by John Pearson
Then they staged a protest against the closeness of their new confinement by burning their bedding and their uniforms. The fire hoses were turned on them but once again they didn’t care, and next day the twins found a way on to the guardhouse roof where they sat most of the morning, shouting and singing and improvising tunes on a mouth-organ. By now the provost corporal had somehow got on good terms with them, and when all else failed he was able to persuade them down. But they had established what they wanted. They were invulnerable, they were the centre of attention, and a sort of truce ensued between the twins and the authorities. An uneasy truce, for Ronnie kept up his role of violence and madness. He would refuse to eat. He shaved only one side of his face. He would sit apparently brooding for hours on end and then erupt in a torrent of abuse and violence, throwing everything he could around his cell.
When Violet came to visit them, the guard offered her a cup of tea. Ronnie took it, tasted it and threw it against the wall shouting at the guard never to dare offer his mother such a filthy cup of tea again.
One can’t help feeling that there must have been a touch of masochism in the way the guardroom staff at Canterbury left themselves so constantly exposed to the depredations of the twins. For somehow, the key to the NAAFI was left around in reach of Reggie Kray one night after the guard had locked it up as required in standing orders. It was the only key in existence, and when it couldn’t be found the door finally had to be broken in.
And so it went on for the three months the Kray twins were awaiting their court-martial, and this period finally confirmed certain conclusions they had formed about life in general. If you are weak and worry about others you go to the wall. If you are tough and totally uncaring, you become invulnerable.
A few of the Canterbury staff did still try subduing them, including a guard corporal who set out to beat them on their own terms. He was a big man and a powerful fighter and when one of the twins called him something particularly insulting he went into their cell to teach them a lesson. Five minutes later he was standing tied to the pillar in the centre of the guardroom with the belt from his own trousers while Morgan and the twins spread a ring of lighted newspapers round him and performed an Indian wardance until the rest of the guard arrived to drive them back into their cells.
So much for direct action.
A more effective method of controlling them was traditional upper-class disdain. The best example of this was provided by the adjutant, a tall languid cavalry captain, an ex-prisoner of the Japanese, who according to Morgan failed to rise to the three young hooligans.
‘He was very much the old school tie – Eton and Sandhurst and all that. And when they tried shouting at him, and carrying on he just stood there and said, “I know perfectly well what you’re up to and it’s all right by me. But for God’s sake, do stop making such a bloody row. You’ll frighten the horses.”‘
Surprisingly this worked, and the twins did shut up. For one of the East End attitudes they had inherited was an old-fashioned respect for a gentleman. In the old East End there had always been affinities between the lower-class tearaway and the upper-class bounder. The true cockney tended to despise the respectable middle classes with their money and their moralizing. The twins themselves possessed an exaggerated hatred of middle-class respectability, but they also had a sort of envious respect for anyone like the adjutant who conformed to their image of what an upper-class man of action should be. It tied in with their admiration for Lawrence of Arabia and Gordon of Khartoum, and as someone who grew up with the twins explained, ‘The one thing they would really have liked to be was a pair of genuine English gentlemen.’
The adjutant apart, there was one other person who could more or less control them in the guardroom. This was the provost corporal, an easy-going, old campaigner who had dealt with enough tough customers in his time to know what he was up against. He never tried to order them about, and never lost his temper. He was kind and tolerant and adopted the line that he had a job to do and that if they would just remember this, life would be simpler for all concerned. On the whole this worked. Nothing else did.
For with the corporal and the adjutant away, the Kray twins established such a reign of terror and ridicule in the guardroom that they were practically invulnerable. They had all the money they needed. They did as they liked, and sometimes even managed to persuade the daytime guard to take them to a nearby pub for a drink. They presented an extraordinary sight, this pair of unkempt prisoners, with their dark identical faces, Ron with a walking stick and a half-shaven chin, as they walked into the saloon bar, bought the guard a drink and then trailed solemnly back to their cells.
They could have escaped almost any time, but for more than a month resisted the temptation, mainly because they realized that a further period on the run would simply put back their court-martial and the date of eventual discharge. But just before Easter the idea of a few days back in the East End became too strong to resist, especially as most of the camp seemed to be off on Easter leave. So they awarded themselves some leave as well. The Thursday morning before Easter the guard were surprised to see that Ron had finally shaved and that the twins and Morgan were actually looking quite smart for a change.
‘Going anywhere?’ asked one of the guard.
‘Yes, home.’
For once they were not joking.
They had planned it rather well, and once again relied on that dapper old soldier and friend of the family, Harry Hopwood. The previous Sunday he had visited them and fixed a spot where he would leave a van near the main gates of the camp. Neither Morgan nor the twins could drive, but there was another prisoner in the guardroom who could: they arranged to take him with them.
Reg planned what would happen then. Ron and Dickie Morgan would ask to go to the lavatory. This involved a guard unlocking the cage, accompanying them to the ablutions and then bringing them back. This was the signal for action, and as the guard was fumbling with the keys Reg went to hit him and Ron put a necklock on him from behind. It was done so swiftly and silently that for several seconds the guard in the main room beyond had no idea what was happening and this delay allowed Dickie Morgan to get the keys from the guard and unlock the main gate to the guardroom.
From there it was each man for himself. The rest of the men in the guardroom had been playing cards and were unprepared for the whirlwind that burst in on them. A brief scuffle and a lot of shouting as the guardroom table was turned over: then the door was open and four soldiers were scurrying through the main gate with several of the guard in hot pursuit.
Then things started to go wrong. When planning the escape, Reg had not counted on pursuit. There was more shouting, and more joined in the chase. Ron and Dickie Morgan were out of training and were caught up with just past the gate. There was a fight and although they both broke free, they made a serious mistake. Hopwood had left the van on the left of the main gates, but in the confusion they went right – and ended up in Canterbury station goods yard. Here they played hide-and-seek between the shunting wagons as they dodged the guard. Then, more by luck than judgement, they escaped, clambered up a wall, waded a river, and threw off their pursuers.
Finally they found a parked coal lorry – which they commandeered. Their driver friend managed to start it up, and the four bedraggled soldiers were off on the road to London. They were in high spirits as they thought of Bethnal Green, but a few miles out of Canterbury the lorry started showing signs of acute mechanical distress. It began slowing down. Steam billowed from the bonnet – and it stopped.
By now it was getting dark. They had no money and no transport. They were hungry and soaking wet. The police must have been alerted for them by now. If they stopped anywhere they were finished and their best hope was to get to London where there were friends and money and they could disappear for as long as they wanted. But London was sixty miles away.
‘So we started walking and running, jumping in hedges to hide every time we saw headlights approaching. Dickie’s feet wer
e killing him, as he was lazy at the best of times, but Ron and I shouted encouragement and insults at him. We were used to walking from the days when we bought old clothes for a living and were knocking on doors all day, so it wasn’t too bad for us.’
They continued the forced march for most of that night, with their clothes drying on them as they walked and Morgan’s feet getting worse. Just before daybreak as they came limping into Eltham, three motorcycle police were there to greet them.
‘We were dead beat and gave up without a fight. We enjoyed a cup of tea at Eltham Police Station and a spot of sleep until the army escort arrived to take us back to the guardhouse to await court-martial for various offences. They never bothered to charge us with all the offences we had committed while we had been inside.’
The army had had enough of the Kray twins. The ritual of trial and punishment had to be played out, but it was something of a farce. By now there were enough charges on the book to have put the twins away for five years, but there was little point. The army would have to clothe them, feed them, guard them and at the end of it all the twins would be as far from soldiering as ever.
So when the court-martial was held on 11 June 1953, it was not so much a trial as an armistice between the army and the Krays. The prosecution officer confined himself to the fact that they had struck an NCO in the course of duty, had gone absent without leave and ‘committed conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline’. The twins pleaded guilty, and the verdict was unanimous. Private Reginald Kray and Private Ronald Kray were to be confined to nine months’ imprisonment at the army prison at Shepton Mallet and then ignominiously dismissed the service.
So the battle was over and the twins had won – after a fashion. The following nine months passed easily enough. They had no need to fight the army any more. The routine at Shepton Mallet proved no great hardship. Their parents and their brother Charlie visited regularly and although they were confined to their cells at night, much of the day passed in physical training and team games so that both could get back into peak physical condition. Morgan, who was with them, found the food uneatable. The twins didn’t seem to notice.
By now they had both decided on their future. They knew their strength and they had learned a lot. After their release they would go all out to find that elusive something they had always wanted.
During these final months in prison they discussed their future life a lot and completed a further stage in the education thanks to which they hoped to reach it. For here at ‘the Mallet’ was a selection of the most promising and up-and-coming young criminals in the country. Previously the twins’ criminal acquaintanceship had been confined to London. Anyone who was not a Londoner was dismissed as a ‘foreigner’ or a ‘swede’.
But at Shepton Mallet this narrow-mindedness was rapidly dispelled. Here were young gangsters from the Gorbals and the docklands of Cardiff, thugs from Liverpool, hooligans from Belfast. Military prison was a useful meeting ground and they soon found how much they had in common – so much indeed that in the years to come the Krays were to show a keen awareness of the nationwide possibilities of organized crime. Friendships made now were kept in good repair for many years to come, and the twins had an uncanny flair for never forgetting a face.
THREE
The Billiard Hall
The place had known much better days. All that remained of them now was the name – ‘The Regal’ – a relic of its grandiose beginnings as a cinema. During the snooker boom of the thirties The Regal in Eric Street was converted to a fourteen-table billiard hall. Now, like most of this part of Mile End, it seemed to have lost heart. Unpainted and unloved, it had become a target for the local small-time gangs who met here, fought here and tried cadging money from the manager. The insurance companies were wary of insuring it. There were rumours of its closing down.
These rumours reached the twins. Since they had left the army they had time on their hands and they paid the hall a visit. They felt at home at once. Reggie found someone to play snooker with. Ronnie, who disliked all games without exception, sat. He sat there all morning. There was no charge for sitting at The Regal. Next day the twins were there again. Within a week their friends knew this was where to find them. This suited them. They had always felt they needed a place of their own.
Around this time the violence at The Regal suddenly increased. The twins appeared to have no part in it, but there was trouble nearly every night. Tables were ripped. There were anonymous threats to burn the place down. Fireworks exploded. The manager decided he had had enough, and the twins made an offer to the owners of £5 a week to take The Regal over. The day their offer was accepted, the violence stopped as mysteriously as it had started.
For their weekly fiver the Kray twins became the legal tenants of the Regal Billiard Hall. They had to run the tables, the refreshment bar and keep the place in order. In return they had the takings from the tables. Soon these amounted to a tidy sum, for the twins showed a flair for business. Tables were brushed each morning. Reggie repainted the refreshment bar. The hall was open day and night. For the first time for years it began to show a profit. The Regal was becoming popular again.
People were always dropping in to see the twins – friends they had known from the army, men freshly out of prison who had been given their address, some of the local criminals, tough teenage boys from Mile End out for a night’s excitement. The Kray twins’ reputation had got round and from the very start they were the real attraction of the billiard hall. As one of their old friends says, ‘Wherever that pair went, something would always happen. And if you missed a night at the old Regal, you’d be worrying all the time about what was going on without you. Next morning somebody’d be sure to say – “You should have been there last night. The things the twins got up to.” Then you’d feel real choked for missing out.’
Sometimes it would simply be a fight. In these early days there were still people who would challenge one or other of the twins to a stand-up battle, like the old villain from the West End who kept calling Reggie ‘son’. Reggie broke his jaw. Or like the Maltese gang who called demanding protection money from the hall’s new management. The twins went after them with cutlasses. Violence was certainly important as a source of sheer excitement, but it was by no means all the twins could offer their admirers.
What they wanted from the hall was a headquarters, and like their grandfather, Cannonball Lee, the old music-hall performer, they both had a touch of the impresario about them. They enjoyed having people round them, and were true cockneys with their appetite for people, drink and scandal. They always seemed to have the latest piece of news from the underworld or to bring in some unexpected guest. Failing this, they livened things up with one of their practical jokes. ‘Ronnie went for anything unusual. He found a giant from a circus once and brought him along for an evening. We got him drunk. Ron liked midgets too. One night he brought along a donkey with a straw hat. He said he was teaching him to talk.’
Now he had found his audience, Ronnie could start developing the self he dreamed of. For years he had read everything he could about Capone and the Chicago gangsters. He started dressing gangster-style – discreet, dark, double-breasted suit, tight knotted tie and shoulder-padded overcoat. ‘I like conservative clothes,’ he used to say. ‘I can’t stand anybody flash.’ Despite this, he was developing his own small vanities and getting quite a taste for jewellery – a large gold ring, a gold bracelet watch and diamond cuff-links.
In the early evening he would be at the billiard hall playing his favourite part of ward boss organizing henchmen from some down-town poolroom. He had his private chair and used to sit facing the door and watching as the regulars arrived. As the play started lights would flicker on above the tables, leaving the remainder of the hall in shadow. ‘Ron liked the atmosphere just like a den of thieves. He loved a lot of smoke and noise and people. He used to hand out cigarettes and say, “Smoke up. There’s not enough smoke in here.”’
Then, when the hall wa
s full and play was going on at all the tables, with the air thick as any Limehouse fog, he would be satisfied. He would lean back slowly in his chair, smiling to himself, knowing quite well that everybody in the hall was waiting. He always kept them guessing for a while, calling now one and now another of the boys who hovered round him. He was beginning to talk to them like a screen gangster, muttering a few words over a cigarette as he stared into space. Then he lapsed into silence. These silences soon got him known as a deep one, an unpredictable leader. ‘Always keep people guessing. Never treat them the same twice running,’ an old West End gang leader told him once.
People were becoming slightly wary of the twins. One of their oldest friends, who knew them long before the army, noticed a change in them. ‘I began to see that I could only go so far with them, and however friendly they were being, they seemed to keep themselves that little bit apart. Neither of them liked being touched. Put your hand on Reggie’s shoulder and you’d feel him wince. You wouldn’t do it twice.’
But it was Ronnie people really feared: ‘We was all scared of him, to tell the truth – not just because of what he could get up to, but because of what he knew. He had a funny way of looking at you and yet not looking at you that always made you think he was reading your mind.’
Sometimes he spent the evening brooding in his chair and left early. At other times he decided he was drinking and picked a dozen hangers-on to go with him. ‘It was always a bit of an event going to a pub with the twins. They used to like a crowded pub with a good singer and a lot of talent and perhaps the chance of trouble. When you went in with them people would stop talking and make room for you at the bar. We used to like that.’ And sometimes at the billiard hall Ronnie would make his favourite announcement – ‘Well, we’ve decided on a little row with so-and-so tonight. Who’s for and who’s against?’