by Rita Smith
Later on that evening this Jimmy Taylor brought the money round to Grandad and handed it over. Was he pleased that he got a result out of Levy’s good heart after backing a loser? No he wasn’t. He snatched the money and said, “So that fucking crooked thieving bastard thought better of it, did he? I knew I’d won.” Jimmy Taylor just gave him a funny look and walked out the door.
He never did have another bet – gave it up while he was ahead I suppose.
Betting hadn’t long been legal then, but as soon as it was, you had shops opening up everywhere. Before that if you wanted a flutter you laid it with the runners who hung about on street corners. They stuck out a mile and all looked the same. Pork-pie hat on the head, racing paper under the arm and eyes going round like wheels on a fruit machine, looking all ways for coppers because they was nicked regular every week and fined a pound or so.
An uncle on my mother’s side was a bookie’s runner and I saw him one day so went up and tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped two feet in the air, and that was the first time I ever heard him swear. Nerves like violin strings in that game.
We were all hit bad when Aunt Rose died.We knew it was going to come eventually because what she had was incurable at the time, but being prepared doesn’t help when it happens.
Outwardly anyway, it affected Ronnie the worst and whatever it was that was wrong with him got worse and came right to the front, and as we all know they certified him. Whether the same would have happened without Rose dying and him being locked up, who knows? Though I have a feeling he’d been headed that way for more years than the family would admit. Still, he was in good hands and there was nothing we could do about it.
I drove his mum and dad down to the hospital a few times and really it was a bit of a waste of time because you couldn’t get more than a few words out of him. I mean, you had to feel for him because he didn’t even seem to know where he was. I’d always got on well with him and he’d never done me any harm, and I come out of that place thinking, “What’s it all about?”
Then Reg come up with the idea of springing him because he reckoned they were pumping him full of all kinds and making him worse. I was there when he put it to Charlie and he was dead against it. So was I but I kept my mouth shut. One, because it wasn’t for me to stick my bit between two brothers, and two, didn’t matter what I said, Reg would do what he thought – no matter what.
He got Charlie round to his way of thinking in the end, but he drew the line when it came to going and bringing Ron out. And so did I when Reg asked me to drive him down to Long Grove. He went a bit quiet over that but I thought, “fuck it”. I wasn’t risking going down for something I thought was a stupid idea anyway.
He got Georgie Osbourne to take him in the end and that was that. Whatever my opinion was I’ve got to hand it to him because he pulled it off, cool as you like. Swapped coats and glasses and Ron walked out and Reg fronted up the law when they turned up at the hospital. Anybody else would’ve lost their bottle or given the game away. Not him. He was never intimidated by any form of authority or the police, unlike most of us. He could look ahead and think things out and that’s why I’ve always thought that without Ronnie and his daft capers, he could’ve gone a long way.
A lot of career criminals that didn’t have half the knack he did for pulling something off are millionaires today. Sitting on some island in the sun and you don’t even know their names. That could’ve been Reg, but he always stuck by his brother and I don’t hold that against him, but it would eventually bring him down.
I think I saw Ron twice when he was on the run and once at Vallance Road when they brought him home just before they turned him back in. The first time was at a bit of a do the family was having over Tottenham. He only stayed an hour and a half but he seemed fine. The second time was when I took Reg down to this caravan he was hiding up in, and again he seemed all right – which made me think Reg had been right all along. He only turned a bit funny when it was time for us to leave. Didn’t understand why we couldn’t stay for a few days or why he couldn’t come home with us.
The third time I saw him was when I called in at Vallance Road for something or other and Reg had brought him home. He did look a state. Reg wanted to shoot out so he asked me to chat to Ron while he was gone, and off he went. Well I looked at him and he looked at me as though he’d never seen me before. He was so strange I couldn’t think of anything to say, then after five minutes of this he said, “Who are you then?” I thought he was having a laugh except he was dead serious. I said, “I’m Joey – your cousin Joey.” He screwed up his eyes and gave me one of his looks and said, “You in here as well?” but I could tell he didn’t have a clue who I was. I tried all kinds to liven him up, but he wouldn’t even look at me let alone answer. So much for Reggie’s “Have a chat with him”. Then suddenly he said, “I’ve had diphtheria but I’m getting over it now”. And I thought to myself you should be – that was over twenty years ago and as far as I knew he’d never remembered it before, but all I said was, “That’s good, Ron. You’ll soon be out and about.”
When Reg came back I told him how he’d been and suggested it was about time they got a proper doctor to have a look at him because he wasn’t all there at all. Reg always seemed to have the answers but this time he looked like he didn’t know which way to turn and he said, “D’you think it would be like grassing him up if we sent him back to Long Grove?”. I said, “No mate, you’d be doing him a big favour”. And whether that swung him I don’t know but the next I heard Ron was back where he belonged and getting looked after properly.
He was lucky that they didn’t reassess his mental state as soon as they got him in hospital. If you can get out of a mental home and keep your nose clean for six weeks they have to say, “Well, he must be all right, else he couldn’t have managed all that time,” so they scratch the certification. Cobblers really because if they’d seen the state he was in while he was on the run, they’d have banged him up for good.
As it was they gave him all the right pills and what have you, brought him back from the edge then gave him all the tests. Naturally with the right medication he was fine and passed with flying colours, so they’d no choice but to sign him out and put him in a mainstream prison.
Again he was under supervision so they made sure he took his pills every day, which kept him straight, and he sailed through the rest of his sentence. Trouble was, and would be, without those pills that he was going to have to take for the rest of his life, he’d slip back. And that’s what happened every time he thought he could get away without taking them.
Once he got into the Double R he wanted to take it over, and as Charlie often said, he made a fucking nuisance of himself. He wanted money, and there was plenty of that flying about, but he didn’t have any interest in it. He’d think nothing of dipping in the till for two or three hundred quid and giving it to the first person that gave him a hard-luck story. In the end they was queuing up to tap him because he was an easy touch.
The funniest thing I heard was when he thought he’d pull in a bit extra by putting the squeeze on a local pub – protection money if you like. He’s slipped in there on his own and told the landlord that he wanted a tenner a week or else, and he’d be back every Friday to collect. Now the firm was well into this caper anyway and this particular pub was already on the list, so the geezer came flying round to Reg wanting to know what’s going on and why he was expected to pay twice. Reg told him to say nothing and to give Ron the money when he asked, then take it out of what he was already paying the firm.
The truth is Ron never recovered from that big breakdown, and without mincing words he was a mental case then and would be the rest of his life. Only thing was none of us could see it.
He was different – there’s no two ways about it. He was a lazy bastard, but then he’d never been too keen on doing over much all his life. Reg and Charlie were ducking and diving all over the place, and he was quite content either to sit around in the club or lay out
on the settee at his mum’s. Reg used to say, “Joey, Ron’s going to put us out of business”. But he never said what he could do about it because he didn’t know what to do himself. Then he got into a bit of bother and you could tell that with him out of the picture things were going to get worse.
I don’t doubt that what Reg told me happened over Hampstead that day was the truth. He’d got no reason to lie to me and it was obvious to anyone with half an eye that he was stitched up. This Danny Shay was more a mate of Ronnie’s than Reggie’s, but for some reason it was Reg he took with him when he had something to sort out. I think Shay knew exactly what he was doing when he turned up at some shop with one of the Kray brothers right behind him. The geezer owed him a hundred pounds, or something like, so he’s gone storming in shouting his mouth off that he was going to do this and that if he didn’t get it. As far as Reg knew he was just along for the ride and didn’t even want to be there in the first place. He didn’t do nothing and didn’t get involved apart from standing there looking tough, which he was pretty good at doing. But I suppose the shop owner got the message that he was being threatened by one of the top gangsters around at the time, and when they left he’s phoned the law.
Not long after Reg was picked up and charged with demanding money with menaces. When I took his mum up to see him in Wandsworth he was convinced it would be thrown out of court once he’d given his story. As he said, “Would I be mug enough to get involved for a poxy hundred notes? You’ve seen it, Joey. There’s ten times that in the club’s petty cash tin.” He was right, there was, so I had to agree with him. I’m not making out he wasn’t capable of demanding a few quid; it was no secret that a good lump of the firm’s wages came from that sort of thing. It’s only my opinion but what I’m saying is, in that particular instance, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I should think the law knew the score as well, and they also knew about what the twins were getting up to elsewhere, so in their opinion they were getting a nicking against one of them for something he didn’t do because they couldn’t pin down a charge on things they had. Swings and roundabouts, but no consolation to Reg getting banged up for fifteen months. Well he did it in two lumps really. Nine months on remand, a bit of bail on appeal, which he lost, and six months after they pulled him back in again.
Mind you, he made himself busy in between. The three of them did because they took over Esmerelda’s Barn in Wilton Place. On top of that Reg had met a girl by the name of Frances Shea, so he had a couple of good reasons for looking forward to being back on the street.
Funny that the girl he was desperate to get out and see had the same name as the bloke that got him put away – same sound, different spelling.
I never did understand all the ins and outs of how they got their hands on such a plush moneymaker as Esmerelda’s. You can bet your life it wasn’t legal, but what I don’t know I can’t talk about and that suits me.
Ann and me went up there a few times, but to be honest it wasn’t our cup of tea at all, what with all the nobs and the gambling. We wasn’t alone in thinking like that. You’re average man who lived in Bethnal Green wouldn’t want to put his head round the door of a place like that. He thought, and wasn’t far wrong, that they were full of corruption – even if it was the top people in the land who were the customers. And I’ve got to say there was a few faces pointed out to me that were high up – judges, coppers and politicians. Still, you’ve got to hand it to the boys, they did well in getting their feet under the table.
With Reg being out of the way, Ron didn’t do the place any favours. If he took a fancy to someone (and I mean like – not the other thing) he’d think nothing of scrapping a table debt that could be as much as a couple of grand. What hair Charlie wasn’t pulling out was turning grey with the worry of it all, and I think he was well pleased when Reg came out to back him up.
Poor old Charlie had enough problems with his marriage without that aggravation on his plate as well. I don’t want to say too much against his missus, Dolly, because there’s always two sides to everything – especially with relationships. But she never really fitted into the family, and that must say something because all the women accepted anyone at face value. Didn’t matter if they were a tramp or a lord, they all got the same welcome.
The twins were the same really. One minute you’d see them talking to some old geezer sweeping the road outside the club, the next a film star, and they never talked up or down to either one. So something about Dolly must have got up their noses. This was before she started knocking about with George Ince, so you can imagine what it was like once rumours started flying about.
Charlie was always too easy-going for his own good and didn’t do too much about it. Perhaps he didn’t care over much. But Reg as usual took anything against his family as personal and done Ince over on a couple of occasions. He must have been well in love or had plenty of bottle, because who in their right mind would’ve thought of having an affair with a woman married to a Kray? Their goings on only really went public when Charlie was doing his ten and the twins life, and by then she’d changed her name to Dolly Grey. That made me laugh. If you’re going to change your name to hide your identity you’d think of a hundred names that didn’t come near sounding like your old one.
How she came to tell the world that she was having it off with this bloke and showing up Charlie who couldn’t do nothing about it, was when Ince was charged with murder at the Barn Restaurant – nothing to do with and miles away from Esmerelda’s Barn. Dolly stood up in court and told them her and Ince had been in bed together that night – and it was all out in the open. As it turned out he really wasn’t involved and was proved innocent.
I went to visit Charlie the week after she visited him, once it was in the open. He said, “Joe, you wouldn’t have believed this room last week. They must have had every screw in the place round me when she came in. I think they thought I was going to try and kill her, but I don’t give a fuck.” Still, it was bothering him back then and wouldn’t change until they started up in the Kentucky Club.
I don’t think Reg was out of prison more than a couple of months before the law nicked the twins and Charlie over something laughable because it was so ridiculous.
Ron and Charlie were out with a mate, who was doing the driving. He pulled up in Dalston and told them to wait while he ran some sort of errand. After a while my cousins got fed up sitting in the motor so got out to stretch their legs. They’re walking up and down and leaning on the car every now and then, like you do, when a squad car pulled up and arrested them for loitering with intent. As an afterthought, they slung in the report that they’d been seen trying door handles. How was that going to look in the papers? I was going to put two respectable businessmen, but I’ll stick to the truth and say businessmen, which they were, owning a couple of clubs and between them more money than they knew what to do with. Where was the logic in trying to fit them up on a charge that wouldn’t get a result with a twelve year old?
A couple of days later it was Reggie’s turn, and I was there when the Old Bill turned up. I happened to be talking a few things over with Reg when there’s a bang on the door and it’s a copper with some woman going, “That’s him. That’s him.” According to her she’d seen him running out of her house with a bundle of jewellery that he’d nicked. She was making such a fuss my Aunt May came out of her house and said to the copper, “Can’t you lot ever leave him alone? Why don’t you piss off.” You have to laugh – the copper gave her a look and said; “Why don’t you piss off indoors, madam?”
End of the day this Italian woman had identified Reg, so he was arrested. But before that, and showing again he always thought on his feet, he saw some bloke walking along across the other side of the road. He’s shouted over, “Oi mate, come over ’ere a minute”. I’ll bet the bloke’s arse was making buttons because everyone knew the Krays, but when he got over the road, Reg said, “I want you to be a witness that I’ve got nothing on m
e,” and he started to empty his pockets out. He couldn’t ask us because we were family, so it was a good move. The copper’s saying, “No need for that – that’ll do,” and Reg said, “Fucking right, no need for that. I wasn’t born yesterday.” He took the bloke’s name and told him he owed him one, and coming from one of the Kray brothers that was like money in the bank for the fella.
After he was taken away my aunt and me just looked at each other, and we were both thinking the same. You could lay a lot of bad things against him, and in the end the law did, but break into somebody’s house and nick their gear like some teenage scrote – never in your life. No, the law tried to pull one and came unstuck when all three of them were acquitted. It was all over the papers and the Old Bill got such a knock back from that, they left the twins alone for a long time.
9. The Blind Beggar to Broadmoor
Joe Lee
I used to think it was comical when they had meetings upstairs at Vallance Road. If I was around I never sat in because I was never one of the firm, but I might be downstairs talking to my aunt, and you’d hear crash as the table’s gone over in the bedroom – somebody’s said the wrong thing. Violet never turned a hair. She’d just raise her eyebrows at me as much as to say, “Boys, what are they like?” Or a fella would come head over heels down the stairs, pick himself up and run out the door. She’d call up, “Now, now,” like they were a bunch of little kids getting over excited. I’m sure she never had a clue what they were really like because she never saw the end result of how vicious they could be.
To be fair most of the damage they did to people was forced on them. I mean, if you fronted either one of them up then you had to be prepared to take the consequences.