Bringing Down the Krays by Bobby Teale Page A

twins had set up as a sort of smart supper club. It was a big, big party that night but the club itself didn’t turn out to be a big success. It was just another place they’d moved in on. They wanted the suburban set to come but in the end it was just the Firm. The place folded. People talk about the Kray club ‘empire’ but in fact it was more like squatting. They would just move in on someone’s business and say it was theirs, just like they did to our mum’s club. Then they would move on to the next place when they’d messed it up.
    Another night in January 1964, the year before Reg married, David went to the Palladium with the Krays to meet Frank Sinatra’s son, who was over here on a British tour. The word was that Sinatra wanted him to be seen with the Krays so that people would know not to mess with him. Nineteen-year-old Frank Sinatra Junior had been kidnapped on 8 December 1963 for two days at Lake Tahoe in Nevada. His father had paid a ransom of $240,000 to secure his release. Clearly, having a perceived connection with the Krays would be an insurance against something like that happening again.
    The twins never got to see the show though. Ronnie just shook hands with him, said: ‘How nice to meet you,’ and that was it. They went off to the pub. But the brothers were really working hard at the connections. Reggie wanted to manage popgroups. Charlie Kray even took over the Sammy Lederman show-business agency, which brought American acts to London. Charlie didn’t really have a clue, though, and eventually Sammy just became another hanger-on for the twins. Some of the Kentucky Club crowd stayed loyal – the actor Ronald Fraser, Barbara Windsor, a few others.
    The twins ached for the big time – and they never quite got what they wanted. But there really were some big stars in their orbit.
    One night David met Judy Garland, who was living in London in 1964. There were only about ten people there that night in Madge’s (the Lion in Tapp Street, Bethnal Green, also known as the Widow’s). Judy was tiny, no bigger than about five foot two according to David. He thinks she was half-pissed at the time, but she came over and perched on his lap and started to sing along with one of the records on the jukebox. I’ve no idea why she picked my little brother but it’s a night he’ll always remember.
    The way he told it, at some point in the evening Ronnie said: ‘All right, put it on,’ and lined them all up to do the dance from Zorba the Greek . He was obsessed with it. As I was about to find out myself, the Zorba routine got a bit irritating after the twentieth time.
    Then there was Ronnie’s sentimental side. That was just as hard for my brothers to take. Neither Ronnie nor Reggie could read or write properly. They used to get Teddy Smith to do all their Christmas cards for them – about five hundred a year. A lot were to other gangsters, say in Scotland, or in prison. ButRonnie also used to send cards to the families of those he’d just got rid of, or cut up. ‘Send her a card’ was a code Alfie and David learned to recognise instantly. Sometimes it was a bunch of flowers, or a bowl of fruit to someone’s sister or mother. They’d put the stamps on the cards and post them.
    David gave me an example of this when he told me about the time when Ginger Marks got done. Ginger was a car dealer supposedly shot dead by an unknown killer in Cheshire Street, Bethnal Green, late on the evening of 2 January 1965. His body was never found. Soon after he disappeared, his wife came round to see Ronnie in Vallance Road. She said that she was really worried about her husband’s disappearance and that the children were pining for their father. She asked Ronnie if he knew what had happened to him, and he said: ‘Oh, I think he’s just gone away on business somewhere, I’m not sure.’
    After telling Big Pat to ‘give her a few quid’, he looked thoughtful for a moment and then walked out into the passage.