Ronnie had this thing about the underdog – anyone underprivileged, weak or in trouble. He loathed bullies and flamboyant, overpowering people who thought they were God’s gift; and he couldn’t stand blokes who took liberties, either. Once, I was with him in a crowded pub when a cocky Irishman came in and ordered drinks all round. When he was asked for the money, he said he would pay the next day because he had none on him. Ronnie was fuming and laid the big Irishman out with a right to the jaw. I picked the guy up and took him outside. When I got back, Ronnie was still seething. ‘What a liberty!’ he said. ‘Walking in like that, then saying he’ll pay when he feels like it!’
The irony is that if that arrogant Irishman had gone up to Ronnie and asked to borrow some money to buy a round, Ronnie would no doubt have given him some.
Most of us in a situation like that would have felt like saying something to put the man in his place. But Ronnie had an abnormally quick temper. If someone did something he didn’t like, he would see red and lash out.
One night there were about twenty of us having a quiet drink in a pub when two guys came in and started staring at us. I asked the group if anyone knew who they were. No one did. I said that when I bought the next round I’d go over and see if they said anything. A little while later I strolled over, unaware that Ronnie had followed me. I was ordering the drinks, waiting for the two blokes to say something, when there was a scuffle and they both ended up spark out on the floor.
The guv’nor looked at me, stunned. ‘I don’t know if I saw that, or I didn’t.’
Ronnie got the two guys to their feet and took them outside. When he came back, he said to the guv’nor, ‘I didn’t want you to have any bother in your pub.’
I told Ronnie I had gone over to see what was happening, but he said he knew what they were up to, and didn’t want any part of it.
Strangers who took liberties were always in danger with Ronnie. People he knew were not. He’d bawl and shout at them perhaps, but knock them up in the air? Never.
For the next six months, money continued to flow in, despite Ronnie’s philanthropy, and we lived well. We didn’t have a lot of staff as such, but we did gather around us a number of loyal and trusted allies who looked after us and who, in turn, expected to be looked after.
There was ‘Big’ Pat Connolly, a huge, happy man, who was doorman at The Double R; Alf ‘Limehouse’ Willey, who had a brain like a computer when it came to calculating gambling odds; Tommy Brown, a quiet, withdrawn, but immensely strong young man, nicknamed The Bear of Tottenham; Billy Donovan, one of the hardest men I’d ever met; and two lifelong close friends of the twins, Ian Barrie and George Osborne. We had premises, clients and large sums of cash to protect, and these men helped us protect them. In the East End in those days there were ‘firms’ and ‘mobs’. The mobs consisted of villains and thieves, who specialized in robbery with violence. A firm was a group of people who ran an enterprise which dealt in cash – readies – didn’t keep books or records and handled their own social security. We were not the only firm operating in Bethnal Green but we were the best organized and most successful – and, because of that, the best known.
Just as the twins had said they would not tolerate trouble in their clubs, they also made it plain they did not approve of rival spielers opening in their manor. If anyone did open one, the twins went along, said they felt it was a liberty, and asked for a percentage of the takings. It was not so much the money they wanted – they had enough interests of their own – it was the principle. They hated the idea of someone taking a liberty. Such was their reputation that they always got a share. But it wasn’t always like that. Because there was rarely any trouble in Kray premises, spieler owners came to the twins asking them to be involved. It was a sensible, practical arrangement and, in most cases, they accepted the offers. But not always. Danny Green, who owned The Grange in Stoke Newington, for example, came to us, saying he was having a lot of bother with local tearaways. With tears in his eyes he begged the twins to give him protection in return for a share in his business. The twins were sorry about Danny’s problems but declined his offer. Stoke Newington was outside our manor and we had enough on our own plates.
I understood the principle of discouraging a rival operation starting up in the same area, but I did not approve of the twins leaning on people. If I was around and saw or heard anything I did not like, I would say something about it and we’d have an argument. But the twins rarely listened to what I had to say, so it was really a waste of time saying anything. Ironically, they would ask my advice on many things. They would listen for five minutes, then start arguing with me. Finally I would blow up and say, ‘Why ask my bloody advice when you never agree with me?’ In the end, I started looking around for other interests, because they got on my nerves.
I could not be with the twins twenty-four hours a day, so I don’t know everything that went on. But they only ever approached spielers for money, not shops or pubs.
People on our payroll were well paid and well looked after if they were totally loyal and honest; if there was one thing none of us – particularly Ronnie – could bear, it was dishonesty. One of our most trusted and valuable employees was Barry Clare. We were all devastated to learn that he’d gone home one night and stuck his head in the gas oven. Determined to find out why, we put the word out and soon discovered that Barry was being blackmailed.
I discovered the blackmailer by chance because, from a distance I resembled Barry and was mistaken for him in the doorway of the club. A car pulled up and a bloke in the passenger seat called out, ‘Hello, Barry, got it for me?’
I sensed immediately it was the blackmailer. But I resisted the temptation to grab him by the throat. Instead, I said. ‘Sorry, mate, I’m not Barry. He’s round the billiard hall.’
I knew Reggie was at the hall. And as the car pulled away, I rang and told him what had happened. When the guy arrived for his ‘pick-up’ Reggie was waiting. The man was given such a hiding it’s unlikely he ever put the squeeze on anyone again.
Reggie, like Ronnie, never forgot a favour. And someone who had been very helpful while Ronnie was staying in Finchley when he was on the trot from Long Grove, was a car dealer and gambler called Danny Shay. One day, towards the end of 1959, he came to the billiard hall and asked Reggie to help him collect a hundred-pound gambling debt. The man who owed it, he said, was a Pole called Podro, who owned a small shop in Finchley Road. He was a notorious welsher, it seemed.
The task didn’t seem too difficult and Reggie said he was happy to try to persuade Mr Podro to pay up. As an afterthought, he asked George Osborne if he’d mind driving them to Podro’s shop. Georgie didn’t mind, and off they went.
What the three of them didn’t know was that Podro, who obviously expected a visit, had told the police. Three of them were hiding in the back of the shop listening to Reggie’s own brand of persuasion, and when Reggie finally hung a right-hander on Mr Podro’s chin they ran out and nicked him, Shay and Georgie.
The next day the newspaper headlines screamed: ‘Chicago-style gangsters’ methods!’ And later, at the Old Bailey, Shay got three years and Reggie and Georgie eighteen months each for demanding money with menaces.
It was all so stupid. Reggie didn’t need money, he was doing someone a favour. And poor Georgie Osborne had just gone for the ride.
‘Demanding money with menaces.’ It was a phrase that would plague the twins for ever.
Just before Reggie was jailed, a Leyton car dealer named Johnny Hutton introduced him to Leslie Payne, a big man with a quiet chuckling laugh and great charm. Payne, a year older than me, was talented and knowledgeable and could have made a lot of money honestly, but for some reason he seemed to prefer bending the law. He and a financial wizard named Freddie Gore were operating a second-hand car racket in the East End – at the expense of the finance companies – and after Reggie went away they