Inside the Firm - The Untold Story of The Krays' Reign of Terror (8 page)

I hadn’t realised there was any bad feeling there. Apparently Eric had been running around sticking their name up – using it in front of a lot of people in the West End for his own advancement. The twins weren’t too pleased about it, and were even less impressed with Eric after a dramatic turn of events in another West End nightspot.

Maurice King, in addition to his partnership with Eric and Kenny in the Brown Derby, owned a club called the Starlight in Oxford Street; he was also legitimately involved in the early careers of many of the sixties’ pop singers and groups, including P. J. Proby, the Walker Brothers, Shirley Bassey, the Rocking Berries and Jackie Trent. Jackie, who went on to make a fortune with her husband Tony Hatch as his songwriting partner (composing the
Neighbours
TV theme tune, among other credits), started her rise to fame as a barmaid in the Starlight. Her first husband, Drew Harvey, was very friendly with Maurice.

At this time the Brown Derby was like a Kray club, but the Richardsons had started getting into the Starlight. Everyone was aware that trouble was brewing, particularly between the Krays and the Richardsons, over the balance of power in the West End, especially with regard to protection in the clubs and businesses. The area was divided up among three or four firms, with the twins taking the lion’s share, but the Richardsons were expanding fast and people were treading on each other’s toes.

One particular night, Erie was in the Starlight with Davy Clare, a man named Boot and Maurice King, who was behind the bar. Frankie Fraser, a notorious villain from south London, turned up for a drink with some of the Richardson firm, and an argument broke out between the two groups.

It all stemmed from an old Dartmoor sore: Eric had apparently taken the side of a Scottish firm against the Londoners in the prison, which caused a lot of bad feeling and was surprising, since Eric was a south Londoner himself. The argument in the Starlight suddenly went off, and Eric wound up getting the treatment. He was dragged out of the club and badly done with pitchforks and shovels, after which he was thrown out of a car outside a hospital in north London. The police called it a gangland warning.

No one was quite sure whether the Richardsons were behind it or not. Assumptions cause trouble, but feelings were running high and Chris and I were ready to make one with him – to take his side – against Frank and the Richardsons. Eric, for some reason, didn’t want to know.

At this time we were very active, the nucleus of our little lot being Davy Clare, another villain called Peter Metcalfe, Chris and myself. Peter, Chris and I went to visit Eric in hospital. He was all patched up on his hands, his legs and his feet, and his head had been slashed. He’d been cut up quite a bit, in fact. We told him we wanted to do something about it, but he seemed very reluctant.

When he came out of hospital, the twins called him round to their house in Vallance Road, Bethnal Green, and asked him what he thought should be done. Again he said, ‘Nothing.’ I think Reggie and Ronnie were putting pressure on him because they were looking for a row with the other firm – ‘They’ve had a go at one of ours.’ Eric’s attitude left a bad taste, and the twins lost a lot of respect for him.

Chris and I had already seen at first hand what certain members of the Richardsons were capable of doing, notably George Cornell, who was later shot dead by Ronnie Kray in the Blind Beggar pub. Earlier, during this period with Eric, we’d heard of a long firm which was being operated in a block of offices in Great Portland
Street. A long firm is an outwardly respectable company which will build up good contacts with its suppliers and then suddenly vanish with the stock and the takings, leaving only unpaid bills. We were introduced to the two fellas who were running this long firm, Manchester boys called Bill and Derek. The Richardsons were running an operation on the floor below: George Cornell was working out of there with a man called Don Giles.

They had approached Bill and Derek about hiring some cars out through their long firm. The two Manchester lads phoned a contract hire firm and arranged to have four cars delivered to the offices, while the invoice would be sent on. The cars were duly sent round but two were illegally parked, and the council impounded them without anyone knowing it. When Cornell and Giles went out and found the two cars missing, they thought Bill and Derek had had them over (conned them).

We went round to the offices, Chris, Eric Mason and I, only to discover that Cornell and Giles had got these two tied up. Cornell had a golf club and about twenty balls, and he was lobbing golf balls into one boy’s mouth while Giles held his head. The lad had lost nearly all of his teeth. The other fella was on the floor with bits of paper stapled to his body. It was a nasty little business.

As we went in, Chris said, ‘What the fucking hell’s going on here? It’s a liberty.’ He then decided, ‘We’ll make a few phone calls here.’

We rang to find out if the cars had been put in the police pound, and the police said, ‘Try the council compound.’ The council confirmed they had the cars and for a fee would release them. Meanwhile, Bill and Derek were trussed up like chickens, black and blue, which made Cornell and Giles look a bit stupid. He was a stocky character, Cornell, and an arrogant man. His main pal was a bloke called Roy ‘Little Legs’ Hall. I met Roy in Hull prison in later years. While I was away with him and the rest of the Richardsons none of the outside troubles between us were mentioned, and no
old wounds were brought up. Charlie Richardson, in fact, did most of his sentence with Chris and me.

But that was well into the future. For the present, my brother and I were looking at a new career as mobile criminals, the first of our kind in the country. And the key to it all was Eric Mason, who moved away to Blackpool after his fall-out with the twins.

I
t was late summer 1964, and with my prison sentence well behind me I travelled to Liverpool with Chris and his wife for her sister’s wedding. I wasn’t really all that keen on going to the wedding, but I was hoping that we could combine it with a trip to see Eric Mason, who was living in that part of the world. He’d told Chris that he had it all his own way up there, and that there was a lot of opportunity. As it happened, we did pay a visit to Eric, but it was more than a social call: it lasted for six months, and it came about as a direct result of Chris bashing up all the in-laws at the wedding and turning the celebrations into a shambles.

All of the bride’s family were football-mad, and fanatical Liverpool supporters. Chris was a Spurs man. Liverpool were playing at home on the afternoon of the wedding, and her relations all left the reception, which was held in a drinking club, and went to the football.

The reception was still going on when they came back, and they were all ready for a drink-up. Chris had a row with her father and her brothers over Spurs and Liverpool, and next thing all of them were going up in the air. We went back to the caravan site where the
immediate family were to stay. Chris, his wife Carol, her brother and I were all expected to stay in this one caravan which was the size of a cloakroom. Chris said, ‘I’m not staying in that.’ And we went into Liverpool to try and find a hotel – but with no luck. It was then about eight o’clock at night.

We came back to the site and Chris towed the caravan into a take. The police were called, and we disappeared. We rang up Eric Mason, who said, ‘Come over right away.’

Eric was living in Lytham St Annes, just outside Blackpool, in a road where singing and variety stars used to rent houses while they were doing the summer season in the seaside theatres. He was staying with the Clarke Brothers, who were tap dancers appearing at the Queen’s Theatre, Blackpool. We arrived at the house to find that our neighbours were Dave Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Bachelors and Stan Stanwick, who went on to appear in
Coronation Street
.

Peter Metcalfe flew up from London to join us. A bloke who had to do things in style, he was always immaculately dressed. At about five feet ten he was a tubby fella, clean-shaven with neatly trimmed mousy hair and Italian-type features. Peter was into karate.

The other member of our team, Davy Clare, was in Manchester on the run from the twins. There was a rumour going around at the time that he had been asked to take some action in London against George Cornell, who was becoming increasingly troublesome, but hadn’t done so. It was also said that before he went into hiding Davy Clare went to see his bank manager, handed him a letter and said: ‘If anything happens to me, you’re to give this to Scotland Yard.’ Chris and I later found Davy in Manchester accidentally, when we bumped into his girl in a casino one night. We went round to where he was living. He must have seen us coming because he had his head in a gas oven and he was saying, ‘I know it’s all over, you’ve come to get me.’

Chris said, ‘Don’t be stupid. Get up. If I was you, I’d go and see the twins and straighten it up with them.’

But at the time we arrived in Blackpool we had no idea where Davy Clare had gone, and we were anticipating nothing more than a couple of nights out with Eric Mason. He was a stocky chap, Eric, with fair hair cut in a similar style to Reggie Kray’s. He was known as a hard man, he had a great knowledge of boxing, and he knew everyone who was worth knowing in our circles, but what he wanted more than anything in his life was stardom.

He introduced Peter, Chris and me to the Clarke Brothers and invited us to see their show the next night. We went on from there to a nightclub called the Embassy, where we were given the best table. Sitting with us were the Clarke Brothers, the Bachelors, a singer called Twinkle and Bill Heaney, the owner of the club. They gave us the full treatment, and even put the spotlight on us. It hadn’t taken long to get around that we were East End gangsters up from London courtesy of the Krays, which was totally untrue. But Eric was trading on the twins’ name, just as he had in London, and was having a good life, thanks to them.

I saw an opportunity, so a couple of nights later I approached this Bill Heaney and asked him to lend me a couple of grand. I said, ‘We need it until our expenses come up.’ It’s a way of asking for protection money without using the threat.

We had no trouble. He said, ‘You want it now?’ He put two grand in cash in a bag and slipped it on to my lap.

Not long afterwards, he called me into the foyer and introduced me to a very pretty woman he was obviously having an affair with. He pulled out a .22 pistol and asked, ‘What do you think of that, Tony?’

I said, ‘What are you trying to do – impress me, Bill?’ I took it off him, put it in my pocket and told Chris. It was Heaney’s little test. He then realised we were into it 100 per cent.

It reached the stage when we were going there every night, and every night we were at his throat for more money – a grand here, £1,500 there. Chris, Eric, Peter and I used to cut it up between us. Dominic Pye, the doorman, all dressed up in his gold braid uniform and top hat, used to salute us when we walked in. We had to straighten a few things out, though, like the time the head waiter, Jimmy, handed me a bill. I said, ‘Don’t embarrass us,’ and he never troubled us with the bill again.

On a later occasion, Jimmy made a proposition. He said: ‘If you look after me, I’ll tell you what’s going on with the law if they start to make inquiries, or if I hear of anything like that coming up.’

It looked to us as though we were on to a good thing in Blackpool. We could get anything we wanted and were having the time of our lives – we were getting five-star treatment everywhere we went. We were also into one or two other clubs, a bank manager and other leading citizens from the area. The fact that we were
so-called
underworld characters attracted a lot of business people – straight people who loved the image of it around them. They wanted to say they knew us. Bank managers, company executives, show business personalities, sportsmen – they all loved that mystique, that danger, and the strange prestige they thought it gave them to be seen associating with us.

The bank manager, when we met him, was rotten drunk. He said, ‘Look, if you’re thinking of investing money up here, come and see me.’ If I wanted a loan, who better than the bank manager? We got about four grand out of him, and he wasn’t going to get it back. For his part, he could come out and be entertained and sit at our table. No doubt he was a hen-pecked husband.

But although we were spreading our wings in Blackpool, working our way into various different businesses, we still used the Embassy as our base. Heaney was making it worth our while. One day I had to go down to London immediately. At a suggestion from Chris, Bill
Heaney offered to lend me his black E-Type Jag. I told him, ‘I might as well have the log book too.’ I said it jokingly, but at the same time I didn’t mean it as a joke. He went to the safe and gave me the log book. Obviously, by doing that he was giving me his car.

Eric Mason was continuing to drop the twins’ name, more than we knew at the time. He was always careful to hide it away around us, but we caught him out when someone said to me one day in the club, ‘He’s the twins’ right-hand man,’ pointing at Eric. ‘What are you talking about?’ I said. It turned out that this was what Mason had been telling people.

He loved to be the centre of attention. In London, he’d had a flat with a woman dancer in Jermyn Street. The way he felt about her was neither here nor there: it was a relationship of convenience. He just liked the image of having a young girl around him. He only ever used to wear one suit, the serge one Reggie had given him when he came out of the nick. One day my brother found him putting black polish on the patches where it had gone shiny. And it was a blue suit! Then there was the time we went out to spend a couple of grand Bill Heaney had given us at a nice men’s store. Chris and I were looking at the £75 shirts, and Eric was at the sale counter where they were getting rid of three for £l. Yet, despite all this, he always looked presentable.

Chris and I went to another club one evening at the invitation of a man called Mitzi Walsh who had an involvement in it. He was from a family of brothers who were very big in Blackpool at the time and who made us welcome there. We arrived there to find Eric holding court. He had all the dancers from the Blackpool Tower sitting round him, and he was ordering champagne as if it was going out of fashion. He had a £20,000 cheque with him, made out to himself, and he was waving it about, getting all the credit in the world. He had the bank manager with him too – anyone who was anyone in Blackpool…. But he knew and I knew he hadn’t got a tenner on him.

He threw the cheque on the table: ‘Where can I cash £20,000 at twelve o’clock at night?’

Mitzi asked me, ‘Can he meet the bill?’

I didn’t know what to say. I looked at him as much as to say, ‘Don’t ask me.’

Chris, Peter and I enjoyed all the hospitality in the world at this club, like every other, but people were starting to become suspicious of Eric over his so-called connections with the twins. Yet, because there was an element of doubt, Mitzi couldn’t go against Eric. He had to write the money off, and it did cause a bit of aggro.

Meanwhile, Eric was becoming more and more ridiculous in his bid to grab the limelight. Take the night we were invited to go and watch Gerry and the Pacemakers at the Queen’s Theatre. We got VIP seats right at the front. Eric made sure that he had the spotlight put on him, and he was introduced as ‘Eric Mason, that well-known club-owner from London.’ On another occasion, we went to a Tom Jones concert. When the singer reached the request spot, Eric shouted out, ‘Tom, what about my number?’ as if he knew him. He’d never even met him.

He then went over to Gordon Mills, Tom Jones’ manager, and said: ‘What’s up with Tom tonight? He didn’t seem to recognise me.’

Mills looked at him vacantly and said, ‘What are you talking about?’

There was yet more embarrassment, thanks to Eric, when he, Chris and I accepted an invitation to the Grand Order of Water Rats’ charity ball at Pontin’s Holiday Camp, just off the Golden Mile. We each had a ticket, but Eric brought along a girlfriend who hadn’t. Most people wouldn’t get through the doors without a ticket, but Chris decided just to walk straight in. We plonked ourselves down at the finest table in the room.

A little geezer came over and said, ‘Excuse me, but you’re sitting at our table.’

Eric retorted, ‘If you don’t fuck off, you won’t be fit to sit at a table.’

Without further ado, the bouncers came running over. They tried to be polite about it – ‘Look, boys, the management are prepared to make up another table for you.’

But Eric was insistent. He took the place cards which were sitting in front of us, crossed out the names, including Eric Morecambe and Sophie Tucker, and put ours on them. Chris and I had to force him to sit down and then move to our own table with us when it was ready.

We decided it was time to keep out of Eric’s way – it wasn’t good to have him around us. He was a likeable character, but he caused himself a lot of problems. He had a million pounds, but he didn’t have a penny; he was a poor millionaire. He liked the style, but he couldn’t back it up with what he had. Eric tried to be friendly with everyone, which put him in a very difficult position. He was a worrier; never without something on his mind. He was continuing to crack the twins’ name around all over the place, and it was getting back to them. It was common knowledge in London by now.

I decided it was time to go to Vallance Road to have a talk with Reggie and Ronnie. I asked them, ‘How do you feel about Eric?’

They told me to tell him that they wanted him to come down to London as soon as possible.

I phoned Chris and told him the twins wanted to see Eric. Eric himself was very wary about it, so Chris agreed to come down with him. The instructions were that he was to visit them on his own. Give him his due, he did keep the appointment, and Chris and I waited for him in the Cornwallis pub at the top of Vallance Road. He came back a bit shaken. They’d had a go at him for sticking their name up.

I went round to see the twins the next night on my own. They
said, ‘Anything untoward goes on up there, let us know, or anything that we might be interested in getting into.’

I told them about the club, but they were busy with other things and weren’t really that concerned about it.

When we got back up to Blackpool, we had a talk. Eric had nothing without the twins. Whatever he had, he’d built it all because of them. And now that we’d stopped being seen around with him, he had zero form, no weight. He decided to move to Nottingham where he would later meet a woman club owner. Chris, Peter and I stayed on in Blackpool.

But we had problems ahead. One afternoon when I was passing by the Embassy, Jimmy, the head waiter, waved me in. He invited me to sit down and have a drink, and then said, ‘Look, the police have been in here asking for glasses that you, Chris and Peter have used – glasses with your fingerprints on them.’

I went back and told Chris and we had a row about it. I said, ‘I think we’d better make a move out of here. Things are getting a little bit hot.’

He said, ‘You’re paranoid.’

Then the CID chief, Superintendent Leach, started politely putting it about that it would be in our best interests to leave town. But you’ve got to bear in mind that we were having a marvellous time up there: we were able to do just what we wanted. So we decided to move into new accommodation for the time being.

We met two bouncers who invited us to the club they worked at on the Golden Mile. We got chatting, and they said we could stay in their flat, which was also on the Golden Mile, any time we wanted. But what we wanted was their flat without them in it. We arranged to go and stay there. We got Peter Metcalfe to drive the car round into the back courtyard where there was parking space. Peter was carrying a huge bundle containing three shotguns, an axe, two swords and other weapons. He called them down to give him a hand
upstairs with the stuff, knowing full well that they’d look to see what was inside the bundle. They left there and then, these bouncers, and decided never to come back. And we just took the flat over. Later, we had the cheek to go to their club, have a drink with them and ask how they were doing.