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Me and My Brothers
Robin Mcgibbon
Charlie Kray
An updated edition of the bestselling autobiography of Charlie Kray, elder brother of the Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, who are brought to the screen this autumn in a major motion picture.Charlie Kray was the only person who knew the truth behind the terrifying violence of his notorious twin brothers, Ronnie and Reggie.In his dying days, reflecting on how the Kray name destroyed his life, Charlie reveals what he really thought about the twins - and why they treated him so badly.Today, 40 years after the arrests that ended their so-called reign of terror, the power the Krays wielded is part of criminal folklore - and the fascination with them lives on.Charlie knew them better than anyone - from the extortion racket that provided riches beyond their dreams and the sexual liaison that took them into the corridors of power to the murderous mayhem the twins embarked on as they came to see themselves as beyond the law.In this fully updated edition of his best-selling autobiography, Charlie Kray reveals a side of Ronnie and Reggie that not even their closest henchmen ever saw.
Me and My Brothers
Charlie Kray
with
Robin Mcgibbon
Charlie dedicated this book to his parents, who were forever in his thoughts
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u4594ffce-43ce-51ee-becd-bcc13533f247)
Title Page (#ube07df62-d2ca-5729-bbd3-1c1fe5b8099d)
Author’s Note (#ubd812f08-4907-5c08-926c-6ad3adb427aa)
Prologue (#u760fd87e-2cc5-5950-9737-01f485a617a0)
Chapter One (#u6d027ced-0bd1-583a-8a86-c58b2462062c)
Chapter Two (#u9250e1c7-f6f0-5408-90de-62b203b99387)
Chapter Three (#uf7abfc12-39cd-5d05-8765-94b36d45c21a)
Chapter Four (#u287fe944-8815-5173-814c-9f0c9c98ca77)
Chapter Five (#uade9f3d4-0213-5905-8ec8-fb5acf39bc5b)
Chapter Six (#u704ef870-3d24-587d-a828-03cd630d51df)
Chapter Seven (#u591f072f-07ec-5a5c-90d2-d16721960e4c)
Chapter Eight (#u231c871d-1beb-5fb7-99c1-3ae55a419b02)
Chapter Nine (#ude5645ac-bd8b-5132-b98e-8f036321103b)
Chapter Ten (#uaf9cb84b-a04b-513f-9719-71344aa7a00c)
Chapter Eleven (#u550f5463-dd8b-5c49-a741-e726820eeec7)
Chapter Twelve (#u017cf8f3-f666-5cf7-8aef-2d52156b666d)
Chapter Thirteen (#u34dd4b43-d085-557d-bb39-b7bb80c45880)
Chapter Fourteen (#ubbd9f473-a462-573e-b21f-dda10268ed1f)
Chapter Fifteen (#u0e2de9ff-2eeb-5372-97ae-2c9dc0dd9d39)
Chapter Sixteen (#u38645402-524a-502d-94e4-63d456373b17)
Chapter Seventeen (#u3fefadf2-7388-546d-b1ea-902267f00e1e)
Chapter Eighteen (#u436f254a-7d88-5758-85e4-80f3aeb74b4b)
Chapter Nineteen (#u065a4430-e29e-5b5b-8376-da153a39728d)
Chapter Twenty (#ua21bef06-231f-5c16-8f77-c67c850915e6)
Chapter Twenty-one (#uf339528f-f49f-5178-b720-e5c0f2a4a09d)
Chapter Twenty-two (#u33eb52f7-b14a-5ac3-877e-3adda3853b55)
Chapter Twenty-three (#u8ae69b65-dd48-58b7-b14d-618e43c66a30)
Chapter Twenty-four (#ua59ca46f-459f-57be-bc00-f6653faade64)
Chapter Twenty-five (#u5f5ac865-59f2-5ec2-aec5-1f872f95d607)
Chapter Twenty-six (#u97ca55bf-b83e-5c73-b166-adf697fb8b00)
Chapter Twenty-seven (#ue46a8cb9-6b58-5dbc-b4ff-3449582cbee4)
Chapter Twenty-eight (#u262290d5-12c8-5b27-9ac5-9709b2d24e4c)
Chapter Twenty-nine (#u08f59cba-96c2-5633-a98e-025a2e299b61)
Chapter Thirty (#ucd2e8a83-7e8d-555d-a260-347bc04943f2)
A Personal View (#uaa815181-f07d-581e-8334-d27918045a10)
About the Author (#u122275d7-3bc4-5b68-9afe-c45aa164e49c)
Copyright (#u30c6854b-6789-5393-bb41-977838f283ec)
About the Publisher (#u85fff132-8451-56c4-9dc3-21e2ea13298b)
Author’s Note (#ulink_37e5024e-23d1-564b-b907-fc5f187a0624)
The first edition of Me and My Brothers, which my company Everest Books published in 1975, made little impact. Charlie knew he had an interesting story to tell but was broke, and more eager to cash in on the notoriety of the Kray name than to write a no-holds-barred blockbuster.
Ronnie and Reggie hated the book. So did Charlie. Like many things done for the wrong reasons, it lacked emotion, conviction – and honesty. The murder of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie had destroyed Charlie’s life, but, in 1975, neither twin had admitted their roles in the killing, so family loyalty prevented him disclosing how or why.
In 1988, HarperCollins gave Charlie a second bite at the cherry – a chance to reveal what he didn’t, or couldn’t, say before. Then, when he was convicted on a drugs charge nine years later, Charlie was given an opportunity to further update his story.
For the 1997 edition, I would like to thank Melvyn Howe, courts’ correspondent of The Press Association, for offering help with the trial copy, and his then boss, Mike Parry, for supplying it.
For their help in ensuring that this final edition of Charlie’s life story is accurate, I must thank Charlie’s best friend Wilf Pine and his wife, Ros, Maureen Flanagan, Les Martin, Steve Wraith, Albert Chapman, Trish Ellis, of the Sunday Telegraph, Jonathan Goldberg QC, David Martin-Sperry and Ronnie Field.
I would also like to thank my dear friend Mike Harris for all the fact-checking research at the British Library – and, of course, my wife, Sue, for all the donkey work that goes into writing a book.
But special thanks must go to Dave Courtney, who was always there when I needed him. Thanks, Poppet.
Robin McGibbon
Bickley, Kent
March 2008
Prologue (#ulink_0e9066ef-1f6d-5bbd-b0f8-53360471f833)
My name is Kray. But I’m not a gangster; never was, never wanted to be.
And I don’t want a gangster’s funeral.
I don’t want to be remembered as a gangster, just because I had twin brothers, Ronnie and Reggie, who got a kick out of violence and a thrill out of murder.
I was never like the twins. And I don’t want people thinking I was. Even when I’m dead.
I could throw a punch, too, and have boxing trophies to prove it.
But I’d rather throw a party. That’s why people called me Champagne Charlie. And that’s how I’d like to be remembered.
I spent my life trying to distance myself from the twins’ way of life, and a gangster’s funeral would associate me with all they stood for. And that wouldn’t be right.
When my time comes, I want to be carried to the flat I shared with the woman I adored, then be buried the next day, with the minimum of fuss – and certainly no TV cameras – next to my lovely son who died tragically young.
Reggie will want to stage a showy spectacular, like the one he laid on for Ronnie that brought the East End to a standstill.
But I don’t want that and I’m sure that, despite the differences we’ve had all our lives, Reggie will respect my wishes.
Chapter One (#ulink_d38b4c9b-9581-5357-b350-4c8036516579)
The ringing of the phone brought me out of a deep sleep. Through half-closed eyes I squinted at my watch on the bedside table: 5.15 A.M. I took the phone from its cradle. ‘Hello,’ I muttered, husky from tiredness. An unfamiliar woman’s voice apologized for waking me, then spoke quietly in an abrupt, businesslike manner. I heard what she said, but I couldn’t take it in. Didn’t want to. I thought I must be still asleep. Numb with shock, I passed the phone to Diana, lying next to me. She listened for a few moments, thanked the caller, then stretched past me to put the phone down. She looked at me and shook her head, sadly. ‘I’m afraid it’s true, Charlie.’
In a daze, I got out of bed and shuffled, zombie-like, downstairs into the lounge. I took a bottle of Remy Martin from the cocktail cabinet and filled a long tumbler, then I gulped the brandy fast, again and again, until it was gone. Diana came into the room in her dressing gown. We stared at each other in shock. I went to say something but no words came out. And then she moved towards me and put her arms round me and I started to sob.
That morning at my home in South-East London was the worst moment of my life. Worse than the day I was jailed for ten years for a crime I didn’t commit. Worse than being charged with a murder I knew nothing about. But my tears that morning of 5 August 1982 were not only for myself; they were for my twin brothers, Ronnie and Reggie, too. And for our old man.
How on earth were they going to take it when I told them that the woman we all worshipped, the lovely lady we thought would live for ever, was dead?
She had gone into hospital just three days earlier. We all thought it was just a check-up for pneumonia: a week or two and she’d be out as fit as ever. I’d gone in to see her that day. She was the same old Mum, bright and cheerful, full of life. She wasn’t in two minutes and the nurses loved her. It was coming up to her birthday and she had all her cards by her bedside. She looked as good as gold.
Then she had the test she had gone in for and when I went in the next day she was hot and flustered. I’d never seen her like that before. She said she could never have anything like that again. I think the test embarrassed her, apart from the pain.
The next day she was lying there, her eyes closed. She wouldn’t open them; perhaps she couldn’t. Softly, I told her I was there. She didn’t answer. One of the old ladies in another bed, who had made friends with Mum, called me over and said there was something wrong: Mum hadn’t been at all well. I went back to Mum and spoke to her again and she answered me. She was hot. I put a damp cloth on her forehead. But she began to get delirious. I called a nurse who said Mum had pneumonia. I didn’t believe her; she had been all right the day before. But the nurse shook her head. Then she said the doctor wanted to see me.
He broke the news as gently as he could. Mum did have pneumonia. But she had cancer, too. Bad. He wanted to operate, but he needed to clear the pneumonia first.
Hearing the dreaded word ‘cancer’ knocked me bandy. I’d thought we’d get over the pneumonia, then take her away somewhere nice to get well again. She had many years to live yet. All her family lived on: she had a brother of 88, an aunt of 102. My mum was one of the fittest. She was going to live for ever.
I gave the doctor my phone number ‘in case of an emergency’. I didn’t expect it to come to anything. Then Diana and I left the hospital. I was in a daze.
Early the next morning, that phone call came. The cancer had taken my mum on her seventy-third birthday.
The brandy must have done me good. I didn’t feel it at the time, but it must have helped me pull myself together, helped me to be strong. I had no choice. There would be a lot to do, and with my brothers in prison and our father ill I was the only one to do it. To begin with, they each had to be told. But who first? As usual, I found myself in the middle. From the moment the twins were born, they had dominated the household and, eventually, my whole life. But on that August morning they came second. It would break him, I knew, but my old man had to be the first to know.
An hour or so later, at about seven o’clock, Diana and I arrived at Braithwaite House, my parents’ council flat in Bunhill Row, in the City of London.
‘What’s going on at this time in the morning?’ the old man wanted to know.
I’d decided there was no point in mucking about. I told him to sit down, then I took a deep breath and said, ‘Unfortunately, she’s just died.’
Almost before I’d got the words out he began to scream. I’d never seen him show so much emotion. It just knocked him over. He was very ill and after those first shock waves, he found it difficult to breathe. He kept panting, saying, ‘I can’t believe it. How can she die before me? I won’t be long. It’s just a matter of time. I’m waiting for it now.’
My old man, bless him, didn’t have to wait long to join his beloved Violet. That morning he lost the will to live and was dead eight months later.
I decided to tell Ronnie next. Wednesday was not a normal visiting day at Broadmoor, but I could be there in little over an hour if I was allowed to see him; the train –boat – taxi journey to Reggie on the Isle of Wight would take about five. Broadmoor’s director told me to come immediately and agreed to say nothing to Ron. But I wasn’t thinking straight when I asked Parkhurst to keep the news from Reggie until I got there the next day.
‘That’s not going to be easy, Charlie,’ said a prison officer I knew from previous visits. ‘He’s got his radio in his cell. We can’t take that away. Anyway, someone else will hear.’
I didn’t say anything. The thought hadn’t occurred to me.
‘Charlie,’ the welfare officer said, ‘if you can trust me…I’ve been with Reggie for years. I’ll take him somewhere quietly and tell him myself.’
I thought hard. I knew the officer quite well; I felt I could trust him. He was right. If Reggie heard on the radio…
‘Would you do that for me, please?’ I said.
Diana and I got to Broadmoor at about eleven o’clock. The authorities were very kind: they took us into the hospital wing, where visitors aren’t usually allowed. They had got a little room for us. A few moments later Ronnie came in, looking concerned. He said later he thought it was odd, us being in that room. When he sat down I looked at him and said gently, ‘Ron, our mother’s passed away.’
He just broke down, as I knew he would. He leaned forward, put his head in his hands and burst out crying. I’d had a bit of time to get over the shock, but Ronnie started me off again.
Finally he said in his quiet voice, ‘I thought you were going to say our father had died.’ Then a few moments later: ‘We expected that. But never in a million years, Mum. Why did it happen to her?’
The three of us sat there for about an hour, remembering how lovely she had been, and then I said I had to go; I had a lot to do. As we got up Ronnie said, ‘Could you ask them if I can stay here a bit? I want to be on my own.’
The nurses were very kind. ‘Don’t worry, Charlie,’ they said. ‘He won’t be disturbed. We’ll leave him.’
Ronnie stayed in that little room for four hours.
That afternoon the welfare officer at Parkhurst rang me to say he’d broken the news to Reggie.
