Doing the Business - The Final Confession of the Senior Kray Brother. Charles Kray
breaks in the live music and danced to the latest sounds. There was even room to jive, twist, rock and roll, or just plain old-fashioned cheek to cheek.
Club hours were from three in the afternoon to eleven at night sharp. This was the same every day of the week. After-hours drinking was discouraged, except behind closed doors for family and close friends. Weekends were always busy, and it soon started to attract so-called respectable customers from the West End. Local villains mixed with celebrities. Everyone loved it. Sybil Burton, Barbara Windsor, Jackie Collins would all drop by to enjoy an evening out and take time to chat with Reg or Charlie. Men with money started to show, looking for excitement. Reg was only too happy to oblige.
Life was good. Reg and Charlie had made a success of their business venture together.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. Trouble, when it started, normally broke out during the day, especially the afternoons.
This was when most of the new customers came by. It was just such an afternoon, when Charlie was serving behind the bar, that three brothers walked in. They’d enrolled and hence been vetted in the usual way, so they got past Big Pat Connolly, no trouble.
Reg was standing at the bar with a gin and tonic in his hand, chatting. It was quiet, even slow, mid-afternoon. One of the three men invited Reg to have a drink with them. Reg refused. The man ignored him and said he’d buy him one anyway.
‘You’re having a drink,’ the man ordered. It was a stupid remark. ‘I’ll get you one, and you will drink it.’
He didn’t let up. The intruder ordered a gin and tonic for Reg, which Charlie prepared and put on the bar counter with his hand held out for the money. Calmly Charlie put the note in the till, rang up the cash register to give the man his change. The man held out the gin and tonic for Reg.
Without a word and as the sound of the cash-register bell died, Reg hit the man hard on the jaw with a vicious left hook. It laid him out flat.
It was then that Charlie joined in, to assist his brother, and before they knew what had hit them, the three brothers were bundled up and thrown out bodily into the street.
The regulars just carried on as normal. Most of them hadn’t even moved from their seats and were sitting drinking and chatting as if nothing had happened. All of a sudden, with the men now well out of earshot, Reg turned on Charlie.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ he yelled.
‘What d’you mean?’ Charlie replied. He was surprised by Reg’s reaction. ‘I came to help you, of course,’ he continued.
‘No, you don’t,’ Reg screamed. He pointed wildly. ‘You stay there — behind the bar. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself and those three fellas.’
Reg had been insulted by Charlie’s chipping in like that, as if he, Reg, couldn’t handle things himself. He had his reputation to protect. Charlie should have known that.
It went all quiet for a moment in the bar, until someone started to laugh. When Reg realized he’d made his point and reasserted his dominance, he managed a laugh too. The situation was defused. For the time being. But it was always a delicate balance with the Kray twins’ sensibilities.
Reg’s fierce and fearless attitude to danger, physical and emotional, was something that the regulars at the Double R talked about for years to come. His reputation as a tough guy was well earned. He didn’t suffer anyone gladly, although you’d often never know it until you got hit. But, he didn’t always use his fists to make his point. With more minor upsets during the evening he would sort them out quickly, negotiating. He was very good at that, Reg.
There was one particular incident that happened when Violet and old man Charlie were round the club. Queenie Watts had just started singing there, and they’d heard a lot about her, how good she was and so on. They would have come by anyway, so proud were they of their sons’ achievements there, but she was the specific draw that evening.
Violet was sitting in her favourite chair by the bar with old man Charlie, enjoying Queenie’s performance, when a big man, well over 6 foot, got up on stage and grabbed the microphone. He started singing rude songs but was soon shouted off by the other customers: ‘We want Queenie. Get off. We want Queenie.’
Reg spoke one word, quietly, in Charlie’s ear: ‘Trouble.’
It wasn’t until the man, obviously the worse for drink, walked up to Violet and tried to get her to dance with him that Reg made his move. As the drunk grabbed his mother, the entire club went quiet, and all eyes were fixed on Reg.
Without a change of expression, Reg walked straight over to the man and knocked him to the floor with his favoured left hook. Charlie then took over and dragged him out of the club, past the front desk and outside into Bow Road, where he dumped him unceremoniously in the street.
‘Don’t come back,’ he warned. ‘Just keep away, if you know what’s good for you.’
Outside on the pavement, the man had begun to come to. He was confused. What had happened? He couldn’t remember. Charlie hung about for a bit and told him. The man was genuinely apologetic — and embarrassed — he didn’t know what had come over him. It must have been the drink talking.
Eventually the two men shook hands, and in the months to come the drunken stranger became a club regular. But he took care to behave himself.
It was incidents like these that reinforced the idea of the club as neutral territory. As long as you did things the Kray way, you could come along, but you had to toe the line when on club premises. The Double R became a place where members of different gangs could meet without fear of trouble, and this earned it the nickname, Switzerland — neutral territory. The Krays had started to provide a service for all comers but always on their terms. They ruled OK or all out.
Reg had started to become a bit of a playboy, spending his time up West with young ladies. This was something new for him. When Ron was around, they didn’t make much time for women. Or rather, as an apparent womanizer, Ron didn’t actually take much interest in women.
Reg, on his own, operated differently. Charlie let him get on with it. He was married. Other women weren’t on the agenda. Live and let live. Reg’s behaviour wasn’t his business. But ironically, with the two brothers getting on so well, the only area of disagreement between them was to become Charlie’s wife Dolly.
Charlie had been married for years and had two children. He, Dolly and the kids lived in Stepney. Charlie made great efforts to keep out of trouble. Anything criminal and he was out of the way. It was going on all around him, but he wasn’t interested. But, it wasn’t this that got up Reg’s nose, it was Dolly.
Reg just didn’t like the way that Dolly would act. With the Double R, you’d think she owned it, the way she went on. It caused a lot of animosity. To top it all, Reg got the idea that Dolly was carrying on behind Charlie’s back, having an affair with one of the regulars at the Double R. Years later, when Charlie was in prison, the affair did come out, it was public knowledge. And no surprise to Reg, who’d suspected it all along. Reg really disliked Dolly.
The Dolly problem did interfere in Charlie’s relationship with Reg, but on the whole they got along fine, particularly because both agreed not to let Dolly interfere with their business arrangements. Charlie was as shrewd as Reg when it came to business. He urged to Reg to expand, to invest in more clubs, including gambling halls, and car dealerships. The adjacent car park often served as a showroom for the car dealing.
Reg acquired the Wellington Way Club in spring 1957. Here members could play blackjack, rummy and faro. Reg even started illegal bookmaking in a back room at the club. They made good money. And it was all in and around the same part of the East End. Their budding empire was easy to get to and to run, by keeping it so much together. It looked like nothing could stop them. Everything Charlie and Reg started turned to gold. With strict rules of conduct for the clubs and for themselves, they got on well with everyone, even old enemies.
Billy