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??/??/?? - Ronnie Kray's Deathbed
Secrets Revealed
The Observer
Ronnie Kray, the violent gangster who ruled London's East
End during the late Fifties and Sixties, shocked his older
brother Charlie by admitting his homosexuality and goaded
his twin brother Reg into experimenting with gay sex,
a new biography reveals.
Laurie O'Leary, author of A Man Among Men and a childhood
friend of the Krays, says Ronnie summoned him to Broadmoor
Hospital eight weeks before he died. Kray asked him to
write the 'warts-and-all' story of his life. 'Don't make
me into a nice person,' he told O'Leary.
'Just say I was nice with nice people, but a bastard with
bastards.' The biography, containing previously unpublished
photographs and poems by the twins, describes how Ronnie
had considered bringing an Arab boy back to London after
falling in love with him while on holiday, and how he
refused to hide his sexual preferences from the law or
his fellow gangsters.
O'Leary, who grew up next door to the Kray brothers, was
a pallbearer at Reggie Kray's funeral on 11 October last
year. 'Ron discussed his homosexuality with only a very
few people, but put simply it was a part of his nature
he discovered, explored and enjoyed,' O'Leary said.
'He was at ease with it. It did not seem to conflict with
his "tough guy" image or cause him any problems
on any level.' The twins were the undisputed rulers of
London's East End, operating a protection racket that
earned them enormous wealth and brought them into contact
with some of the era's biggest political and showbusiness
names on both sides of the Atlantic, including the photographer
David Bailey, artist Francis Bacon, Tory peer Lord Boothby
and actress Barbara Windsor.
Windsor, who wrote the introduction to A Man Among Men,
had a one-night stand with Reggie before her marriage
to gangster Ronnie Knight. But the twins' grip on power
ended when they were sentenced to 30 years in 1969 for
the murders of rival gangsters George Cornell and Jack
'The Hat' McVitie.
The twins' incarceration intensified media attention and
did nothing to prevent Ronnie's homosexual activity. 'I
am certain that Ronnie had lovers inside prison,' O'Leary
said. Ronnie died of a heart attack in Broadmoor, the
hospital for the criminally insane, on 17 March 1995,
and Reggie, who was released from prison on compassionate
parole with just weeks to live, died from bladder cancer
on 1 October last year.
Ronnie Kray first admitted to O'Leary he was gay in his
mid-teens, after falling in love with a younger boy called
Willy. But when O'Leary told Willy, who ran an unofficial
school for card sharps, of Kray's attachment, he reacted
badly.
'He was terrified and said he would never dare go round
to Ron's house again unless I was there too,' O'Leary
said. 'But I refused: Ron would have assumed [Willy and
I] were having an affair. 'I could easily understand Willy's
feelings, though [Ron] could be frightening.'
The members of the twins' gang, known as the Firm, were
overwhelmingly tolerant of Kray's homosexuality. 'Even
if they objected, Ron just smiled at them and told them
they didn't know what they were missing,' O'Leary said.
Kray's mother, Violet, was comfortable with her son's
homosexuality, but his father and older brother, both
called Charlie, were horrified.
'Ron's father thought it was degrading and disgusting,
and his older brother was totally flabbergasted,' O'Leary
said. 'But Ronnie told him that he had been like it for
years and that not only could nobody change him but that
he wouldn't let them try.
He said his brother Charlie just had to accept him as
he was.' Ronnie further shocked Charlie by telling him
that Reggie was a bisexual. When Charlie confronted Reggie,
according to O'Leary, the twin confirmed the claim, adding:
'Don't you think that boys are nice, Charlie? I think
I could fancy a few myself.'
Despite this acknowledgment, Reggie habitually denied
he was a bisexual. 'I would say that Reg fought the fact
he could also be bisexual more than Ron, but I knew of
his affection for quite a few young male teenagers with
whom he kept company,' said O'Leary. 'Ron would goad Reg
when he went out with women and tried to influence Reg
with his own appetite for young men.'
Although Ronnie Kray did have a number of regular sexual
partners and strong friendships with other homosexual
men - including Lord Boothby, for whom he obtained youths
- O'Leary says he had a particular penchant for dark,
clean-cut, boys with very white teeth.
During the Sixties, Ronnie fell in love with a young Arab
boy on one of his many trips to Tangier in North Africa.
'Ronnie showed me a photo,' O'Leary said. 'He told me
that the boy loved him and showed me a letter the boy
had written. It was a real love letter that said how much
the boy wanted to come to England and live with Ronnie.'
Although Kray lost interest in the Arab boy, O'Leary says
Ronnie was often very possessive of his boyfriends. 'When
he was sentenced, he still had many boyfriends and would
do anything he could to make them happy,' he said. |
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