The Kray Twins - East End Heroes or brutal gangsters?

Charles Kray and Violet Lee married in 1926 in East London, and had 3 surviving children, Charlie (b1926) and ident­ical twins Ronald and Reginald (b1933). They moved to Bethnal Green in 1939, where Charles hid from war service and maternal grandfather Jimmy Lee was a bare-knuckle box­er. Grandpa encouraged the lads to take boxing, then a popular East End pastime.

The Krays were called up to National Army Service in Mar 1952. When the corp­or­al in charge stopped the twins leaving the barr­acks, he was ser­iously injured by Ron­nie. The Krays walked to their East End home, were arrest­ed for assaulting a police officer, serv­ed a month in Wormwood Scrubs and were dishonour­ably discharged from the army.

Their home life was grim, yet they created an attractive image for them­sel­ves. Ronnie adapted the US gangster image to Brit­ain, dressing in suits with slicked-back hair. They bought a decr­epit snooker club in Mile End where they firebombed other clubs and ran protection rackets.

Dapper looking Ronnie and Reggie Kray, Cedra Court in N.E London, 1964. 
The Telegraph

During the WW2 Blitz, and after, the Spirit of the Blitz survived. That meant that the people of the East End would survive, still running their own lives, working tog­ether and never dobbing in local hoodlums to authorities. Meanwhile the Krays were widely seen as charming West End nightclub own­ers, part of the Swinging London scene. On the celeb­rity circuit they soc­ialised with lords, MPs, socialites and show business char­act­ers. They had the manners of gentlemen; they were good to their mum and loved their dogs. A force to be trusted in chaotic times, unlike the new thugs and foreigners, older Londoners said. So al­though their glamour was a mere cover, the twins represented some­thing lost for East Enders.

Luckily for the Krays, who were inv­olved in hijacking, armed rob­bery and arson in the late 1950s, the Blitz Spirit survived.

But I still don’t understand the concept of Gangster Glam­our. With armed robbery, protection rackets, hijackings, arson and mur­der, why has history suggested that the twins ruled the East End with a mix of violence and charisma? And why did the twins receive Funerals Fit For Heroes???

In Wandsworth in 1960, Reggie met Frank Mad Axeman Mitchell and Jack The Hat McVitie (see below). With their gang, The Firm, they plotted against their main South London riv­als, the Rich­ardsons.

The twins moved into classy territory in the West End, acqu­ir­ing the Knightsbridge gaming club Esmeral­da’s Barn. The club stayed open un­til 1963 and was patronised by famous film stars.

In July 1964 the Sunday Mirror showed that Ronnie enjoyed an ill­egal gay relation­ship with Cons­ervative pol­it­ician and aristocrat Lord Boothby. The newspaper backed down from this scandal, sacking the editor, apologised and paid Boothby a huge settlement.

Actually there was a problem for both main political parties. The Con­servative Party was unwilling to ask the police to end Kray pow­er, for fear that the Lord Boothby connect­ion would re-emerge. And the Labour Party, in power from Oct 1964 with a tiny majority in the House of Comm­ons, feared an imminent General Elect­ion. And don’t forget the Profumo Affair, 1964!

In 1965 the twins were arrested for de­m­and­ing money with menaces from The Hide­away club-owner, but were released af­t­­er Lord Boothby again questioned their det­ent­ion in the House of Lords. Protection reach­ed far up British society!

Film stars and nightclub guests, 1962Reggie Kray (4th from left)
Pinterest 

If the twins mixed with show business celebrities and politicians, why commission murders? Ronnie paid Jack The Hat Mc­Vitie in advance to kill friend-business partner Leslie Pay­ne. The murder failed, but then in 1966 there had been a public shoot-out in White­chapel, involving the rival Rich­ardson gang. This led to the arrest of nearly all the Richardson gang. Ronnie was in a pub when he learned of rival George Cor­n­ell's whereabouts in The Blind Beg­gar, White­­chapel. With his driv­er Scotch Jack John Dick­son and his assistant Ian Barrie, Ronnie entered the pub, walked to Cornell and pub­licly shot him in the head. Barrie warned the pub­lic not to men­­tion these events to the police. 

In Dec 1966, the Krays helped Frank Axeman Mitchell escape from Dartmoor Prison. Once Mitchell was safely out, the Krays held him at a friend's flat in East Ham. Mitchell's escape and dis­ap­p­ear­ance were murky, but Det Super Leonard Nipper Read of Scotland Yard decided to continue with the case and have a separate trial for Mit­chell, after the twins had been convicted for other crimes.

Reggie was encouraged to kill Jack The Hat McVitie, the unreliable member of the Kray gang, in Oct 1967. McVitie was entic­ed to a Stoke Newington flat for a party where Reg­gie stabbed McVitie in the face and neck with a carving knife. At dawn they dumped the dead body in the English Channel. Then a gun bat­tle with the rival South London Rich­ard­son Gang fol­lowed in 1966. The Krays were arr­ested with 15 gang members in May 1968 by Insp­ec­t­­or Read, thwarted in his earlier pursuit by Lord Boothby’s intervention.

Reggie was seen as brutal but Ronnie was des­c­rib­ed as having many mental conditions and abuse problems. Were those reports accurate? Formal psychiatric reports were prepared by Dr Denis Leigh, Royal Bethlem-and-Maudsley hospital after long inter­views in Dec 1968, to est­ab­lish whether he was fit to stand trial. Ronnie was indeed treated for paranoid schiz­o­phrenia. Allowed to go ahead, the Corn­ell and McVitie trial lasted 39 days, Old Bailey’s longest, most expensive ever. The Krays were found guilty in 1969 and sentenced to life impris­onment.

In 1979 Ronnie was commit­ted as a para­noid schizophrenic in Broad­moor Hospital Berks, dying in 1995. Reggie was locked up in Maid­stone Prison and Wayland Prison Nor­folk, dying in 2000. Black horses pulled their hearses through Bethnal Green’s jam-packed streets.

crowds in Bethnal Green 

Ronnie's celebrity funeral procession, 1995
East London Advertiser 

tombstone for the twins

together forever

To this day I am interested in the organ­ised responses of newspap­ers, political parties and the Police to crime. As horrified as I am, the twins’ story has outlived them both, rev­it­alised in a new film Legend (2015). Now read Pop Flock for many other cultural references.