eloped she was pregnant. Nothing was said right up until she had a boy, and that was young Charlie.

  All the women got excited like they do when one of their own had a baby, and I thought that would bring the old man round to accepting the way things were, but he had a streak of stubbornness a mile wide and he wouldn’t acknowledge anything was different. On the quiet, as though he couldn’t care less, he used to ask me what the boy was like. Was he big? What colour hair did he have? Who did he look like? Because what with our Connie being five and young Joe being a year old, he knew that me and my Cissy saw Violi quite often – you know what women with babies are like. So I know he did care but he was prepared to cut off his own nose to spite his face, as they say.

  Something else we didn’t know and wouldn’t find out until they both moved in with us was that Charlie was getting a bit handy with his fists when he’d had a skinful. Used Violi like a punchbag and she kept it all hidden – even from her sisters. Proud, you see. Didn’t want anybody saying she’d made a mistake, though I think she’d realized that herself early on. Those days women accepted that sort of thing as part of married life.

  Over the next six or seven years the family changed. Rose took up with Billy Wiltshire and got married. May tied the knot with Albert Filler, and that only left Johnny at home for a while because he was only eighteen.

  We all moved about a bit, though stayed around Bethnal Green so we didn’t lose touch. Nowadays families are all over the place, what with work and cars and all that. I’m down here in Romford, my Joe’s up in Norfolk, Charlie’s over Croydon way, and of course we all know where the two boys are. But then people never strayed far from where they were born; they all stuck together and helped each other out.

  So there came a time when we moved into my in-laws house – the Whittingtons at 68 Stean Street. It was a big old place and we took over the two basement rooms and one on the ground floor. There was a docker and his family had a room, then above us lot Ciss’s mum and dad had their couple of rooms. That left two rooms at the top and it wasn’t long before my Violi said to me that she was fed up with living with Charlie’s mob over in Gorsuch Street and would I put a word in for her about these rooms. Well of course I did and the three of them moved in, but it was a bad day’s work on my part because Charlie caused a lot of upset with his drinking. Fortunately, he was away a lot of the time, what with travelling around buying his bit of tat – as far as Gloucester and Bristol.

  My Joe said that he read somewhere that old Charlie was supposed to be earning thirty or forty pounds a week in them days, but a doctor couldn’t even pick up that much, and if he was, our Violi never saw none of it. Every Sunday without fail he was on the tap looking for a few bob so he could pay his train fare and buy a bit of gear. I mean, who was right? Here was him without a second’s thought for his family – Jack the Lad with his own business as he liked to call it, and us lot working hard for guv’nors every day subsidizing what he got up to. Friday you’d get your few quid back; Sunday he was banging on the door for it back again. Weekends were the worst. One, because he was home and two, he was drinking any profit he might have made.

  You have to let people live their own lives and look the other way when it doesn’t suit you, but when it’s your own sister taking a hiding what are you going to do? Same every time. He’d come in late – voices would be raised and he’d start chucking his weight around. Little Charlie would start crying, then Violi, and I would jump them stairs and get hold of him. He never was a fighter and never would be, so a couple of right-handers was all it took to quiet him down. I was a big fella when I was younger but I never went too strong, though seeing Violi with a cut lip or a red eye made me want to chuck him out the window. But half the time she defended him once I got up there. “Don’t hurt him, Joe, he’s just had too much. He don’t mean it.” And that was it until the next time.

  It seems like I’ve got a down on him, but I’ve got to say that once I did get to know him he wasn’t really such a bad fella. It was that “gut polish” as my father would have said – turned him into a monster. I might have given him a slap the night before but next morning he wouldn’t even remember it, so he never bore a grudge.

  One incident did upset me but by the time I heard about it too much time had gone by to even mention i
t. Women things, if you know what I mean, are kept among the women, so I never even knew my sister was pregnant again. She must have put on weight and all that but what woman doesn’t when she’s married. This would be around 1932 and at that time I was driving all over the place and away from home quite a bit.

  On the Sunday night Charlie had been on the piss as usual and given Violi a worse bashing than normal, probably because I wasn’t around to put a stop to it. Next morning she’s real bad – doesn’t feel well and she’s bleeding down there, if you get what I’m saying. For whatever reason the house is empty apart from that husband of hers. Connie, Charlie and young Joe would be at school, the rest of them in the house either working or shopping – whatever. Charlie’s flying around getting ready to catch his train so he can go on the knocker and all the while she’s asking him not to go because something ain’t right with her insides. He’s ignored her and disappeared out the door.

  About an hour later she had a baby girl. Later on there was talk of it dropping out of her and on to the floor but I’m not sure about that. Either way with Violi giving it a cuddle this little mite died almost straight away. She had loads of black hair and big dark eyes, and sounds like she would have taken after our Rosie. The name was picked out and everything. She would’ve been Violet, same as her mother. Terrible thing to happen.

  You know, right up until the day she died she kept a lace-trimmed funeral card in her top drawer. And beside it all wrapped up in soft paper there was a white carnation that she took off little Violet’s coffin, even though it turned black with age eventually. She hid what she felt inside but never forgot.

  She was ill for ever such a long time after and I didn’t really know what was wrong with her. Not ill – bedridden – more depressed and doing a lot of crying. I thought she’d had enough of Charlie, and at the time he did cut down on the booze. So to me it did look like they had problems but were trying to sort them out, so you don’t say anything.

  Doctors said that if she didn’t hurry up and get pregnant again she’d end up in Bethnal Green Asylum. If they’d known the background to all this they’d have been better advising her to go back to her mother, but that just wasn’t entertained then. You made your bed, you laid in it. In those days you did whatever doctors told you, because they knew best and so she’s taken up what they suggested and just before Christmas the next year she had those twins.

  If any good did come out of that it was that my father decided to let bygones be bygones and take up with Violi again. Eight years it had been and they’d barely spoken a word, and though it was his own doing, he was pleased it was all over.

  The other girls had always stayed close to Violi and them and Mother was forever making their way up those stairs with a pie or a couple of tins of fruit, but it made life uncomfortable, what with pretending to the old man that they didn’t come near. Those twins was going to end up being a trial to the whole family, but right then they brought everybody together, though they didn’t know it.

  Cissy’s mother and father were good people and they’d put up with a lot over the years, but as time went on they had enough and asked Charlie and Violi to move out – polite like, but they didn’t want them no more.

  They took on a right dump of a place in Dunlow Court. Up an alley it was and still gas-lit even then. It was a slum really and they pulled it down not long after and the family moved above a furniture shop in Hackney Road right opposite the Odeon pictures. After that they took over a house just round the corner from my mother and father in Vallance Road and there they stayed. Later on all the families would live side by side, and I suppose you might say that’s where all the capers started that would make those little babies famous – but we could’ve done without it.

  3. “Say hello to your brothers”

  Joe Lee

  By coincidence the road I was born in had the same name as ours, 21 Lee Street, just off Kingsland Road in Haggerston. Obviously, I don’t remember those early years and by the time I was old enough to be aware of what was going on, we’d moved just round the corner into Stean Street to live with my Nanny and Grandad Whits. Their proper name was Whittington, same as Dick, but it was a bit of a mouthful for a youngster so it got shortened down and I never called them anything else.

  It was a big old house and me and my sister Connie, who was three years older, and my cousin Charlie had the run of the place. He lived on the top floor with Aunt Violet and Uncle Charlie, and we spent all our time together. One minute we’d be in his place cadging a biscuit, then down to the basement to pester my mum, then back up the stairs to Nanny’s to see what we could get there. Must have driven them all mad banging up and down.

  My Aunt Violet was a lovely woman and always had plenty of time for us, but Uncle Charlie could be a bit up and down, especially with young Charlie, so we kept out of his way when he was home – which wasn’t too often because he worked away nearly all week.

  If we caught him on a Friday before he had a drink he was always good for a penny, but make too much noise on a Sunday and he’d come out of the door swearing and shouting.

  My old man was as good as gold, but a lot of grown ups were like Charlie back then so we didn’t take a lot of notice. Mind you my dad could have his moments. He had this pony and trap and the pony was a lovely animal but a bit highly strung. He got hold of it cheap because it was known as a bolter. If it saw a bit of paper fly up or heard a bang, away it would go. Dangerous, really.

  Now if he didn’t know anything else my dad did know his horses. He’d been involved since he was a kid, so I suppose it was a challenge. He had a special pair of reins made so he could hold it back if he had to. He would take Mother and me out in this trap, and being a young fella then he’d get carried away and we’d be flying. I loved it. I’d be on the bell, ding, ding, ding, but Mum would be screaming in the back. “That’s enough, Joe. Slow down – let us off,” because she knew what this pony was capable of. After a while Dad would stop and say, “Go on then. Get out of it.” And we’d have to get the bus home. Then she would tell my nan that he’d slung us off and all that. But he never really – it was her own making.

  I don’t know whether she thought it was going to be different each time we went out, but a lot of times it was the same. He took us to Dagenham one Sunday to visit his mate Boy Boy Cartwright, who lived in this row of terraces. When we got there he said to the fella, “Can I give my pony a feed in your garden?” When he said, “Yeah, help yourself,” Dad unhitched it from the trap and geed it through the front door and a couple of rooms, and stuck it on this patch of lawn. I ask you, who would do that nowadays?

  Anyway, big changes in the house came when I was seven years old. Charlie would be about six then, and we both went to Laburnham Street School, just round the corner. Why we was home this particular day I don’t know – might have been a weekend, but I do know it was October because it was freezing out. Charlie and me were playing in his place, quiet like because Aunt Violet wasn’t well, and next thing all the women turn up and we’re slung out of it. Well not slung as such, but we were given a penny apiece for a lump of Indian toffee [candy floss] and told to go out and play, and not come back until we were shouted. That was no hardship and we ended up round the square chucking stones at each other.

  When we got in my mother told Charlie to get upstairs pretty sharpish because there was a surprise for him. He took off and I was right on his heels. Now if they’d been out and bought a dog we might have shown a bit more interest. As it was, Auntie Vi was sitting in bed holding these two little dolls – one in each arm. She said to Charlie, “Say hello to your brothers. This one’s Reggie and this one’s Ronnie.” I don’t know about him but I couldn’t tell the difference – it was like looking at one with your eyes crossed.

  To a six year old a surprise is something you can eat or play with, so I think he was a bit disappointed that these two were none of them and all he could say was “What did you buy them for?” Neither of us had a clue about babies tho
ugh I did have an idea they came off apple trees or under cabbages. Young Charlie didn’t have a lot to say on the subject. He either had the hump with his mother or he didn’t care one way or another. But if those twins didn’t put his nose out of joint right then it wouldn’t be long before they did and he’d eventually find that wasn’t going to change for the rest of his life.

  Looking at old photos now I’ve got to say they were beautiful babies – and a bit special because they came in a pair – but if I remember right, what was going through my head that day was they looked like a couple of little monkeys. The twins got their names because Nanny Whitt’s brother Bert had a couple of boys called Reg and Ron. My Aunt Violet always thought their names sounded nice, so when her own two turned up there was no argument.

  As far as us kids were concerned these twins didn’t make the slightest difference to our lives whatsoever. All Charlie and me was concerned with was getting out with our mates and roaming the streets. Getting a pair of rusty old skates on our feet, kicking tin cans around, swinging on people’s gates until we got told to clear off and play in our own street, in fact anything that didn’t mean we was stuck indoors. Half the time we knocked around with another cousin of ours, Billy Wiltshire. He was Aunt Rose’s boy and his dad, Billy, same name as him, had taken off and left them both. Nothing nasty, it just turned out they weren’t made for each other. Rose liked to sit indoors with the radio on or a book and he wanted to be out dancing or in the pub, so they parted amicably.

  Before that though I remember the law banging on our door one night and my father opening up to see what was going on. Seemed like my uncles Charlie and Billy were banged up down Old Street nick for fighting and being drunk and disorderly. Now they don’t want to kip on bare boards all night so they’ve sent a copper over to ask my dad if he would go down to the station and bail them out. I heard him shout, “No, I fucking well won’t. You keep ’em and chuck the key away.” When they eventually turned up next day my uncles were livid because the copper had told them what the old man had said – word for word. But they couldn’t kick up too much of a fuss because they knew my dad had a bit of a temper and could have upped the pair of them.