Before I was taken ill, I’d graduated from the Coronet junior club to Crown and Manor youth club in Hoxton, and as soon as I’d recovered from the rheumatic fever I took up boxing again. I also joined the naval cadets at Hackney Wick, where the training facilities were good, and it wasn’t long before I started taking the sport very seriously. I’d been a very useful welterweight, and the idea of turning pro appealed to me: a good crowd-pleaser could earn as much as ten quid for four three-minute rounds. There was also the handy bonus of ‘nobbins’ – coins thrown into the ring by satisfied customers – although boxers often came off second best to their helpers. Try picking up a handful of coins wearing boxing gloves and you’ll see what I mean.
When the twins saw some of the cutlery, glassware and trophies I won as an amateur they felt boxing might be for them, too, and they joined me in my early-morning road running, copying my side-stepping and shadow-boxing in the streets around Vallance Road. They were so enthusiastic that I turned an upstairs room into a sort of gym, with a speedball, punchbag, skipping ropes and weights. I found some boxing gloves to fit the twins and started to teach them. We were at it every day. It used to drive them mad, I suppose: keep that guard up, shoot out that left, duck, weave, watch that guard now, keep the left going…Ronnie was a southpaw; he led with his right. I corrected this by tying his right arm down, so that he couldn’t move it.
The twins loved that little gym and it wasn’t long before they started inviting their mates round for some sparring. I’d come home in the evenings to find the room full of kids, all waiting for me to get them organized. After a while, I started arranging contests and bought books and things to give the winners as prizes. The kids adored it. That gym was like their own little club.
Mum made sure all our gear was the cleanest by washing it every day, and the old man even cleaned and ironed the laces on our boxing boots. Mum didn’t come upstairs much, except to bring the boys tea and sandwiches. But as long as no one was getting hurt she didn’t mind all the noise and running around. She loved having kids in the house and the Kray home got a reputation for always being full up.
A year later the twins showed so much promise that I took them to the Robert Browning Institute in Walworth, near the Elephant and Castle in South London. One of the resident trainers watched them in the ring, a look of amazement on his face. ‘How old did you say they were, Charlie?’ he asked.
‘Ten,’ I said.
‘Are you sure they haven’t been in the ring before?’
‘Absolutely,’ I replied proudly.
‘They’re amazing,’ the trainer said. ‘Bloody amazing.’
‘So you want them in the club?’
‘Definitely.’
And so the short-lived but sensational career of the young Kray twins was born.
My own career in the ring was about to take off, too –courtesy of the Royal Navy. I decided to volunteer for the Navy before being called up and sent into the Army, which I didn’t fancy. I joined towards the end of the war, but my boxing reputation preceded me, and I spent most of my active service representing the Navy as a welterweight against the Army and Air Force.
After the war, contests were arranged to keep the men entertained while they waited to be demobbed. I found myself boxing roughly twice a week in various parts of the country. Whether it was the pressure of these fights or the legacy of my rheumatic fever I don’t know, but I suddenly developed chronic migraine and was discharged from the Navy on health grounds.
I was thrilled to return home to find that my little twin brothers had become quite famous locally with their spectacular triumphs in the ring. They had fought locally and nationally with outstanding success. In the prestigious London Schools competition they got to the final three years running and had to fight each other.
I shall never forget the third encounter at York Hall in Bethnal Green; it was a classic. I went in the dressing room beforehand and told them to take it easy and put on a good show. Ronnie was as calm as ever, but Reggie was extra keyed up. He had lost the previous two fights and I sensed he’d made up his mind he was going to win this one.
The announcements ended. The bell rang. And to the deafening roar of a thousand or so school kids the tenacious thirteen-year-old twins came out of their corners to do battle: Reggie the skilful boxer, Ronnie the fighter, who never knew when he was beaten. For three two-minute rounds they were totally absorbed, both committed to winning. They were belting each other so hard and so often that Mum and the old man wanted to get in the ring and stop it and it was all I could do to restrain them, although the battle got so bloody in the final round that I nearly shouted ‘Stop!’ myself.
The judges found it difficult telling the twins apart in the first part of the fight but they had no trouble towards the end: Ronnie’s face was a mess and Reggie got a unanimous verdict.
Afterwards, in the dressing room, Mum laid into them. She was horrified at the sight of her two babies knocking the daylights out of each other and told them in no uncertain terms that they would never appear together in a ring again as long as she was alive.
The twins burst into tears. But they never did fight each other again.
Back in civvy street again, I teamed up with the old man on the knocker, and dedicated myself to boxing. The Kray fame began to spread. Three brothers – two of them identical twins – chalking up one victory after another was hot local news, and suddenly our photographs were all over the East London Advertiser, with reports of our fights.
Mum hated boxing, but she always came to our fights with her sisters; she felt she had a duty to be there. We used to laugh at her because she admitted that half the time she didn’t look. She tried to talk us out of it, saying, ‘Do you really want to end up disfigured?’ And if one of us got hurt, she’d say, ‘You’ve got to stop – it’s no good for you.’ But in the end she gave up because she realized we loved the sport.
As boxers, the twins were quite different from each other: Reggie was the cool, cautious one, with all the skills of a potential champion and, importantly, he always listened to advice. Ronnie was a good boxer too, and very brave. But he never listened to advice. He was a very determined boy with a mind of his own. If he made up his mind to do something, he’d do it, no matter what, and unlike Reggie he would never hold back. He would go on and on until he dropped.
A trainer told me, ‘I know Ronnie doesn’t listen half the time. But he’s got so much determination that he’d knock a wall down if I told him to.’
Once, at Lime Grove Baths in West London, Ronnie was fighting a boy Reggie had knocked out a few months before. In the dressing room, I warned Ronnie, ‘This lad can punch. If he catches you, you’ll be over, I promise.’
Ronnie nodded. But I sensed he wasn’t listening.
In the first round, his opponent threw a huge overhead punch. Everyone round the ring saw it, but not Ronnie. He almost somersaulted backwards on to the canvas. It seemed all over, but Ronnie rolled over and crawled to his knees, then slowly to his feet. He didn’t know where he was, but he survived the round. He was still in another world when he came out for the second and he took a hammering. But when the bell went for the third, his head suddenly cleared and he tore into his opponent, knocking him out after a series of crushing blows to the head.
In the dressing room afterwards, I said, ‘That was very clever.’
Ronnie barely looked at me. ‘What did you want me to do?’
‘I told you to keep your chin down otherwise you’d get knocked over.’