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Celebration at Vallance Road The Kray family and friends
at the front door of the family home in Vallance Road.
Ronnie and Reggie have just been acquitted of demanding
money with menaces. Central to the celebrations are
mother Violet Kray and grandfather John Lee.
Lee had been a fairground and bareknuckle fighter between
the wars. Known as The Southpaw Cannonball, he was an
East End character, noted for fairground tricks such
as licking red-hot pokers. The twins got their love
of fighting from him. As the twins had grown from teenage
thugs into violent criminals, Violet was always the
first to defend them.
She was quoted in later life as saying, "It's never
them what starts the trouble, but because they're twins
they stand out and they always get the blame."
In return, the boys lavished love and attention on the
woman they affectionately dubbed 'our Queen'.
At the height of their power in the 1960s, the worst
crime in the Krays eyes was failure to show respect
to their mother. Stories were legion about the beatings
and stabbings handed out to people deemed to have insulted
Violet.
Mixing in society
Ronnie Kray is shown drinking in a club with Lord Boothby
and Leslie Holt , a member of the Kray Firm. Reggie
and Ronnie had money and a certain amount of style,
which counted for a lot in London in the 1960s.
Having money, they were potential investors in a number
of business schemes, which brought them into contact
with people in the city and in the government. One business
deal almost turned into a scandal. Rumours abounded
in 1964 that Ronnie Kray was having a homosexual affair
with Lord Boothby.
However, the peer took the case to court, stating that
he had only met Ronnie in connection with a business
proposition. He won substantial damages from the Daily
Mirror and Sunday Mirror. Holt may have been the foundation
of the rumours.
At one stage, he tried to blackmail Boothby over the
alleged affair. However, the court case cleared the
peer's name. Curiously, Holt was soon to die in hospital,
where he had been admitted for a wart operation.
Showbiz friends
Reggie is seen with Barbara Windsor after a first night
party at one of the Krays' clubs. As club owners, the
twins got to meet a large number of famous personalities
from the world of sports and entertainment; people like
Judy Garland and Henry Cooper were entertained by the
Krays.
To them, the brothers were rich businessmen, often doing
charitable work. None of their famous acquaintances
knew anything about the Krays' darker side. Reggie and
Ronnie revelled in the extravagant social scene.
Reggie's wedding
Best man Ronnie kisses the bride, as Reggie marries
21-year-old Frances Shea in a lavish East End wedding
in the spring of 1965. The marriage was in trouble within
a couple of months. Reggie had decidedly oldfashioned
ideas about a woman's place, and Frances was expected
to stay at home.
She was not allowed to have a job. Frances began to
suffer from acute clinical depression, and in 1967 committed
suicide with a barbiturate overdose. Reggie was shattered,
and his behaviour changed for the worse.
From being the more thoughtful of the brothers, as ready
to negotiate as to fight, Reggie now became as sadistic
and violent as his brother Ronnie. |
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