Gay Kray Brothers

The saga of the Kray siblings, akin to most British narratives, is deeply rooted in class, commencing amidst the brutal austerity of 1930s England, still struggling from the impacts of the Great Depression. They drew breath in 1933, in the heart of London's East End, a region historically marked by impoverishment and still enduring shocking deprivation.

The Kray family were an integral component of the bustling, working-class, multi-ethnic sphere. Their mother, whom they revered throughout their lives, was descended from Irish and Jewish immigrants. The twins were birthed on Stean Street, Haggerston; however, by the time they were five or six, she had relocated the family to be closer to her family in Bethnal Green. Their fresh residence, located at 178 Vallance Road, was merely a half-hour stroll from their former residence in Hoxton. That area would become the boys' domain, their spiritual territory, for the remainder of their years.dc

Charles, their father, was frequently absent during much of their childhood. Employed in the 'rag trade', the second-hand apparel industry, he frequently travelled for protracted periods acquiring goods. Then, upon the commencement of the Second World War in 1939, he deserted. Their mother, Violet, assumed the majority of the responsibility of raising the children and managing the household. By all accounts, she saw her sons as angels, despite Reggie later acknowledging, ‘we were wicked little bastards really'.

It is unsurprising, (not a shock), that the boys gravitated towards crime, given both the region's penury and the precedent they observed. Life in London, particularly in the working-class and immigrant neighborhoods, was characterized by the prevalence of organized crime syndicates. These gangs functioned across multiple tiers of sophistication, engaging in everything from pickpocketing rackets to gambling, extortion, prostitution, and blackmail. Fergus Linnane, within his historical chronicle, London's Underworld, depicts gangs organized around both ethnic affiliations and local loyalties, sprawling across the majority of the capital during the 1930s and '40s. There were East End Jewish street gangs, like ‘The Yiddishers', the Aldgate Mob, the Bessarabian Tigers, who often engaged in street altercations with fascist groups. In Clerkenwell, there was a gang headed by the Italian Charles Sabini, who ran lucrative protection schemes at racecourses, a territory they contended for against the McDonald brothers, who managed the Elephant and Castle Gang, and who allied with the Brummagems, a Birmingham gang. There were the Titanics in Hoxton, the Hoxton Mob, the Kings Cross Gang, the Odessians, the West End Boys, and the Whitechapel Mob: an inexhaustible array of gangland factions that emerged, some surviving longer than others, before being merged, suppressed by law enforcement, or dismantled by rivals.

Within working-class London during the interwar era, there also existed a unique, in its own right, homosexual culture that differed from that of the guardsmen and middle-class individuals frequenting Hyde Park and St James's Park, or the various more bourgeois gay hubs of Piccadilly, the Haymarket, and Soho. Pubs that were concentrated around the docks and industrial zones often fostered a specific homosexual or queer clientele, including establishments like the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping and Charlie Brown's on West India Dock Road, both a short walk from the Kray's manor. According to the prominent historian of queer life in interwar London, Matt Houlbrook, ‘Dock laborers, sailors from across the globe, and families intermingled openly with flamboyant local queans and slumming gentlemen in a protean milieu where queer men and casual homosexual encounters were an accepted part of everyday life.'

Contemplating the twin allurements of gang conflict and unlawful, illicit sex that existed directly on Ronnie Kray's doorstep, it is perhaps shocking (unexpected), that the Kray twins' initial major conflict with the law did not result from either, but rather during their conscription into the British army. From the conclusion of the war until 1960, nearly all British males between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one were obligated to serve in the armed forces for eighteen months, and then remain as reservists for several years afterward. In 1952, the twins were summoned. Their education had, as per their biographer John Pearson, already been disrupted by the closure of educational institutions during the Blitz, then by their evacuation with their mum, to Hadleigh in Suffolk. At fifteen, they had entirely left school, attempting to find odd jobs, collaborating with their grandfather on his rags stall, vending firewood, or working in the market. But their true passion was boxing, which they had taken up in a local club when they were just twelve. Between their fists, pellet guns, and street fighting, they had had numerous run-ins with the police, including acquiring probation for assault, but never incurring any more serious punishments. When they showed up at the Tower of London, conscription documents in hand, in 1952, they were on the verge of experiencing a degree of discipline they had hitherto never encountered. They didn't particularly like it, and were leaving the barracks when a corporal demanded to know where they were headed. 'We're off home to see our mum,' they responded, and Ron knocked him out with a punch. After visiting Mum and subsequently going out on the town, they were apprehended the very next day back at Vallance Road, where they faced a court-martial and were imprisoned for a week. As soon as they were discharged from their cells, they went on the run. For the next two years, they engaged in a cat-and-mouse pursuit with the army and police, discovering backing while on the run from friends and supporters within a community that possessed minimal regard for the authorities.

After assaulting a police officer who came to arrest them, they served a brief stint in Wormwood Scrubs prison, before being transported back to barracks and escaping once more. Their time in the army was distinguished by an increasing degree of violence and aggression. In Ron's words, it was at this juncture when he 'started to go a bit mad'. He perceived himself as having psychic abilities, enabling him to read individuals' auras to ascertain their motivations. This, combined with his presumed list of enemies, must have been unsettling for others. When he began using the moniker 'The Colonel', everyone deferred to him.

Upon their release, their criminal enterprise truly commenced. The Regal, a billiards hall located on Eric Street in Mile End, had been grappling with a spate of nightly violence and vandalism, and the owner was at his wit's end. The brothers made themselves available to take over for a fiver weekly. The day they assumed control, the violence ceased. They revamped its fortunes, and the venue became popular with youths in the area. They started to set a pattern: Reggie provided the intellect, revitalizing the business, while Ronnie delivered the muscle, in this instance, fending off the Maltese gangs attempting to extort the boys for protection money. Reggie considered going straight, but for Ron, that was never an option.

Their gang expanded, and with it, both their structure and weaponry grew more serious. Ron became preoccupied with weapons and firearms. Concealed beneath the floorboards of 178 Vallance Road was a veritable cache of weaponry, including a Mauser rifle and a Luger automatic, in addition to revolvers, knives, and even cavalry swords. Their protection racket was arranged into two forms of payments. For smaller premises - pubs, shops, and the like - there was the ‘Nipping List', wherein the gang was assured that if they ever needed to drop in for some goods, such as a crate or two of champagne, it would be given free of charge. Subsequently, there was the 'Pension List', where larger establishments, such as casinos or restaurants, supplied a regular fee for their premises to be 'protected' by the gang. If they declined to pay the fee, of course, they soon realized that it was a necessity, as their venues were mysteriously visited by thugs, vandals, or arsonists.

Rapidly, the gang acquired a serious reputation, demanding respect from all and sundry while 'caring for their own' who were 'away' in prison. Despite the fact that they still resided with their mum, they were acquiring smart new suits and receiving home visits from the barber, a habit they picked up from watching US gangster movies. Ronnie was also garnering a reputation as a 'hard man'. While there were firearms in the London underworld, they were generally for intimidation rather than actual use, but Ronnie was recognized as someone prepared to utilize them, after shooting a boxer who threatened one of his protected businesses. The ensuing year, Ronnie was embroiled in a gang fracas with a group of adversaries, the 'Watney Streeters', and one of them broke what was known as the 'East End code of silence' and informed on him. It was 1956 and he was back inside, sentenced to three years in Wandsworth Prison.

Following two years in Wandsworth, where he persisted with his criminal activities, Ron was transferred to a lower-security prison on the Isle of Wight. Despite its relative comfort, he detested it, and again began to endure increasingly grave mental health struggles, including paranoid delusions, which he attributed to being triggered by the passing of his mother's sister, Aunt Rose. He had been notably close to her, admiring her anti-authoritarian temperament, and her death from leukemia devastated him. He was transferred to Long Grove, a psychiatric institution, and conspired with his brothers to escape from the institution, apprehensive that he might be permanently incarcerated. After a few months, he surrendered himself, and, astonishingly, was permitted to simply serve the short remainder of his sentence before being released in 1959.

It was a propitious moment for the brothers, to be released just as London was entering a decade wherein society and culture would be radically transformed. They were twenty-seven, attractive and handsome, feared and admired, affluent enough to wear sharp suits and drive luxurious cars, and they were aiming to establish a name for themselves.

While Ronnie was incarcerated, Reggie had begun to broaden the business empire with secondhand car dealerships, gambling dens, and a new club, the 'Double R', in homage to his imprisoned brother. With Ronnie out, they could achieve more, and in 1962, they established the 'Kentucky' club in Mile End.

No sooner had Ronnie left prison than Reggie was in, for a botched attempt at extortion on behalf of a friend. While he was incarcerated in 1960, Ronnie's most destructive tendencies for pointless violence, self-aggrandizement, extravagance, and alienating associates all went unchecked. He became cognizant of the affluence of a notorious slum landlord, Peter Rachman, who had amassed a property empire in Notting Hill by overcharging West Indian immigrants for substandard housing, enforced by rent collectors and thugs. He desired a share of the profits and approached Rachman at a club, driving him back to Vallance Road for a cup of tea and some 'negotiations'. The negotiations were classic Ronnie: give me £5,000 instantly (equivalent to more than £100,000 nowadays), or else. Rachman gave him £250 in cash, and drafted him a check for an additional £1,000, but the check bounced. Apprehensive for his safety, and cognizant that he didn't want to embark on a continuing financial obligation with Ronnie for 'protection', he negotiated a deal, organizing for the twins to acquire a gambling club in swanky Knightsbridge in West London. They eagerly accepted the opportunity, and soon were the proprietors of 'Esmeralda's Barn', their very own West London casino. Although Ronnie proceeded to ruin the establishment, he reveled in the newfound status it bestowed upon him: he was no longer merely an exotic spectacle for visitors to the East End, but a participant in West End culture. He started associating with increasingly significant individuals. Ron particularly favored the influential politicians, and the access to dinners at the House of Lords, private members clubs, and intimacy with young men that accompanied them.

His friendships among the affluent and celebrated were starting to yield results. In 1963, he was introduced by his friend, the Labour MP Tom Driberg (who, forever the adventurer, had shown up at the Kentucky for a drink), to the powerful bisexual Conservative peer Lord Boothby. Boothby had been dating a young cat burglar from Shoreditch named Leslie Holt, whom he employed as his driver. Holt had a flat in an art deco apartment block in Stoke Newington called Cedra Court; his neighbors were the Kray twins, who each owned a place there.

Boothby wined and dined Ronnie in his West London clubs, such as White's. In return, Ronnie orchestrated 'sex shows' and orgies with young men in East London. Politicians were beneficial: they were among the limited few in society who could put pressure on the police and prosecutors who were increasingly delving into the Kray's empire. Driberg, and most probably Boothby as well, were invited to gatherings at Cedra Court where, in the words of Francis Wheen, 'rough but compliant East End lads were served like so many canapés'.

In July of 1964, the friendship encountered a crisis. The Sunday Mirror disseminated an exclusive, claiming that Scotland Yard had initiated an investigation into the relationship between an unnamed peer and an underworld kingpin. Under the heading 'Peer and a Gangster: Yard Inquiry', it purported to possess photographic evidence of a lord seated with a mobster who was managing London's most extensive protection racket. When a German periodical published Boothby and Kray's names, Boothby called the Sunday Mirror's bluff, revealing himself in a letter to the Times as the subject around whom so many rumors had been circulating. Moreover, he refuted all allegations, asserting he had only met Kray three times on commercial matters.

With his high-powered legal team supporting him, the Mirror yielded to Boothby, and settled with a hefty fee and an unconditional apology. The truth was that, although he and Kray were not lovers (they shared preferences in younger men instead), the accusations were largely accurate. Both Boothby and Driberg had intervened on behalf of the Krays behind the scenes in the past, and furthermore, there was a police probe into the twins. The Sunday Mirror's reporter had derived his lead from his informants in Scotland Yard's criminal investigation department, C11, that Cedra Court was under surveillance and an investigation into the Krays' protection racketeering, fraud, and blackmail was underway.

Nevertheless, Driberg had persuaded the Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, that Boothby had been defamed, and merited his support. In reality, the calculation was political: it had scarcely been a year since the Profumo Affair, another sexual scandal, had toppled the Conservative government and propelled him to power. Yet their majority was precarious, and another scandal, this time involving Driberg, would have been as damaging to him as to the Tories. Driberg was such an incorrigible and prolific cocksucker that any cub reporter would have been able to uncover a multitude of men he had serviced. It was considered better for everyone if the press, and the police, retreated. As the Met Commissioner had lied and publicly denied there was any investigation into the twins, evidence gathered up to that point had to be discarded.

It was only ever going to be a temporary reprieve, however. Ronnie was becoming increasingly out of control. The twins were becoming increasingly concerned with the activities of their rivals, the Richardson Gang, who controlled territory in South London. At Christmas 1965, Ronnie heard that one of its members, George Cornell, a nasty piece of work who worked as a torturer for the gang, had called him a ‘fat poof'. Trouble was brewing, and in February of 1966 a gang war erupted. There was a series of tit-for-tat attacks, and Ronnie was in his element, coordinating his troops as ‘The Colonel' he had always dreamed of being. In March, a Kray ally, although not a member of the gang, was killed in a mass shootout at a club in Catford. Major figures in the Richardson Gang had been shot, and the police had swooped down on it. It looked like victory for the twins was on hand as their main rivals went to ground.

The following day, however, Ronnie heard that Cornell was drinking in the Blind Beggar pub, on their turf. Ronnie holstered his Mauser pistol and got his driver to take him to the public house opposite Whitechapel Hospital. Entering the bar, Cornell was said to have greeted him by saying, ‘Well look who's here.' Ronnie put a bullet straight through his head, and left.

Naturally, nobody saw anything, but after his brother Reggie proceeded to kill Jack ‘the Hat' McVitie the following year, the pressure intensified. Police detective Leonard ‘Nipper' Read had been thwarted in his investigations once following the Boothby incident, but he then pursued the twins with renewed determination, and ultimately managed to track down the barmaid of the Blind Beggar. She was the chink in the East End code of silence. Given a fresh identity, she testified against Ronnie, and alongside his brother, he was sentenced to a minimum of thirty years in prison in 1969.

Ronnie was eventually, following a decade in prison, relocated to the high-security psychiatric hospital at Broadmoor after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He would reside there for the remainder of his life. He never disavowed his homosexuality, albeit sometimes qualified himself as bisexual. For Ronnie, his homosexuality was an intrinsic facet of his identity, something he was born with. As long as he retained his masculine virtues, he was comfortable with being perceived as a homosexual. What he despised was being viewed as weak. 'I'm not a poof, I'm homosexual,' he would proclaim, and loved to identify with symbols of British imperialism, such as Lawrence of Arabia, in whom he observed a model of masculinity that encompassed violence and bravado, as well as desire. Referring to the imperialist hero Gordon of Khartoum, he stated, ‘Gordon was like me, homosexual, and he met his death like a man. When it's time for me to go, I hope I do the same.' He passed away in 1995, his ‘reputation' seemingly unchanged. Alongside Reggie, he persists as something of a folk hero for many, and an unapologetic icon of masculinity for numerous young males.

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History is out now on Verso Books.

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