Charlie Kray and his twin brothers were once professional boxers. Born in London’s East End they knew they’d have to fight to make their name. In 1951 they all appeared on the same bill at the Royal Albert Hall. Underworld: The Krays, BBC 1994
From early childhood the identical twins were bound by bitter rivalry and fierce devotion. ibid.
They bought their mum a local pub – The Carpenter’s Arms. ibid.
The Krays worked hard to appear as local boys made good. But they were murderers and extortionists. They made sure cameras were on hand to help them gloss over the dark side of their activities. ibid.
From the front room of the two-up two-down they ran a criminal empire. ibid.
Protection was one of the firm’s main sources of income. ibid.
In the sixties crime was tinged with glamour. ibid.
Most of the Richardsons were either under sedation or under arrest. ibid.
The media loves the Krays. They’ve made more money selling their story from prison than they ever did as gangstas. ibid.
Frank the Mad Axeman Mitchell became the Kray’s next problem. ibid.
Frank Mitchell’s body has never been found, and no-one convicted of his murder. ibid.
This tremendous power to terrify was the Twins’ greatest weapon. ibid.
In the warped world of the Twins their next victim Jack the Hat McVitie caused his own death. ibid.
But the Kray Twins could actually reach you, find you, almost anywhere, no matter where you where, even though they were both inside. I’ll always remember one Sunday morning, I was having a bit of emergency dental treatment at a hospital in Portsmouth. I’d just sat back in the dentist’s chair. He was just about to stick the needle in my gum. When I heard a phone ring outside. The receptionist knocked on the door, stuck her head round the door and said, ‘There’s a phone call for Mr Dinenage.’ The dentist was horrified. He said, ‘What!’ He said, ‘Who is it?’ She said, ‘It’s someone called Reggie Kray.’ ‘God,’ said the dentist, ‘you’d better answer it.’ The Krays by Fred Dinenage, 2010
Frances committed suicide overdosing on barbiturates only two years after she married Reg. Rumours still persist about her death, and some people don’t think it was even suicide. It was another extraordinary chapter in the life of the Twins. ibid.
There’s a paradox about East End gangsters that’s always puzzled me. On the one hand they were boys who loved their mum and went to Church, but on the other, they were vicious gangstas who destroyed families. ibid.
The Kray Twins weren’t the only duo ruling London’s underworld. A rival gang, the Richardsons, Charlie and Eddie, were based south of the river. The Kray Twins told me they [Richardsons] had a reputation so fierce it earned them respect from the hardest of criminals. They became famous for their brutal torture techniques. ibid.
By the dawn of the new millennium, the era of London’s infamous gangsters was over. ibid.
The Krays’ violence went beyond mere intimidation. In 1966 at The Blind Beggar pub Ronnie shot dead rival gangster George Cornell. One year later the brothers used the pretence of a party to lure one of their own firm – Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie – into a basement flat where Reggie fatally stabbed him in the face, neck and stomach with a carving knife. Crimes that Shocked Britain
On March 5th 1969 identical twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray were sent to prison for a minimum of thirty years. The Twins will always be remembered as Britain’s most notorious gangsters. During the sixties they built a criminal empire of fraud, gambling, protection and extortion. They punched and slashed their way to the top of the criminal pile. Cutting Edge: Reggie Kray, Channel 4 2000
Reggie is still in prison after thirty-one years. Should we let him out? Why are we keeping him in prison? ibid.
In 1963 a set of photographs recorded some most unusual friendships. They featured the most popular peer of the day and the man who would become Britain’s most notorious gangster. There was a third man also a gangster and the lover of a senior Labour MP. And a fourth man – a cat-burglar and lover to the peer. Secret History: Lords of the Underworld, Channel 4 1997
The scandal which got away, and of the love that in 1964 dared not speak its name. The peer in the photographs was Robert Boothby. ibid.
Boothby’s most enduring heterosexual affair which lasted over three decades was with Lady Dorothy Macmillan, the wife of his Conservative colleague Harold Macmillan. ibid.
Holt became a frequent visitor to Boothby’s flat. ibid.
In Early 1963 Holt introduced him [Boothby] to a man called Ronnie Kray. ibid.
The next year the Tories were hit by another scandal which threatened to rival Profumo: on 12th July 1964 the Sunday Mirror printed a story about a homosexual relationship between a prominent Conservative peer and a leading London thug. ibid.
They dominated the East End – their manor as they liked to call it. ibid.
In addition to his bouts of madness and violence Ronnie Kray was a self-proclaimed homosexual. Something of a novelty on the macho London crime scene. ibid.
Boothby’s friendship with Kray was attracting the attention of Scotland Yard’s intelligence section C11. ibid.
Some of the photographs showed a fourth man, Teddy Smith, or Mad Teddy as he was known. ibid.
The Mirror caved in. Cecil King agreed to pay Boothby £40,000. ibid.
There were orgies too. ibid.
The unlikely friendships which at once seemed so promising were disintegrating. ibid.
Freddie Foreman had a life-long association with the Krays. The Krays – Inside the Firm, ITV 2000
In December 1961 Foreman’s gang attacked a bank van carrying wages worth today over a million pounds ... The failed raid left the police with plenty of forensic evidence. ibid.
London was less security conscious in the 1960s. ibid.
In January 1965 Freddie Foreman became a murderer. ibid.
The defeat of the Richardsons robbed Ronnie Kray of the violent night out he craved. And he was not to be thwarted. ibid.
Three brothers named Kray had ambitions to become the godfathers of British crime. They created an evil empire of violence, extortion and intimidation. The Krays – Unfinished Business, ITV 2000
Mitchell put his trust in the Krays. But in return they destroyed him. ibid.
Reggie Kray recruited Albert Donoghue into The Firm after first shooting him in the leg as a punishment for insulting the Twins. But when he didn’t grass he was put on the payroll and became a core member of the Kray organisation. ibid.
The Krays had a sentimental attachment to the community spirit which excluded outsiders. ibid.