by Rita Smith
No one who knew them both could ever suggest any of these things. And knowing what Frances told me, made such a suggestion completely ludicrous.
Perhaps he was too busy to give her the attention she needed. Perhaps he was unthinking or wrapped up in his work, but that goes for most men anyway. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love or care. If it was any other way I would say so for the sake of truth. After all, it can’t hurt either of them any more, but if he’s guilty of anything at all as far as Frances goes, it’s that he loved her too much. She was his very first love, and believe me, the very last. I know that for the next thirty-three years, right up until he died he would use women to carry out the things he couldn’t do for himself while he was in prison. As outside messengers, as a means to earn him and others money or as fundraisers for the hundred and one schemes he had on the boil. He might pretend all kinds of emotions to get his own way, but real honest love or affection never came into it.
Apart from when he lost his mother, nothing, or any day, could be worse than when he dropped a single red rose into the grave of Frances. I’m sure something died inside him the moment she did, because after that he didn’t seem to care about anything. He drank too much, then when he was drunk he got either tearful or angry. Then he’d blame himself for her death and other times the doctors who should have looked after her, or her parents for the same reason.
Her parents blamed him for losing their daughter and as a final act of defiance against Reg, they instructed the undertaker to put an underslip against her skin so that the wedding dress she was buried in wouldn’t touch her body.
At times he got like Ron had been at the height of his mental illness and threatened to kill anyone who came to mind. So no one should have been too surprised when he carried out his threat five months later and murdered Jack McVitie.
When you suffer shock after shock your mind goes numb, and when Charlie told us to expect a visit from the police, and why they might be coming to our homes yet again, I barely reacted. My mind refused to believe that Reggie was capable of something so violent, and it was like we were talking about some stranger. The way Ron had changed over the years I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that he’d killed again – but not Reg. He’d always been the gentler of the two.
More than once when we were small Ron tried to get me to put on the boxing gloves against him, but I never wanted to and Reg would tell him to pack it in. Or his horseplay as little kids got too rough for my liking, and it was always Reg who slipped in and calmed things down. I thought of all the nice things he used to do, like buying me presents and playing for hours with little Kimmy. I really didn’t think it was possible, but when I finally had to accept that he was guilty, I thought it was tragic for him and even more tragic that a man had to die indirectly because of Frances.
For the month or so after it happened we expected every knock on the door to be the police, but as time went on and nothing happened we thought less and less of them coming. I certainly didn’t know any of the details, and what I thought had happened was that there had been a fight and a man had been stabbed. I know that’s bad enough but at least I could tell myself that accidents happen and perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
It was five months before the police got round to arresting my three cousins but soon after they had, they turned their attention to the family, who weren’t involved in any way. As if we hadn’t suffered enough seeing them all dragged off to prison, yet again they put us all through the indignity of having our homes searched. If they were looking for Jack McVitie in our tiny flats and maisonettes they were in for a disappointment. In the end all they took away with them were Nanny and Grandad’s pension books, and what earthly connection they had to do with the case only the police could tell you.
It was almost two months before their trial was to start, and considering they might be facing life sentences the three of them were quite confident. Well, the twins were confident that as before there wouldn’t be enough evidence to convict them. While Charlie was confident that once his story was told the case against him would be dismissed straight away. I couldn’t understand why he was locked up anyway because he’d already told us that he was in bed when the murder took place, so obviously he had to be found not guilty.
I was surprised how well Auntie Violet and Uncle Charlie accepted that all their boys were in prison. There were always tears on the way home from Brixton, but from what the boys said they believed it wouldn’t be many months before they were all out. We all believed it because it was like we were letting them down if we thought anything else. Though as time went on the twins at least began to have doubts that they’d get a not guilty. Even then Ron would say to me, “Don’t worry about us, Rita. The most we can get is fifteen years, and we’ll be out in less than eight.”
During the trial that went on for months and months, the only bit that has stayed in my mind is of my mum on the stand as a character witness. There were so many people and so many words that I didn’t understand. The occasional days I did go to the Old Bailey went by in a blur.
Mum must have been all of sixty then but she never seemed the slightest bit nervous. She’d done herself up like she was going to make a stage appearance instead of court, though in a way it’s much the same. It’s not what she said that I remember but just a picture of that little blond-haired figure saying what she had to say to all these posh bigwigs. I didn’t notice but she told me afterward that when she looked up to the dock with all these men in it, Ron had his head in his hands and his shoulders were going like he was crying. Mum thought, “That poor boy’s suffering up there,” but when she looked the next time, his head was up and he’d been laughing. I don’t know if he found the whole thing funny or was laughing at something Mum said.
A while later she got a letter from one of the young men that was on trial, and he said that she really did look nice that day and reminded him of Mae West. Mum said to me “Ooh Rita, I wish I’d known. I’d have said, ‘Come up and see me some time’.”
Auntie Violet was in a daze as well and on one of the days she went on her own, for some reason she turned up with only one eye made up. Dot Walsh, a good friend of the twins and a clairvoyant, who was meeting her at the court, spotted this and told her she looked like a panda. She got her own make-up out and put it right, though I doubt whether Auntie even took it in.
On the day of the verdict she said to Mum that she didn’t feel well so would stay at home and listen to whatever was going to be said on the wireless. Mum stayed with her and they both sat drinking tea and not saying very much. Just before the news came on Mum lifted her hand up to her face and the green stone in a ring that Ron had bought her, and that she’d worn for years, fell out and rolled across the floor. She was always superstitious and took that as an omen that meant something bad might happen. And that’s exactly what it did when the verdict was eventually read out on the news.
Right at the crucial moment one of them must have rattled a cup or scraped a chair on the floor because Auntie Violet said, “D’you know what I thought he said? Thirty years, and that can’t be right.” Mum wasn’t sure either and they guessed the news reader had said three, so they settled back to wait for the next bulletin but before that someone turned up at the door and my aunt found out she’d never see her “lovely twins” outside prison walls again.
Poor Charlie never wanted to be anything else but a successful businessman and now he had to face ten years away from his family for doing something he’d had to do all his life – looking out for his brothers.
If we’d all known then that the twins would spend the rest of their lives in prison I don’t think we could have coped, but we lived in hope that things would change. If not this month, perhaps next and if not then, some time in the next – and that’s how time passed.
No one had ever been given such a long sentence so we expected it to be reduced on one appeal or another, however long this might be. Never did we expect the authorities to stick
to the judge’s recommendation of no less than thirty years. Most of us had enough years on our side to look forward to the twins walking out of the gates, at worst in twelve to fifteen years. But Nanny and Grandad, already in their nineties, would never see or speak to the three boys ever again. “Cannonball” Lee, frightened of no man and as hard as nails all his life, sat and cried many times. I’d hold his hand and he’d say “That’s it, gel. They might as well be dead ’cos I’ll never see them again.”
And in a way his pain summed up what all of us felt.
7. “Them Kray brothers”
Joe Lee
I don’t think our Rita ever really understood what the twins were capable of. They kept it all away from her and the other women in the family – even Grandad Lee, but the rest of us blokes couldn’t avoid it.
I can’t say I was surprised about the road they went down in the end because most of their lives their heroes were tough guys and people who was prepared to stick two fingers up to the law. The more slippery these blokes were the more the twins idolized them. And we had more than our fair share of these types coming through the house or living close by in Bethnal Green.
I could think about it until I went dizzy and I still couldn’t come up with any single reason as to why they should turn out different from the rest of the family. Me and Charlie had all the same influences when we was growing up, and pretty much the same background, give or take a few bits and pieces.
Speaking for myself, I’ve always stuck reasonably close to the straight and narrow – no better and no worse than the average bloke getting through life. As for Charlie, all the aggravation he’s had to suffer all his life came down to one thing – well two things really, those brothers of his. He was no gangster. All he ever wanted was a quiet life where he could nick a few quid for himself out of some legitimate business. But every time he thought he was getting somewhere he let himself get sucked into some scheme or other by Reg and Ron – and they could be a bit persuasive when they wanted to be.
It was like he always felt that because he was a lot older than them he had a responsibility to get involved in looking out for them, and that’s what brought all kinds of trouble down on his head.
I mean it’s not like you can blame upbringing or environment for shaping those boys because I can’t think that anyone could have had a more secure and loving home life than they did. All right, leave their old man Charlie out of the picture because I don’t think he done them a lot of favours when they was kids, but for the rest they grew up surrounded by close family who thought the sun shone out of them. Right from the days when my Aunt Violet used to push them up Bethnal Green Road in one of them double prams, with all the women stopping to have a look, they was always the flavour of the month. Didn’t matter what they got up to one or the other of the family would jump in with excuses for them. Nanny Lee, Rose, May – they all thought the world of them and you daren’t say a word against them twins if they was in earshot.
As for their mother – well, they were her life. They never went without decent grub and always had shoes on their feet and, down to her, so did other kids in the neighbourhood. Not too long ago I was talking to James Aish, an old friend of the twins, and he was going on about how lovely my Aunt Violet was. He said all the kids used to hang about the front door because they knew that eventually she’d bring them out a sugar sandwich or a piece of cake. One time she called him over and asked him why he didn’t have no shoes on. When he said he didn’t have any, she went indoors and brought out a pair of Reg’s white plimsolls and gave them to him. I didn’t know about shoes, but more times than I can remember I’ve seen her give different kids a jersey, a shirt or a pair of shorts. I mean, she didn’t have much herself, but she could always find something for them that had even less.
Every morning those twins went out with clean clothes that had been washed and ironed the night before, and not too many kids around there at the time could say the same thing. They had decent men in the family to look up to – my dad, Uncle Johnny, Uncle Albert and Grandad – all straight and all good grafters, so why didn’t they think it was worth following their example?
I suppose when they compared them with some of the other flash geezers they came across, and I’m talking about when they were kids, they was a bit ordinary, and that didn’t fit in with their ideas of being something.
I think Rita hit it on the head when she reckoned they were insecure, and nine times out of ten that’s the reason people push themselves forward to get in the limelight. Then there’s the twin thing. None of us, unless they’re in that position themselves, could ever understand in a million years what it’s like to share your identity. Everything you do is shared, and twins or not it’s only human nature to be on top so you’re always looking for ways to be that bit more noticed than the other one. And those two certainly did that all right.
If one of them kissed their mum the other would have to give her two. If one of them climbed on a wall the other would have to climb up a lamppost and sit on the crossbar, just to be that bit higher. So the twins weren’t just competing against the world, or the little bit of it they knew – but against each other day and night.
But this limelight thing; if you could have seen their faces when Grandad turned to the back of the East London Advertiser and they had a mention about their boxing, well, they was like a dog with two tails.
This was about the time I finished with the services and got my demob papers. Strange how a place looks so different after you’ve been half-way round the world for a couple of years. The East End was still a right mess after all the bombing, and when I went down Vallance Road to see Nanny and Grandad and all the rest, I couldn’t believe how scruffy and old those houses were. I suppose I’d never really noticed it before, but then it wasn’t so much that the area had changed because it hadn’t. It was me, after having my eyes opened with things I’d seen.
Still it was home and I was pleased to be back. I couldn’t believe those boys. I’d been away for a few years and when I saw them it was like it had only been yesterday, because straight off they’re going, “Shall we get the gloves out, Joe? Are you coming out to the yard?” And I was thinking, “Fuck me, here we go again”. What with Charlie keeping them at it and Grandad showing them all his tricky moves, I had to admit they were both coming along as a right pair of tasty little boxers. They told me about some fights they’d had with each other in a booth over the local fair, and how they’d got a couple of bob for doing it in front of the crowd.
When I mentioned it to my old man he told me that it was in a booth over Bruce Castle Park run by a fella called Stewart. This was where his regular fighters would take on all comers who fancied getting knocked about to earn themselves a fiver. And he told me they were still up to their old tricks. He had fighters like Buster Osbourne, his brother Stevie, Slasher Warner and Les Haycox on his bill, and when it was all over this Stewart would come out front and say to the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have some bad news for you. Les Haycox has had his purse stolen and after a great performance tonight I think we should all dig deep and help him out.” Then a hat was sent round and all these mugs, full of sympathy, would chuck coins in it. Well, if you had half a brain you’d realize this was a scam, but it never failed and they all shared out the takings afterwards. Because they were always on the move from one patch to another they could pull this stunt at least once wherever they went, so it was a regular earner.
From what my aunt said the twins really went to town on each other that night and she wasn’t too happy about it, but from what I’d seen them get up to out in the back yard it didn’t seem as though it was anything out of the ordinary.
Give them their due they threw themselves into training like it was going out of fashion. If they weren’t knocking the stuffing out of an old mattress that Grandad had slung over the washing line, they was punching the daylights out of an old kitbag stuffed with rags that my cousin Charlie had fixed up for them in a back bedroom. They
was out on the road by six every morning and the same at night. Overdid it, I thought; got a bit obsessed, but that’s often the way with young kids when they get into something. I’ve got to say in those three or four years they worked harder and sweated more than they ever would the rest of their lives. Still, it did pay off for them in the end because they both ended up as Junior Champions.
Talk about twins and doing everything the same, at different times they both got Hackney Schoolboy titles, and both took the London Junior Championship. Three years running they ended up fighting each other because they’d seen off the opposition. And I’ll tell you what; when them two squared up you got your money’s worth because, same as when they worried about the other one getting more peas or an extra half-inch of sausage, no way were they going to be beaten. Reg always had the edge because he was a thinker and it took a lot to get him rattled – and that’s the worst thing a boxer can do. He went on to be a finalist in the Great Britain Championship, but didn’t quite make it.
When it all came to an end them two and cousin Charlie was all on the same card at the Albert Hall. Charlie was fighting Lew Lazar as a welterweight and he took a bit of a hammering. Nothing against him, he put on a great show right to the end, but Lazar had a wicked left and the simple fact is he was a better boxer at the end of the day.
Ronnie had a bit of bad luck against Bill Sliney; and it was bad luck, because in the second he put Sliney down for a count of eight and we thought it was only a matter of time before he finished him off. Then Ron took a bang in the eye from the other bloke’s head – nothing dirty, just one of those things and after that Sliney kept blind-siding him and after six rounds took the decision on points.
But the way Reg fought showed everybody that he really did have what it took to become a big name in the sport. It was like an exhibition match. We could see he was full of confidence and thought about every move he made. Bob Manito was a bit tasty and knew what he was doing, but it wasn’t enough and he didn’t have a chance. He was out-pointed in every one of those six rounds. I’ve still got the poster from that night and whenever I glance at it I can’t help thinking that if those boys hadn’t taken a left turn instead of a right, things could’ve been so different and their lives not wasted like they were.