But then they suggested something that was right up our street.
There was a lot of talk in the early part of 1960 about the Government legalizing gambling, and Payne had been tipped off that a first-class West End club was coming on the market. We had a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of what promised to be a bonanza.
A meeting to sort out the details of the takeover was held in a flat over the Scotch House, in Knightsbridge: it was the home of Commander Drummond, a retired naval officer with blue eyes and a small moustache. Apart from him, Ronnie and myself, there were four others present: Payne, who just sat and smiled, Gore, who scribbled figures on a piece of paper, and the major shareholders in the club, two gentlemen called Faye and Burns. Why the commander was involved I didn’t know, but he did most of the talking. After a pleasant enough chat, a price was agreed, a deal struck and Ronnie and I went home to celebrate. The Kray brothers from the backstreets of Bethnal Green now had a club in Wilton Street, Belgra-via, one of the wealthiest parts of London.
It was called Esmeralda’s Barn. And it turned out to be a gold mine which was to open up a new life for the three of us, our mother and the old man.
The twins particularly were well suited to the West End club circuit and popular among the expensively dressed pleasure-seekers who frequented it. They loved mixing with the aristocracy, showbusiness stars and millionaire businessmen; they rarely missed out on having their photographs taken at social and theatrical gatherings. In their identical, well-cut, midnight-blue dinner jackets, they certainly looked the part. And their behaviour was always respectful and proper.
Although I was on the spot when it mattered, I preferred to keep in the background. Most of my work was done behind the scenes, keeping a close eye on day-to-day events in a business empire that was rapidly expanding. I had been granted a licence to operate a theatrical agency, which meant I booked all cabaret acts for our own clubs, and others, instead of going through other agencies.
It also meant I could spend more time at home, which was important since Dolly had made it clear that she was being neglected and was bored and frustrated at spending so much time on her own. Something happened, however, that made me wonder whether Dolly had, in fact, been neglected or bored in my long absences.
There was a big group of us in a pub called The Green Dragon. I was standing at the bar talking to a couple of friends and Dolly was sitting at a table talking to George Ince. Dolly’s two brothers and the twins were also there.
Suddenly Reggie came over to me, looking tense. He told me to get Ince out of the place or there would be trouble. I was confused but I knew the look in Reggie’s eyes; it wasn’t time to argue.
I went over to the table and took Ince out of Dolly’s earshot. I told him I didn’t know what it was about, but he should make himself scarce. He did – quickly. Then I rejoined the twins, who proceeded to tell what everybody, it seemed, knew except me.
George Ince and Dolly had been having an affair for some time.
Boiling with rage, I dashed into the street looking for Ince. It was probably just as well for both of us that he was nowhere to be seen. I went back and confronted Dolly, and we agreed to discuss it when I was calmer and more rational. When we did, she denied the affair. But I was not convinced. I had to make a decision: let sleeping dogs lie, or walk out and let her get on with it. In the end I decided to stay, because Gary was at an impressionable age and I couldn’t bear him to suffer the trauma of his parents splitting up.
But something in me died that night in The Green Dragon. And when just a few months later I was attracted to a young lady, I threw myself into a full-blooded affair, which, ironically, nearly destroyed the family unit I so wanted to save.
The young woman was beautiful, bubbly and also blonde. Her name was Barbara Windsor and she was an actress.
Our relationship started when she was appearing in the hit show Fings Ain’t Wot They Used To be in the West End. An actor friend of mine, George Sewell, was in the show too, and arranged front-row seats for myself and Dolly’s brother Ray.
I had met Barbara only once before, with other people, but as the cast took their bows at the end of the performance she kept motioning to me to go backstage for a drink. The audience must have wondered who I was! Ray and I enjoyed a drink with the whole cast, then I asked Barbara to come to a club with me on her own. She agreed, and afterwards I took her home to Harringay, where she lived with her parents. Apart from being a beautiful young woman, with a sexy, shapely body, Barbara was a joy to be with – everything, in fact, that Dolly was not. We agreed to see each other the next night and, making my way home to Wapping, savouring the sweetness of her good-night kiss, I could hardly wait.
Being unfaithful to Dolly did not bother me unduly and I met Barbara as often as I could. I saw several sides of her, but one that surprised me was her kindness and generosity. As we all know, showbusiness people are not known for putting their hands in their pockets, but Barbara found it hard to say no if someone said they were in trouble. She was becoming quite a big name then and people – mostly men – were always tapping her for a few quid. I told her she was too kind for her own good and people were taking advantage. Unless she toughened up, I said, she would never have any money for herself when she needed it. But Barbara said she could not help herself, and in a way I loved her all the more for that.
She worked hard and played hard, and was always lively and happy. Most of the time we were together there was a lot of laughter – something there wasn’t at my home.
Once, early in our relationship, Barbara and I were having a drink in a Wardour Street club with some of the cast of Fings when a row broke out and someone went tumbling down the stairs. Barbara and the others, worried about their reputations, wanted to get out quickly, but one of the guys in the fight warned everyone to stay where they were: nobody, he said, was leaving the club that night; anyone who tried to would be in trouble. That suited us all fine: we ordered more drinks and carried on enjoying ourselves.
After an hour or so, however, the cast started getting worried, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went to the top of the stairs and shouted out that whoever was barricading us in had better get out of the way because we were all coming down. With a friend called Harry, I bounded down the stairs and charged down the door leading to the reception foyer. It opened very easily…because it wasn’t locked! No one was there. Our captors had probably left hours before. We never did find out what the row was about, but Barbara found it very amusing that we’d waited all that time and I’d charged down that door for nothing.
In her early twenties, Barbara had one of those eye-catching figures that was quite dangerous: how many young men, I wonder, walked into lamp-posts or trees because their heads had been turned by that pert little bottom, tiny waist and big boobs? Even today, Barbara and I still laugh at the time a railway porter at Eastbourne thought he was seeing things when the famous Windsor bustline turned up at his station at the unlikely hour of six in the morning. Barbara and I had been in the Astor Club. Remembering that I had an appointment in Eastbourne later that day, I asked Barbara if she fancied riding down there with me. She phoned her mum to tell her where she was going and we got a train. At the other end, Barbara was clip-clopping along the platform in monstrously high-heeled boots, short skirt and clinging white jumper when the porter, eyes out on stalks, mouth open, stumbled over his trolley. Barbara, used to such attention, just giggled. ‘’Ere Charlie, look, that bloke’s fallen off his barrer!’
The laughing could not last, of course. All the time I was married, I could not devote as much time to Barbara as I wanted. And although she never put any pressure on me, I knew I had to decide whether to leave home for her. If it had been a straight choice between Dolly and Barbara I would have walked out of my Wapping flat without a second thought, but Gary was still my main consideration. I would not do anything to hurt him.
It was a hard decision to make because I loved Barbara and really cared for her. I agonized over it for months, but in the end I said we had to