Doing the Business - The Final Confession of the Senior Kray Brother. Charles Kray
a big gesture from Jordan, who remained a life-long friend of the Krays. Henry Berry, too, had been with the Krays right from the start of their boxing careers, and he would continue in boxing for many years to come. The Krays would always be grateful to these two men’s dedication to their fighting success.
Old man Charlie travelled back to Vallance Road in Jack Jordan’s Riley with his three sons and their trainer. The atmosphere in the car was light-hearted and fun. Everyone was in a good mood. Jordan and Berry were busy lining up Ron and Reg with more fights. Both men were confident that the twins could become really good boxers; Reg, in particular, could possibly become a champion. He was certainly skilful enough.
Violet received the men at the front door, inspecting each of her boys as they entered the house. She wasn’t bothered about the results. All she was concerned about was her sons’ well-being.
‘What have you done to your eye, Ronnie?’ she said as she greeted Ron.
‘It’s all right, mum. It don’t hurt,’ replied Ron as he reached out for a cup of tea.
Jack Jordan and Henry Berry came into the house for a few minutes to say hello to Violet, but before long it was just the Kray family alone at home, drinking tea and eating sandwiches. All they thought and talked about was their fights that night. Old man Charlie had enjoyed himself immensely, as he always did on such evenings. Violet was just happy that it was all over.
But for Charlie, Ron and Reg it really was all over. The three Kray brothers had made their first and final appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, and they would never, ever, fight professionally again. They had other things to do.
Charlie simply wanted out, knew he had to move on. The twins had no choice: they had just been conscripted into the Army. But they had all left while the going was still good, and, although their days of sparring in the ring were over, they were just about to begin their fight for success in another arena: the streets and clubs, casinos and pubs of London’s East End. If the three Kray brothers had made their mark on British boxing, they were about to impress themselves indelibly on the world in other ways.
THE REGAL WAS IN ERIC STREET, just off the Mile End Road in the heart of the East End. Before the War, it had been a cinema, but by the early 1950s it had become a derelict and rundown, fourteen-table billiard hall. In April 1954 the Kray twins had hoped for better days, too. Just demobbed from the army, they had served nine-month sentences at Shepton Mallet jail for desertion. But they were young enough and ballsy enough to feel resilient, and brash enough to ask for help — especially from the family.
They were a staunch family, the Krays, and would always help each other out of trouble. This time it was Charlie’s turn to fork out.
He was not known as being very generous when it came to lending money — he was more the borrowing type himself. But his brothers were different, so uncharacteristically he dipped his hand deep in his pocket to get them started in one business deal or another. It was probably this supportive gesture by Charlie that led the twins to involve him later on when they began to dominate the gangland East End.
But the twins didn’t have much success — not, that is, when it came to regular up front dealing. Their intention was to achieve, but without any definite goal in mind they drifted aimlessly from one deal to another. So with plenty of time to kill and little money in hand, they turned to petty thieving — and even did a little firebombing or two for the local heavy mob who were trying their hand at protection and extortion. One day they would steal a truck load of goods, the next it would be dealing in stolen documents. Sometimes they would cheat the local bookmaker. It was a case of anything goes for Ron and Reg Kray — and they loved it!
Hanging around, at loose ends, they heard about the Regal. A few visits there confirmed to them that it might be possible to turn the place around, to improve its fortunes. Apart from its derelict air and no-hoper clientele, they knew for sure that it had possibilities.
Their takeover bid was slow but unstoppable, an echo of how they would come to operate in the East End throughout the fifties and sixties. Reg would play billiards in the hall with his pals, while Ron held court for his friends and acquaintances. He was a charmer, Ron, flamboyant and witty, quite eccentric. The violence at the Regal, which had always been there, escalated during the first few months of their attendance. As they became regulars, so did the brawling — and damage to the billiard hall.
The aggression around the place got so bad that the manager bought an Alsatian dog to help protect his property — and himself. It didn’t help; the animal had fireworks thrown at it, and the dog soon went mad. By the summer of 1954, the manager had had enough too. He was ready to quit.
Ron and Reg made the owners an offer; one they couldn’t refuse. For £5.00 a week, they would take over running the hall, confident that they could do it smoothly. No one would mess with them, they’d make sure of that. They’d keep the money from the tables, and the takings from the refreshment bar would be split between the owner and the twins. It was all cut and dry, no angles, no messing. And it was to become their first really successful business operation — and legitimate at that — run entirely by them, their way.
In 1954, aged twenty-one, Ron and Reg were just getting to establish a name for themselves in London’s East End. The Regal was the start of it all. They were at the beginning of what became a run. And it was only natural that other young men would want to flex their muscles, to test them out. To find out how tough they really were. The violent eruptions that had increased with their presence were an attempt to suss them out.
If the three years in the army had done just one thing for the Kray twins, it was to have made them fitter and tougher than ever. Their reputation as hard men spread like wildfire in their patch around the Mile End Road. The twins were not to be provoked. No one willingly messed with them. You don’t fight them, they fight you.
When the Regal was refurbished and reopened by the Krays, it became an overnight success. Packed to the roof with their mates, old and new, and their mates’ mates, it was the happening place in the East End. No one wanted to miss a night there. With the place so full of so many friends and relations every night, there was no room for strangers. Other gangs stayed away. Sensibly. And violence and aggression was becoming rare.
What finished the violence at the Regal once and for all was what happened to a Maltese gang, also from the East End. They made a big mistake one night when they decided to call by for their protection money. It was just after the billiard hall had reopened. Now it’s a joke to think of anyone mad enough to try to extort money from Ron and Reg, but their reputation at that stage was slight.
A number of Maltese gangs operated in the Mile End Road area in the 1950s. They were well established and confident. Confident enough to call on Ron and Reg at the end of a long hard night.
Alone in the Regal, the twins were stacking chairs. Immediately they sensed trouble. The Maltese strolled casually around the hall, striking the smooth green baize of the new tables and examining the cues in a detached but menacing way. Eventually, the gang leader approached the twins. Before the word protection was fully out of his mouth, he was out of the door with his mates, flattened.
‘Protection from what?’, Ron had replied as he lashed out at them with a cutlass.
Seconds later, Reg drew out a knife, and the battle that followed would have been bloody and fatal if the Maltese gang had not fled in terror.
Cool as ever, Reg Kray was heard to comment, ‘They’ve not got a lot of bottle, these continentals, especially when the knives come out.’
Other incidents followed, but nothing major ever happened again there. An occasional fight that flared and died down as abruptly as it had started. The East End was a tinder box, but Ron and Reg kept a firm grip on the sparks