The Kray Twins

Ronnie and Reggie Kray were a vicious pair of gangsters who somehow cultivated an air of charm and 60s cool. They were criminals who attracted celebrities like Jackie Collins and Judy Garland to the clubs they ran; murderers who became folk heroes in London's East End. But how did two boys from poverty-stricken post-war London come to rule the capital's underworld? Who were Reggie and Ronnie to the people who knew them, and to each other? And what caused their carefully constructed criminal empire to come crashing down around them? This is a Short History Of the Kray Twins. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Kate Beal Blyth, a documentary filmmaker and co-author of The Krays: The Prison Years. Written by Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Pascal Wyse | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact Check by Sean Coleman Unlock the next two episodes of Short History Of… right now by subscribing to Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network, including Real Survival Stories and Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed, or head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions to get started. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:06Speaker 00

  It is the 19th of April, 1965. In Bethnal Green, in the east end of London, a light rain is falling, marring what might have been a bright spring day.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Staring out at the clouds, a man named Frank Shea sits in the back of a sleek, black car as it pulls up outside a church.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  He steps out onto the pavement and takes in the scene before him. The church is like something from a story: red brick walls contrasting with a gray slate roof and ornate white window frames.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  A large crowd of guests, dressed in their Sunday best, mill around outside. His eyes widen when a huge Rolls-Royce pulls up next to him and blonde bombshell actress Diana Dors emerges and makes her way into the church. He follows her inside, exchanging nods with the two burly men flanking the doors.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Making his way down the aisle, he smiles at the people he recognizes before hurrying to join his mother in a pew near the front. But there is another shock when he reaches her. Why is she wearing a black mourning dress, today of all days? Before he can say anything, the vicar of the altar steps forward. Clearing his throat, he asks everyone to stand for the entrance of the bride.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Tears of pride already filling his eyes, Frank turns to watch his baby sister Frances walk down the aisle. She is glowing in a simple, white silk dress, her hair teased into an elaborate beehive. Her bright smile only falters for a moment when she sees her mother. Not just the pointed choice of color, but the fact that the older woman is also loudly sobbing. Frank beams at his sister to make up for it, and can only hope that this obvious show of disapproval doesn't overshadow Frances's big day.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  As the music reaches its final bars, Frances goes to stand beside her bridegroom.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Reggie Kray's dark hair is slicked back, and he wears a stylish black suit and white shirt. Next to him stands his identical twin brother Ronnie. Only the flower in Reggie's buttonhole indicates which one is Frances's husband-to-be.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  The service begins with a hymn. They are only a few lines in when Frank catches movement out of the corner of his eye. The two men who had been guarding the door are walking up and down the aisle, gesturing and whispering. Frank realizes they're telling people to sing louder and look happier. He gulps and swiftly complies.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  All too soon, the sermon is over and the congregation erupts into applause, some of them glancing nervously towards the big men at the back as they cheer as loudly as they can.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Finally, the church bells begin to peal and the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Kray head down the aisle, arm in arm. Looking at his sister's radiant face as she gazes up at Reggie, Frank sends up a silent prayer that their mother is wrong about her new son-in-law. Surely, gangsters can sometimes make good husbands.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  On the surface, the wedding of Reginald Kray and Frances Chey in April 1965 looked like a classy society event. But the glamorous exterior hid the rot beneath. Because it was in fact the biggest gangland wedding that London had seen in years. In the decade leading up to that spring morning, Reggie and his twin brother Ronnie had built a vast criminal empire based on extortion, blackmail, and violent intimidation. Many of the guests toasting the happy couple were hardened criminals. This conflict between image and reality will come to define the legend of the Kray Twins. They were a vicious pair of gangsters who somehow cultivated an air of charm and 60s cool.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Criminals who attracted celebrities like Jackie Collins and Judy Garland to the clubs they ran. Murderers who became folk heroes in London's East End. But how did two boys from poverty-stricken post-war London come to rule the capital's underworld? Who were Reggie and Ronnie to the people who knew them and to each other? And what caused their carefully constructed criminal empire to come crashing down around them?

• 4:45Speaker 00

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is A Short History of the Kray Twins.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  The Kray Twins' story starts with a forbidden romance. In 1926, a seventeen-year-old named Violet Lee meets Charles Kray, seven years her senior, in a dance hall. Both are working-class London EastEnders through and through. Charles buys and sells second-hand clothing and jewellery door-to-door. Violet, of mixed Irish and Jewish descent, is the daughter of John Cannonball Lee, a well-known boxer, street performer, and market porter.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Violet's father disapproves of her new beau, but the couple are soon married in secret, with the underage Violet lying about her age at the registry office. They quickly have a son, Charlie. Then, six years later, on the 24th of October, 1933, Violet gives birth to two identical dark-haired boys. Instantly smitten, she names them Reginald and Ronald.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Kate Beale Blyth is a documentary filmmaker and the co-author of The Crays: The Prison Years.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  The stories you hear about Violet is how she would walk around with her pram, proud as punch of having these beautiful boys. And the fact that people would stop her in the street, it makes you special, doesn't it? It gives you a sort of significance.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Though their father is largely an absent figure, Violet's love will be a constant throughout their lives.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  When they are three, both boys develop measles and diphtheria. And though Reggie soon recovers, Ronnie is ill for weeks. Afterwards, he seems slower and shyer than his brother, and it's possible this spell of ill health impacts his development. From a young age, the twins are extremely close, speaking in a secret language and seem to have a telepathic understanding of one another. While they are mischievous and always fighting with other children, at home, they compete fiercely for their cherished mother's attention.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  They grow up in the Bethnal Green area of London's East End, surrounded by Violet's family, who remain tightly knit despite her earlier wayward behaviour. The twins' grandfather fills the boys' heads with stories of local boxers and villains, and their aunt spoils them with sweets. But despite the wealth of love, the realities of poverty are pressing in. They live in a tiny Victorian terrace with no inside toilet, and it is an area where 60% of the children are malnourished and 85% of the housing stock is deemed unsatisfactory. The outbreak of the Second World War, just before their sixth birthday, only worsens the situation.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Home life in the East End in the 40s and early 50s was brutal. They were being bombed by the Germans. They were having to rebuild once the war was over. There was poverty, extreme poverty, and they were fighting for survival in so many ways.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  Though the family made it through the war, many in the neighbourhood are not so lucky. By the time the Allies declare victory, 10,000 buildings have been destroyed in Bethnal Green alone. Crime rates skyrocket during the conflict and in its aftermath.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  There's a whole generation of men of that era who had to work out how to survive and how to live after such a devastating consequence of the war. So not only did they not have brilliant father figures, the twins themselves clearly didn't have a great father figure, but a lot of the men of their father's generation were either dead in the war or having to survive somehow in the East End. So their childhood was uncertain and unpredictable.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  They're also coming into regular contact with associates of their father, many of whom are part of London's criminal underworld. The young boys are instantly drawn in by these colourful characters and their exciting stories of life outside the law.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  At this time, the East End has a reputation for producing some of the country's finest boxers. From the age of 10, Reggie and Ronnie pour their energies into the sport.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  They took up boxing and that was a very good way for them to channel their aggression. And that was a very, very popular and still is a really good way of getting kids off the streets and formalizing their need to fight or their need to be angry and channeling it into a positive sporting action. And they were very good at that.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  They both leave school with a rudimentary education at the age of 14, and by 1951, they are boxing professionally.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  The twins have different fighting styles. Hard as nails, Ronnie will not stop until his opponent is down. Reggie is just as tough, but also has flair and charm in the ring. To those in the know, it is Reggie who has the makings of a real star. They both fight several matches and win them all, but they fail to restrict their violence to the boxing ring. The year they turn pro, they badly beat a young clerk and assault a police officer. Promoters want nothing more to do with them, and their boxing career is over before it has begun.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  The next year brings a fresh set of challenges.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  After the war, all people of a certain age was conscripted into service of some sort. And the Crays were conscripted into the army, and they did run away. And it resulted in them being put in the Tower of London. And there is the rumour, I'm not convinced it's a hundred percent fact, that they were the last prisoners of the Tower of London. It is the story that we all like to tell. But actually, I'm not convinced they really were. I think they were in the last set of prisoners of the Tower of London. But it does show that they spent their time in prison from an early age.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  The teenage twins spend the summer of 1952 in a continuous cycle of imprisonment, escape, and recapture.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Some moments are comical, such as when they flee to Southend and send their commanding officer a postcard from the seaside. Others are less so. During one escape attempt, they assault an officer, after which they spend a month imprisoned in Wormwood Scrubs.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  But incarceration helps them expand their network of underworld contacts, who later help build a picture of the Crays as young men. The fact that there are two of them, so uncannily alike, is said to give people the creeps. They have an intense, menacing air. And when they fight, they are seemingly immune to pain.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Eventually, in 1953, they are court-martialed and dishonorably discharged from the army. Now, aged 20, they finally head back home to the East End.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  After the ignominious end to their army careers, Reggie and Ronnie throw themselves into a life of crime. They take over a snooker hall, which they use as a base of operations. In the weeks before they make an offer on the place, the hall is mysteriously targeted in a spate of violent attacks, scaring off the manager and driving down the price.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  Knowing the value of hierarchy and reputation, they start fighting rival outfits to establish their credentials. When a Maltese gang tries to extort money from them, the Crays go at them with cutlasses. They also start running protection rackets, targeting local businesses.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  A protection racket is simply the understanding that nothing will happen to your business if you pay a certain fee. And that certain fee isn't necessarily cash. It could simply be, okay, if you give me enough bread this month, your bakery will always be looked after. No other gang is going to break into it. No one's going to try and rip you off your hours. And essentially, it's protecting businesses within your patch and ensuring nothing happens to them in return for a fee.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  Businesses that do not pay up are liable to find themselves on the receiving end of the Crays' violence, something that stands at odds with the later mythology of the Twins as lovable rogues and working-class heroes.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  There is a folklore, which is they were loved and feared by the East End community, and loved because they didn't hurt their own and they protected the women and the children. And there was a certain code of conduct. However, at the end of the day, they were brutal thugs who beat people up for money. I'm not convinced that the code of conduct that everyone so glowingly talks about of never hurting women and children is true. They didn't hurt a certain type of women, but equally, they did hurt a lot of other women. And there were prostitutes and other people who worked more closely in the scene who did come to harm, who didn't have the protection of the Crays as such. So I would suggest that there was more fear in the community than love.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  As the twins' profile grows, Ronnie begins to model himself on Chicago gangsters like Al Capone, and becomes known as "The Colonel."

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Opting for dark, double-breasted suits, diamond cufflinks, and heavy gold rings, he also employs a veritable army of teenage boys as an intelligence network.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Now in their twenties, the Crays recruit more experienced criminals into the gang that becomes known as "The Firm."

• 15:36Speaker 00

  As they expand their enterprise, violence against rivals escalates. Soon they're butting heads with the Watney Street Gang, a group of Irish dockers whose patch is slightly to the east of the Crays' center of operations.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  When a member of The Firm is attacked in the summer of 1956, the Crays seek revenge by brutally assaulting a young Watney Streeter named Terry Martin. After pulling him out of the pub where he is drinking, they slash him several times with a bayonet, severely beat him, and leave him in the gutter. It's just one act of violence among many upon which the Crays build their empire.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  The twins have so far relied on fear and intimidation to prevent victims and witnesses from going to the authorities, and assume the same will happen this time. But when the police are alerted to the attack by the hospital treating Martin, he breaks the East End code of silence and cooperates.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  In the end, Ronnie is convicted of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to three years in prison.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Reggie is left to manage The Firm while his brother is inside. He is the more business-minded of the two and soon opens a glitzy club at the East End, The Double R, which attracts a celebrity clientele, including the actor Barbara Windsor and the actor and later romance novelist Jackie Collins.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  While Reggie is rubbing shoulders with the stars, Ronnie is suffering. Inside prison, he becomes paranoid and continues to be violent.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Transferred to a secure hospital, he begins treatment for schizophrenia. And though he improves, he worries that his mental illness will allow the state to detain him indefinitely. And so Reggie comes to his brother's rescue.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  It is a balmy Sunday afternoon in June 1958. Two large cars pass through a tall gate and pull up outside Long Grove Hospital, a complex of utilitarian buildings nestled in the green embrace of the Surrey countryside.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Out of an electric blue Lincoln jumps Reggie Kray. Despite the warm weather, he is wearing a heavy beige raincoat. With him is an old friend George and a group of others now climbing out of the black Ford accompanying them. Together, they all head towards the front door.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  It is opened for them by a hospital porter, but he frowns when he sees how many of them there are and reminds them of the rule: only two visitors per patient. Shrugging, Reggie directs everyone but George to wait in the car. Then the two of them set off down the long echoing corridor towards the visitors' room.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  When they open the door, they're immediately hit by a wall of noise. As always, the room is packed with friends and relatives. It takes him a second to spot Ronnie, sitting alone at a table. He looks well, in a blue suit and jazzy maroon tie. A familiar male nurse stands against one wall overseeing proceedings. He raises a hand in greeting as Reggie heads across the room to sit with his brother.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  As Reggie and Ronnie chat, George covertly observes the nurse. Once his attention has moved on to another family, George nudges Reggie. It's go time. In a flash, Reggie has taken off his raincoat and bundled it across the table to Ronnie.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  His own outfit is now revealed: an identical blue suit and maroon tie. For a moment, they are mirror images. Then Ronnie is shrugging on the coat and buttoning it up.

• 19:23Speaker 00

  A few minutes later, the nurse announces that tea and biscuits are ready in the kitchen for visitors to collect.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  This is the signal. With a nod of confirmation from his brother, Ronnie stands up and walks out of the room with a gaggle of visiting relatives. Reggie holds his breath. One twin in a beige raincoat walked in, and one just walked out.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  How long until the nurse realizes something is amiss?

• 19:52Speaker 00

  Reggie keeps up the pretense of chatting with George as the seconds tick by. It is twenty minutes before he sees the nurse looking at them and frowning. But by now, his brother will be well away in the black Ford.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  The nurse approaches their table, asking where Reggie has got to. Reggie looks confused. "I'm Reggie," he tells him. He produces his driver's licence from his trouser pocket to prove it, while George nods to back him up. "This is definitely Reggie Kray. They drove here together."

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Reggie watches all colour drain from the nurse's face before he races for the door, throwing it open and shouting down the corridor that a patient has escaped.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  "Patient escaped! Stop him! Stop him!"

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Back in the visitors' room, Reggie throws back his head and laughs.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  After his escape from Long Grove, Ronnie turns a caravan in the countryside into a criminal hideaway. Though he occasionally pops into the snooker hall or has tea with his mum back in London, the strain of life as a fugitive takes its toll. Once the time limit on his psychiatric hold has expired and he can no longer be forced back into Long Grove indefinitely, he returns to Wandsworth to serve out his prison sentence.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  But no sooner is Ronnie a free man than Reggie is incarcerated, sentenced to eighteen months in 1960 for threatening a shopkeeper who's refused to pay protection money. For a while, the running of the firm falls to Ronnie, who works on achieving the twins' dream of opening a nightclub in London's fashionable and wealthy West End.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  The West End historically has been a place of money and pride for the gangs of London. And so, from the 20s, 30s, 40s, there was a gang called the Sabini Gang who ran it, and then a chap called Billy Hill. And Billy Hill is this kind of iconic figure of the early 20th century in gangland culture. And he ran a lot of the clubs up west. And Billy Hill, I think, would have been known to the Kray Twins. They would have heard about the club scene up west. They'd have heard about the value and the money that can be made within the nightclub industry. So from an early age, they'll have seen it as a pot of gold. So it only does naturally then progress that once they've had the snooker clubs and they do the

• 22:18Speaker 01

  protection racket, they'll start doing a nightclub and then they'll work their way up west.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  Ronnie obtains information about the takings, shareholders and ownership structure of a popular west end club, Esmeralda's Barn, which is set to be more profitable now that gambling has been legalized. He is able to intimidate the owner into selling him the controlling stake. Reggie gets out of prison and the twins are soon raking in forty thousand pounds a year each, nearly eight hundred thousand pounds in today's money. Pictures from this era show them sharply dressed in dark suits and tightly knotted ties, drinking with the celebrities and politicians who flock to the club.

• 23:01Speaker 00

  But they don't forget their family and reportedly once even take the actor Judy Garland home to meet their mother. Violet makes tea for the star and is treated to a private performance of her favourite song, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

• 23:17Speaker 00

  But after he comes out of prison, twenty seven year old Reggie finds something new to occupy him when he meets sixteen year old schoolgirl Frances Che, the sister of a friend.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  So Frances, by all accounts, and I do think this is true, was a sweet young girl who didn't quite know what she was getting herself into. And what she saw was the glamour, she saw the fact that the twins were well known in the area she grew up. They were fashionable, popular men with money. And in a time when that counted and that mattered, because they'd come out of a period of not having any money and not having any of that glamour, because it's East End bombed London. And they're in a period where people want to be seen with them and people want to be seen with people with money and glamour and celebrity.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  Reggie is a controlling boyfriend. Every afternoon, he waits to collect Frances from her shorthand course. And he showers her with gifts, as though to prove she will not need to earn an independent living if she marries him.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I find it very hard to speculate about the Reggie-Franças relationship, because everybody has such a different opinion on it. The question then lies, where does adoration and love become control? And no one really knows that unless you're in a relationship. But you hear accounts of him sending a clothes shop with a wardrobe with a rail of clothes to her house so she could choose what she wanted to wear. She was treated like a princess. But is that love or is that control? I'm not sure.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  As Reggie is This October on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  Courting the uncomfortably young Frances, Ronnie is leading a very different romantic life, involving a string of young boyfriends. At Esmeraldus, he starts to meet like-minded, upper-class men, and gains a reputation for organising orgies and finding boys for establishment figures. These include the Labour MP Tom Dryburgh and the Tory peer Lord Boothby.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  It is these connections that helped to make the Kray Twins untouchable in the early 60s.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  When the Sunday Mirror newspaper runs a largely accurate story about Ronnie and Boothby's connection, the peer kicks up such a fuss that the paper is forced to pay him an enormous settlement. The Labour leader Harold Wilson even lends his lawyer, knowing that any scandal will envelop his government too, thanks to the actions of Dryberg. The establishment protects its own, and with it, the Crays.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Though this is a period when homosexuality is illegal, men like Boothby often go unprosecuted so long as they're discreet. And while Ronnie Kray's sexuality is something of an open secret, the prevailing homophobia of the era undoubtedly shapes aspects of his life.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  It's hard to know how society's attitude informed Ronnie's behaviour, because in so many ways Ronnie lived outside of the law and lived outside of society in the way he operated in his life, in his ethics, how he operated in a legal and illegal manner. In terms of his sexuality and how society informed that, I don't think we'll ever know. But I do think what we do know is that it was a really tough time to be a homosexual man in London.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  The twins do not let romance distract them from their burgeoning criminal empire. After taking over Esmeralda's barn, they expand their protection racket into the West End. Thanks to the involvement of a man named Lesley Payne, who becomes something like a business manager to Ronnie and Reggie, they embark on a series of bigger scams, including setting up fake wholesale companies to defraud suppliers.

• 28:03Speaker 00

  The twins also make a show of giving their money away, donating to local boys' clubs, sports teams, hospitals, and old people's homes. It is all part of creating the image of themselves as community-minded gangsters.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  At the height of their power, they are now arrested on extortion charges.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  The firm immediately gets to work, hiring a private detective to dig up dirt on one key witness, intimidating others, and bribing jurors. And just like that, in 1965, the twins are acquitted.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  To celebrate, they buy the remaining shares of the club.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  The police officers who led the investigation against them are invited to the opening. The craze seem untouchable.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Now aged twenty-one, Frances finally agrees to marry Reggie. It is a lavish and glamorous affair, captured by legendary fashion photographer David Bailey.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  But not everyone is thrilled.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Folklore has it that marrying Frances caused a problem for Reggie with his brother Ron. There is the theory that Ronnie was jealous of Frances. Whether that is true, we will never ever know. And you hear so many different accounts, it's hard to actually find the truth in that. But logic would suggest that twin relationships are different and special, so therefore marriage into a twin relationship is always going to prove difficult.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  Frances and Reggie move into the flat below Ronnie's. She hates that Reggie often leaves her to go and drink and party with his brother. Reggie becomes jealous, refusing to let her take driving lessons, and there are reports that he is abusive.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  Within eight weeks, she is back at her parents' house, initiating a pattern of breakups and reconciliation. All the while, Frances's mental health deteriorates, and she is soon seeing a psychiatrist.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  But in all other respects, the twins are riding high. Going into business with the American mafia, they buy stolen Canadian and American bonds and sell them on in Europe. They start to explore the possibility of providing protection for the London casinos the mafia are investing in. Their reputation is no longer local. They are by now the internationally recognized crime lords of the capital.

• 30:27Speaker 00

  But they cannot stay on top forever.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  On the tenth of March nineteen sixty-six, Ronnie is driven to Bethnal Green's Blind Beggar pub. He is looking for a man called George Cornell, a member of the rival South London Richardson gang. The day before, the Richardson's shot a firm member, and Ronnie is after revenge. When he enters the bar, Cornell looks up.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  "Well, just look who's here," he says. Without a word, Ronnie strides over and shoots him in the head.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  When the police come to investigate, no one will talk.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  The craze operated on fear, and people were too afraid to speak and too afraid to grass up, because that was the code. That was the code of the villains of the time, and it was the code of the East End. So you didn't grass up your friend or neighbour, or your friendly local protection racket gang. So that's what they relied on after the George Canal murder.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  It is a shocking escalation of the twins' violence, and raises questions about Ronnie's mental state. There is evidence he is self-medicating heavily with alcohol alongside antipsychotic drugs.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  No one can actually say what Ron's mental health was exactly during what we know as their heyday, or the beginning of their heyday and through to the time they were caught. However, there were certain decisions, certain actions, that he took that you think, okay, well, this could be paranoid schizophrenia, or these aren't the actions of a sane man. But then you could say that with so many criminals and murderers, these aren't the actions of a sane person. So you then have to question Reggie as well, because he went along with it. So it isn't simply Ron was mad and Reggie was pulled along for the ride. That's not the case. They were equals.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Some accounts of the twins characterize Reggie as a cool-headed businessman, in comparison to Ronnie, who is seen as trigger-happy, reveling in violence. This view, though, ignores the harm Reggie himself caused. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the events of 1967. That summer, Reggie and Frances appear to reconcile, and plan to take a second honeymoon. But on the morning of the 7th of June, her brother Frank brings her a cup of tea in bed. He assumes she is still asleep. Tragically, she has taken a drug overdose.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  The official account is that she took her own life. And I am inclined to believe that account. The other accounts where, you know, did Ronnie murder her? Or did Reggie murder her? Or what actually happened? I think come more out of the craze ideology and mythology and legend than actually the truth and the reality of what it was. I think she was a lady in an unhappy marriage and didn't see a way out. And I think that is a tragedy in itself without adding on speculation about murder and those sorts of conversations.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Frances's distraught parents point the figure at Reggie, while he in turn blames them. As her widower, he plans her funeral himself and has her buried, wearing her wedding dress. Every member of the firm sends a wreath.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  In the aftermath of her death, Reggie takes a drink and becomes increasingly violent. In November, a member of the firm, Jack the Hat McVitie, is contracted to assassinate the twins' old business manager, Leslie Payne. Ronnie has become paranoid that Payne knows too much and could turn them into the police. But though Jack is paid £500 upfront, with another £500 promised after the deed is done, several weeks later, Payne remains very much alive. And so Reggie and Ronnie decide to teach McVitie a lesson.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  Get all of these shows and more early and ad free on Noiser Plus.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  It is the last Saturday in October 1967. In North London, the night air already carries the chill of winter.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  A young firm member named Chris Lambriano shivers as he and his brother steer a very drunk man by the name of Jack towards the steps down to a basement flat. Jack is laughing, weaving slightly as he tells some story, his cheeks red from the cold and the drinks they had been plying him with. When they reach the steps, Chris grabs hold of Jack's arm to stop him toppling down headfirst. The craze have tasked the Lambriano brothers with getting him into the flat. Chris doesn't want to think about what they would do if Jack fell and broke his neck before they got to him.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  Together, Chris and his brother guide Jack safely down the stairs and through the front door. They step into a house party in full swing. From the living room comes the sound of the Beatles' latest record. The air is thick with cigarette smoke. Jack tries to peel away from them, muttering about getting another drink, but Chris keeps a tight grip on his arm and steers him instead into the back bedroom.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  The door swings open to reveal Ronnie and Reggie standing in the center of the room, lit by a single lamp. Other members of the firm stand in the shadows. Jack stops, realization dawning on his face. He has failed to kill pain, and now his time is up. He tries to turn, but is shoved back inside, and at a nod from one of the men, Chris crosses the threshold too and closes the door behind them.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  What comes next seems to happen in slow motion. Reggie brings out a gun from his waistband and raises it to Jack's forehead, but when the trigger is pulled, there is just a dull click. It's jammed. Jack's eyes had fluttered closed, but now they snap open. From his position by the door, Chris watches him make a desperate lunge for the window.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  He forces his head and shoulders out through the narrow gap, but that is as far as he gets before two firm members are on him, grabbing his legs and dragging him back into the room. They haul him to his feet, and then Ronnie is behind him, trapping his arms behind his back and screaming at him to act like a man. Now Reggie steps into the pool of orange light cast by the lamp, and Chris is struck by a wave of nausea.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  Because in Reggie's hand is a wicked-looking carving knife, its blade gleaming in the low light.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  As Jack struggles even harder against his captors, Chris quietly turns and slips out of the room. Sliding down the wall until he is sitting on his heels, he slaps his hands over his ears to muffle the sounds coming from the bedroom. He may have played a part in this, but all he wants is for it to be over.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  After Jack's murder, both brothers are now killers.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  I am not an expert in how people kill other people, but to walk in and shoot somebody feels more clinical than to stab somebody to death. To stab somebody to death, you need to be up close to their face. You need to be close to their body, the blood, you see the reaction. Whereas walking into a pub and shooting somebody is a slightly more distant way of doing it. So for those who say Ronnie was the mad one, Ronnie was the one who was paranoid, schizophrenic, you need to think about the murder that Reggie committed, which is far more of a brutal, up-close, visceral murder than the one that Ronnie was convicted of.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  At first, they seem to have got away with McVitty's murder as well as Cornell's. Various firm members, including the twins' elder brother Charlie, work to intimidate witnesses and hide the body.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  For years, corruption within the police, as well as the East End code of silence, have protected them. But in October 1967, the Metropolitan Police finally launch an investigation into the Crays' operations. The effort is led by Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Reed. Little by little, his 14-person squad begin to turn former associates. They find witnesses who will be willing to speak in court once the twins are safely behind bars.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  By May 1968, they have what they need. Reed plans a coordinated dawn raid to simultaneously arrest both twins and two dozen of their men. The success of the whole operation hinges on this one morning. If any senior firm members are left on the outside, they will be able to bribe and intimidate witnesses, and the case will fall apart.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  On the 9th of May, Reed and his team burst through the front door of the flat the twins have bought for Violet. Reggie is in bed with a girl, and Ronnie is in the room next door with his latest boy. The police have them both in handcuffs before they are fully awake.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  Reed is now in a race against time to secure the cooperation of other firm members before the twins' trial. What he really needs is evidence for the two murders, to get the craze put away for the longest stretch possible, as their other crimes might only warrant a few years.

• 41:11Speaker 00

  For the moment, the twins seem unconcerned, and continue to look after their associates even from within the confines of prison.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Well, Violet is continuing to be the good, loyal mum that she is, who doesn't necessarily believe the extreme things her sons have done. Clearly, she knows they're dodgy businessmen, and that their money isn't legit all the time, because she's lived a very good lifestyle from their earnings. However, she continues to be a mum and take them food in prison, and take their associates' food in prison, and visit them and ensure they're okay.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  It's not just Violet's roast dinners that the twins hope will keep firm members loyal. Reed also has to overcome their well-founded fears of speaking out.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  There's the old phrase of dividing and conquering. So trying to divide the firm and divide the loyalties and play them off against each other was a natural operation. And to a certain extent, it worked. And they all stood next to each other. They all had cards around their neck. It was a trial where they could all see each other. As the prosecution and defence were speaking, they were standing side by side. So it must have been a very intimidating place to be if you were a firm member. And it must have been extraordinarily intimidating if you were thinking of turning against twins.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  As well as convincing several within the firm to testify about McVitie's murder, Reed persuades a barmaid of The Blind Beggar to identify Ronnie as the man who shot Cornell. It swings things for the prosecution. And on the 8th of March 1969, Reginald and Ronald Kray are both convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The trial tears the firm apart, as other key members, including the twins' brother Charlie, are sentenced as accessories to the murders.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  The Kray's reign of terror is over.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  The twins are at first placed in separate prisons, but after a campaign by their mother, they are incarcerated together at Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight.

• 43:26Speaker 00

  But the reunion does not last long. In 1979, Ronnie is certified as a paranoid schizophrenic and transferred to Broadmoor, the notorious high-security psychiatric hospital. Though the distance from his twin is hard, his standard of life otherwise improves.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  There is no doubt that Broadmoor was a nicer place to be in Parkhurst. You had more freedom and you were treated as a patient rather than as a prisoner. And that's the fundamental difference. Broadmoor is an hospital for the criminally insane. Parkhurst is a category A prison. So Reggie will have been living a very difficult prison life in a wing with other violent, violent criminals, which for him probably had its pluses as well as its minuses. Whereas Ronnie, yes, he had a cell essentially that he was in, but he has more freedom to walk into communal areas. Ronnie had velvet curtains in his room.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  He was dressed beautifully. Yes, Reggie was in a fortunate position of being a relatively top dog, but the idea for any younger, up-and-coming criminal to hurt Reggie in some way was something that everyone aimed for. He had a target on his back throughout his Parkhurst years and then subsequently into other prisons.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  Reggie and Ronnie write to one another frequently. They also begin to grow the Kray brand with the help of their brother Charlie once he is released. For a fee, they lend their name to security companies. They write books and sell the rights to their story to film producers. So successful are they at marketing themselves that some people estimate the Crays made more money in prison than during their criminal heyday on the outside.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  In 1982, the twins are briefly reunited, but it's no cause for celebration because it is for their beloved mother's funeral.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  The next time Reggie is allowed out of prison, it will be March 1995, when he attends another funeral at Chingford Mount Cemetery.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  This time, it's for his beloved twin brother.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  So when Ronnie died, Reggie was a Maidstone. And obviously, hearing the news that your twin brother has died and will never be free again must have been devastating for Reggie. My understanding is that Freddie Foreman, the Kray's enforcer, was in prison at the time with Reggie. I think he was on a different wing. However, the prison governor kindly let Freddie Foreman go and comfort Reggie and share his grief.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  Some reports suggest that the spectacular funeral with which Reggie sends Ronnie off is the largest the Capitol has seen since Winston Churchill's, three decades earlier.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  In 1997, the surviving Kray twin meets and subsequently marries a production assistant named Roberta when she visits the prison to make a film about the twins. Reggie becomes a born-again Christian. Then, in August 2000, he is finally freed, aged 66, after serving over 30 years of his sentence. His release is granted on compassionate grounds because by now he has terminal cancer.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  On the 1st of October, with Roberta by his side, Reggie Kray breathes his last in a country hotel in Norfolk.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  Ten days later, he is laid to rest beside Charlie, his parents, Frances, and of course, his twin Ronnie.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  From prison, the Kray Twins spent decades building up their own legend as good, old-fashioned East End criminals. It was a compelling story, and the world largely fell for it. They became an iconic part of the image of 60s London. As Ronnie Kray himself later wrote, "They called them the 'Swinging 60s'. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world, and me and my brother ruled London. We were untouchable."

• 47:42Speaker 00

  But the myth has served to obscure their true nature and the truth of their crimes.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  The legacy of the Kray Twins is failure. They were failed as young men by the system. They could have been sent in a far more positive direction. They could have used their talents in many different ways. And their circumstance and the world that they grew up in sent them into this life of crime. And then they made a choice to follow that path. And they made incredibly bad choices along the way and got caught. So, they chose to be criminals, they chose to be villains, and they did a really bad job of that because they got caught. And they both died, having spent most of their lives behind bars. Nothing about that is heroic.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Nothing about that has a Robin Hood-esque tendency. All of that says failure.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of Hurricane Katrina.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  It was an enormous test. It was a test equivalent to the San Francisco earthquake, to the Fukushima disaster in Japan, to the Kyoto earthquake, to the Chicago fire. And yet, importantly, the city survived it.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  And the city's ability to survive it spoke to and revealed strengths that we didn't even understand were strengths. And made for an important learning experience, and more importantly than learning, made for an emotional re-engagement with each other that is at the very essence of what about New Orleans was worth saving.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  That's next time.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of right now, without waiting and without adverts, by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Just hit the link in the episode description or head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions to unlock more episodes today. This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at

• 50:35Speaker 00

  the very top of the world. In Jane Austen's stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes' short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.