Short History Of... - The Kray Twins

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

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

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. Staring out of the clouds, a man named Frank Shea sits in the back of a sleek black car as it pulls up outside a church. 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 grey slate roof and ornate white window. frames. A large crowd of guests, dressed in their Sunday best, mill around outside. His eyes widened when a huge Rolls-Royce pulls up next to him, and blonde bombshell actress Diana Dawes emerges

and makes her way into the church. He follows her inside, exchanging nods with the two burly men flanking the doors. 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 shop. when he reaches her. Why is she wearing a black morning 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. Tears of pride already filling his eyes, Frank turns to watch his baby sister, Francis, 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 Francis' big day. As the music reaches its final bars, Francis goes to stand beside her bridegroom. Reggie Cray'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 Francis's husband to be. 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 loud, louder and look happier. He gulps and swiftly complies. All too soon the ceremony 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. Finally, the church bells begin to peel and the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Cray 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. On the surface, the wedding of Reginald Cray and Francis Shea 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 cray twins. They were a vicious pair of gangsters who somehow cultivated an air of charm and 60s cool. 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? I'm John Hopkins, from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is a short history of the Cray Twins. The Cray Twins story starts with a forbidden romance. In 1926, a 17-year-old named Violet Lee meets Charles Cray, seven years her senior, in a dance hall. Both are working-class London EastEnders through and through. Charles buys and sells secondhand clothing and jewelry 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. Violet's father disapproves of her new. you, 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-head boys. Instantly smitten, she names them Reginald and Ronald. Kate Beal Blythe is a documentary filmmaker and the co-author of The Cray's The Prison Years. 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. Though their father is largely an absent figure, Violet's love will be a constant throughout their lives. 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 shire 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. 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 behavior. The twins' grandfather fills the boy's heads with stories of local boxes 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. At this time, the East End has a reputation for producing some of the country's finest boxes

From the age of 10, Reggie and Ronnie pour their energies into the sport. 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 formalising 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. They both leave school with a rudimentary education of the age of 14 and by 1951 they are boxing professionally.

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. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement

and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature... Wait, for this price? For this price? Moment. Old Navy's drapyedem wide leg. The next year brings a fresh set of challenges. After the war, all people could have a certain age was conscripted into service of some sort. And the craze were conscription to the army, and they did runaway. And it resulted in them being put in the Tower of London.

And there is the rumor. 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. The teenage twins spend the summer of 1952 in a continuous cycle of imprisonment, escape and recapture. Some moments are comical, such as when they flee to South End 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. But incarceration helps them expand their network of underworld contacts, who later helped build a picture of the craze 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. Eventually, in 1953, they are court-martialed and dishonorably discharged from the army. Now, age 20, they finally head back home to the East End. 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. 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 craze go at them with cutlasses. They also start running protection rackets, targeting local businesses. So a protection racket is simply the understanding

that nothing will happen to your business if you, you pay a certain fee. And that certain fee isn't necessary 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.

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

so I would suggest that there was more fear in the community than love as the twins profile grows Ronnie begins to model himself on Chicago gangsters like Al Capone and becomes known as the Colonel. 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. Now in their 20s, the craze recruit more experienced criminals into the gang that becomes known as the firm. 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 Kray's centre of operations. When a member of the firm is attacked in the summer of 1956, the Krays 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 Krays build their empire. 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. In the end, Ronnie is convicted of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to three years in prison. 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. While Reggie is rubbing shoulders with the stars, Ronnie is suffering. Inside prison he becomes paranoid and continues to be violent. 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.

It is a bar me Sunday afternoon in June 1958. Two large cars passed 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. Out of an electric blue Lincoln jumps Reggie Cray. 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. It is open 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 visitor's room. 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. 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 is taken off his raincoat and bundled it across the table to Ronnie. 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. A few minutes later, the nurse announces that tea and biscuits are ready in the kitchen for visitors to collect. 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. How long until the nurse realized? long until the nurse realizes something is amiss.

Reggie keeps up the pretense of chatting with George as the seconds tick by. It is 20 minutes before he sees the nurse looking at them and frowning, but by now his brother will be well away in the black ford. 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 license from his trouser pocket to prove it, while George nods to back him up.

This is definitely Reggie Cray. They drove here together. 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. Back in the visitor's room, Reggie throws back his head and laughs. 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 Wonsworth to serve out his prison sentence. But no sooner is Ronnie a free man than Reggie is incarcerated, sentenced to 18 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. The West End historically has been a place of money and pride for the gangs of London. And so from the 2030s 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 cray twins they will have heard about the club seen up west

they'll 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 snook clubs and they do the protection racket they'll start doing a night club and then they'll work their way up west Ronnie obtains information about the takings, shareholders and ownership structure of a popular West End club, Esmerelders 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 £40,000 a year each, nearly £800,000 in today's money. Pictures from this era show them sharply dressed, in dark suits and dark suits and. tightly knotted ties, drinking with the celebrities and politicians who flock to the club. 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 favorite song, somewhere over the rainbow. But after it comes out of prison, 27-year-old Reggie finds something new to occupy him, when he meets 16-year-old schoolgirl Francis Shea, a sister of a friend.

So Francis, 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've 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. Reggie is a controlling boyfriend.

Every afternoon he waits to collect Francis 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. I find it very hard to speculate about the Regiard. Francis' 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 the 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. As Reggie is courting the uncomfortably young Francis, Ronnie is leading a very different romantic life, involving a string of young boyfriends. At Esmeraldas, he starts to meet like-minded upper-class men and gains a reputation for organizing orgies and finding boys for establishment figures. These include the Labour MP Tom Dryberg and the Tory peer Lord Boothby. It is these connections that help to make the Cray twins untouchable in the United States.

the early 60s. 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 craze. Though this is a period when homosexuality is illegal, Men like Boothby often go unprosecuted so long as they're discreet. And while Ronnie Cray's sexuality is something of an open secret, the prevailing homophobia of the era undoubtedly shapes aspects of his life.

It's hard to know how society's attitude informed Ronnie's behavior 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.

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 Leslie 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. 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.

At the height of their power, they are now arrested on extortion charges. The firm immediately gets to work, hiring a company. 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. To celebrate, they buy the remaining shares of the club. The police officers who led the investigation against them are invited to the opening. The craze seem untouchable. Now, aged 21, Francis finally agrees to marry Reggie. It is a lavish and glamorous affair, captured by legendary fashion photographer David Bailey.

But not everyone is thrilled. Folklore has it that marrying Francis caused a problem for Reggie with his brother Ron. There is the theory that Ronnie was jealous of Francis. 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.

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

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. But they cannot stay on top forever.

On the 10th of March, 1966, 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. Well, just look who's here, he says. Without a word, Ronnie strides over and shoots him in the head. When the police come to investigate, no one will talk. The craze operated on fear, and people were too afraid to speak and too afraid to grasp them up because that was the code.

That was the code of the villains of the time and it was the code at the East End. So you didn't grasp up your friend or neighbor or your friendly local protection racket gang. So that's what they relied on after the George Canal murder. 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. 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, 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. Some accounts of the twins characterize Reggie as a cool-headed businessman. In comparison to Ronnie, who was seen, is 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 Francis 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. The official account is that she has she took her in 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. Francis'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. In the aftermath of her death, Reggie takes a drink and becomes increasingly violent. In November, a member of the firm, Jack, the Hat, McVitty, is contracted to assassinate the twins' old

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 pounds up front, with another 500 pounds promised after the deed is done, several weeks later, Payne remains very much alive. And so Reggie and Ronnie decide to teach McVitty a lesson. It is the last Saturday in October, 1967. In North London, the The night air already carries the chill of winter. 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 have 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. 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.

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.

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. 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, because in Reggie's hand is a wicked-looking carving knife. its blade gleaming in the low light. 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 Rick to be over. After Jack's murder, both brothers are now killers. 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 the Ronnie was convicted of. At first, they seem to have got away with McVittie's murder as well as Cornels. Various firm members, including the twins' elder brother Charlie, worked to intimidate witnesses and hide the body.

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 launched an investigation into the Kray's 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. 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. 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. 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. For the moment, the twins seem unconcerned and continue to look after their associates even from within the confines of prison. Violet is continuing to be the good, loyal mom that she is. who doesn't necessarily believe the extreme things her sons have done. Clearly she knows their dodgy businessman 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. It's not just violets roast dinners that the twins hope will keep thursday, members loyal, Reid also has to overcome their well-founded fears of speaking out. 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 as 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 defense 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. As well as convincing several within the firm to testify about McVittie'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 In which 1969, Reginald and Ronald Cray 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. The Cray's reign of terror is over. 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 White. 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. 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. Broadmoorers of Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Parkhurst is a catacry 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. 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-comer criminal to hurt Reggie in some way was something that everyone aimed for. He had a target on his back throughout his park years and then subsequently into other prisons.

Reggie and Ronnie write to one another frequently. They also begin to grow the core. Cray 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 Cray's made more money in prison than during their criminal heyday on the outside. In 1982, the twins are briefly reunited, but it's no cause for celebration because it is for

their beloved mother's funeral. The next time Reggie is allowed out of prison, it will be March 1995, when he attends another funeral at Chingford Mount Cemetery. This time, it's for his beloved twin brother. 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 praise enforcer,

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

In 1997, the surviving Cray twin meets and subsequently marries a production assistant named Roberts. 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.

On the 1st of October, with Roberta by his side, Reggie Kray breathes his last in a country hotel in Norfolk. Ten days later, he is laid to rest beside Charlie, his parents, Francis, and of course his twin, Ronnie. From prison, the Cray 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 Cray 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. But the myth has served to obscure their true nature and the truth of their crimes. The legacy of the cray 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. Nothing about that has a Robin Hood-esque tendency. All of that says failure. Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of Hurricane Katrina. 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. 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.

That's next time. 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 forward slash subscriptions to unlock more episodes today.