But a few of the bullying crowd said, ‘We’re not finished here.’
The next day the old man told Ronnie and Reggie what had happened. ‘Who were they?’ the twins wanted to know. The old man thought they worked for a chap called Jack Barclay, who owned a big East End store. The twins were round there like a shot.
‘Hello, Mr Barclay,’ Ronnie said respectfully. He asked for two people by name.
‘They’re out the back,’ replied Mr Barclay.
‘Thank you,’ said Ronnie. And he walked straight through with Reggie and confronted the two bullies.
‘You had a go at our old man last night. And we don’t like it.’
With that, Ronnie floored one of the guys and Reggie did the other. Then they went out, saying goodbye to Mr Barclay on the way.
Several times in that long hot summer of 1948, I talked to the twins. I tried to tell them what fools they were; that the only place they should be fighting was in the ring, where they could made a good name for themselves. I should have saved my breath. My twin brothers were not interested in what I had to say or what I felt. They were not fifteen yet, but almost overnight they had become men and nobody, not even their elder brother, was going to tell them what to do.
Adolescence, tragically, had passed the Kray twins by.
My own life as I entered my twenties was going along nicely. I was earning a few quid with the old man. My boxing was fine; I was winning most of my fights and thinking seriously of turning pro.
And then I fell in love.
I was dedicated to fighting. I trained hard and nearly always went to bed early. But every sportsman needs a break some time, a chance to unwind, and one of the favourite places to do that in the East End was the Bow Civic dance hall. It was there that I met a stunning blonde who lived in nearby Poplar, the youngest of four sisters and a very talented dressmaker. She was two years younger than me and we hit it off immediately. We soon started going out seriously together.
Her name was Dorothy Moore and we felt we were destined to get married.
Mum and the old man approved of Dolly, and wedding bells rang out for us on Christmas Day 1948. Mum solved our housing problem by dismantling the gym in Vallance Road and redecorating and furnishing the room for us. We spent our honeymoon there. A week later I was in the ring at Leyton Baths, cruising to a points win in my first professional fight.
After that, I was much in demand and picked up between five and ten quid a fight. I trained hard and took everything that came my way, hoping to catch the eye of a leading promoter. The twins came to watch me fight at Hoxton, Stepney, West Ham and the famous Mile End arena, eager to pick up tips that might help them in the ring. I gained a reputation as a useful and reliable fighter, and although I didn’t have that extra touch of class that makes a champion, I was proud of my skills and my considerable local fame.
Certain necessities were still rationed, but life had more or less got back to normal after the horrors of war. We ate and slept well, and the family atmosphere Mum created for us all at Vallance Road was warm and cosy and very happy.
It seemed too good to last. And it was.
One evening in March, the old man and I came home after working in Bristol and found Mum dreadfully upset. There had been a nasty fight outside a dance hall in Mare Street, Hackney, and a boy had been badly beaten with a length of bicycle chain. The twins had been arrested. Mum couldn’t believe it; neither could the old man and I, because the twins had never once needed to use anything other than their fists to settle an argument.
The case went to the Old Bailey. The twins were innocent of the offences with which they were charged and they were rightly acquitted. But they had come face to face with that uniformed authority which they neither respected nor trusted. Just seven months later there was to be a more far-reaching and damaging confrontation.
It was a Saturday evening in October. There had been a fight near a youth club in Mansford Street, off Old Bethnal Green Road, and Police Constable Donald Bayn-ton wanted to know about it. He went up to a group of youths on a corner outside a restaurant. Picking one out, he asked if he had been involved in the fight. The boy shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
PC Baynton went up to the boy and pushed him in the stomach. The boy told him to leave him alone; he said again the fight had had nothing to do with him. The officer poked him in the stomach again.
It was a mistake. The boy was Ronnie. He didn’t like the PC’s manner one bit.
And he lashed out with a right hook to the jaw.
It wasn’t a hard blow; PC Baynton didn’t even go down. Ronnie ran off, but not very fast, and Baynton caught him. There was a brief struggle and Ronnie went quietly to Bethnal Green police station.
What happened inside that station during the next few minutes almost certainly changed Ronnie’s life for ever.
Reggie heard about the incident from one of Ronnie’s friends. Immediately, he went to the police station and waited outside. After a while, PC Baynton came out. Spotting Reggie, he grinned mockingly. ‘Oh, the other one now,’ he said. ‘I’ve just put your brother in there and given him a good hiding. He ain’t so clever now.’
Reggie sneered. ‘You won’t give me one,’ he said. Then he darted into a side street, but not too quickly.
Thinking Reggie was running away, Baynton chased after him. It was his second mistake of the evening. When he turned the corner, Reggie was waiting, and he slammed into the surprised officer’s face with a few right-and left-handers then walked away.
I was at home with Mum when someone knocked at the door and told us what had happened. When I got to the police station I couldn’t believe it. Ronnie was in a terrible state: blood all over him, his shirt ripped to pieces.
‘What the hell happened?’ I asked.
Ronnie was still defiant. His eyes hardened. ‘They got flash. A load of them came in the cell and gave me a hiding.’ He glanced over to some of them watching. ‘They all think they’re big men. If they want a row it’s ten-handed.’
I turned round on them angrily. ‘Aren’t you lot clever?’ I said sarcastically. ‘Not one of you is man enough to fight him on your own.’
‘Look, Charlie,’ one of them said in a friendly tone. ‘We don’t want any trouble – any problems.’
‘No problems!’ I yelled. ‘I’m going to cause you plenty of problems. This is diabolical, what’s happened here. You’re not getting away with beating up a sixteen-year-old kid!’
I started ranting and accused them again of being cowards. They threatened to arrest me and suggested I left. Finally I agreed but I warned them I was taking Ronnie to a doctor.
Later that evening it was bedlam at Vallance Road. Mum was crying her eyes out at the sight of Ronnie’s smashed face; Ronnie was trying to console her, saying he was all right and he hadn’t hurt the policeman anyway; the old man and I were wondering if we could take legal action. Then there was a knock at the front door. It was an inspector the old man knew from the local nick. PC Baynton was with him, looking the worse for wear. The Inspector wanted to speak to Reggie.
When I said he wasn’t in, the Inspector motioned towards Baynton. ‘Look what he’s done to him,’ he said.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I replied scornfully. ‘Come in and have a look at what your officers have done to Ronnie.’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ the Inspector said.
I made