The Last Real Gangster Read online

  So, I met Wilf and he took me over to Parkhurst prison hospital on the Isle of Wight. Charlie’s leg was like a big fucking balloon, filled with fluid; when he laid his hand on it, there was an indentation. The heart wasn’t strong enough to pump the blood round to the extremities.

  During the visit Charlie said, ‘I’m sorry for what the twins did to you, and all the aggro they put you through.’

  But I just replied, ‘You’re wrong, Charlie. I did what I did for you, not for the twins. You’re my mate.’ He had tears in his eyes at this point, so we said our goodbyes.

  ‘The next time you come, bring Jamie down. I’d like to see ’im,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, I will. I’ll come down next Wednesday.’

  As I got to the door we looked and we both knew it was the last time we’d be seeing each other. I wasn’t surprised when they told me a few days later that he’d died.

  Charlie was definitely targeted by the police. I was at a cancer charity show with him at the Mermaid Theatre – there were loads of us there. While I was in the bar there was a little group of guys over by the side. I was introduced to them as ordinary straight businesspeople that Charlie knew. When I looked at one of them there was a moment of recognition. I got the vibe as I shook hands with him; he thought I’d recognised him as a copper. He might even have been involved in one of my cases or arrests because he knew me.

  I turned my back and walked away but I looked back and saw their faces: they were undercover coppers, who were setting Charlie up.

  So, I said to him, ‘Do you know the strength of these people? I don’t like the look of ’em.’

  ‘Yeah, they’re all right! They’ve been good to me,’ he said.

  But he was so easily swayed.

  I knew a guy who was a car dealer, who had the same problem: Lawrence Gibbons, who had a showroom in Brixton. These coppers came down, who had Northern Irish accents – real bullying bastards. I went down to his office and they were all around him. He got a four-stretch but they set him up with this coke; he got out on appeal. He did two years of his sentence before he won, but he should have stayed in the nick: he went out to have a straight fight with a guy at a party and the guy pulled out a fucking tool, stabbed him to death. He’d opened up a nice showroom down Southend way, with all these American cars, then he had an argument at a party and that was it.

  Charlie was a poor bastard, though. To give the man twelve years when he was seventy-two was cruel, but what better scenario than for all three Kray brothers to die in prison? If that doesn’t send a message out to the younger generation, what does?

  FRANK: When they started doing T-shirts with the Krays’ name on, I earned plenty of money out of that. I sent a lot out to Spain, where a load of English lads were – I used to go across with boxes full of them. All the memorabilia was selling, but Charlie was ripping Ronnie and Reggie off, not giving them the money.

  The twins wanted him killed. They got £300,000 for The Krays film – they should have got a million. Charlie fucked the whole deal up! He got £100,000 of that and fucked over Ronnie’s wife, the blonde.

  The film rights belonged to Roger Daltrey. Bill Curbishley, Daltrey’s manager, did a deal, but it went sour. Daltrey got his money but Charlie went in as adviser and fucked them for theirs – he claimed expenses, he gave some rights away.

  He wanted me to buy some rights to a book.

  ‘It’d be a waste of time, and, what’s more, I sold ’em!’ I said.

  Charlie was a clown – they used to say that about him: ‘Charlie is a Charlie.’ He was thick as two pieces of shit! But Freddie will see a different side to him than what I saw.

  FREDDIE: I couldn’t go up in the witness box and put Charlie down like they all did – Fraser, Lambrianou – saying he was just some mug: ‘He was nothing, he was rubbish.’ Why call criminals to speak as character witnesses?

  ‘How can they go up there and do him any good? All they can do is harm,’ I said.

  There are not many photos of Mickey Regan, apart from the ones of us in bow ties in the sixties. This (below) was taken just before he died a few years ago, with my Jamie. He was a great friend of mine. People I met at the funeral told me Mick said, ‘You were the staunchest man he ever met.’ But I did support him on many occasions.

  I’m proud of what my Jamie has achieved, ever since he attended the Italia Conti Academy. I’m so pleased he’s progressed in his acting career. He does stage work and tours up and down the country; he’s done radio plays, which have been very good; he’s done some good film work. They all talk about Layer Cake, and then he was in Elizabeth and several others. Could have done better on EastEnders. He was good on that, but he only signed up for a year’s contract, so they had to kill him off in the script!

  I’ve known Howard Marks for years; we did a bit of business together. He said he liked it when the criminal fraternity and me got involved in his deals because no one got fucked for their money. They were fucking one another left, right and centre! But, with us, everyone got paid.

  He always puffs when he does his little turns on the stage – which are quite good, if you see them. He lights up a spliff and has it on the stage, that’s part of his act. He’ll be with us for many years to come, please god!

  This was in Tangiers, in 2010. I got arrested when I went over there to see Tom Hardy, who was acting in the film Inception. The Moroccan police nicked me as I was getting off the ferry. They were jumping for joy: it was still on an Interpol notice that I was wanted for a £7 million robbery and there was a fifty-grand reward.

  ‘That was years ago!’ I protested.

  But they hardly spoke English and I couldn’t make myself understood.

  My friend was watching through his binoculars. He came down to me with a lawyer. They contacted Interpol and told them I’d already been found guilty of handling money from the Security Express robbery and served a nine-year sentence for it.

  Interpol is supposed to be the best police force in the world, but I was clean and it was out of date!

  Bruce Reynolds and I were chatting away to Eddie Bunker (left), author of a great crime novel called Dog Eat Dog, about prison life and the differences from America; the privileges you have and don’t have; how, out of about three hundred prisoners, you’d associate with only five or six on a daily basis. Ninety per cent are fucking idiots who shouldn’t be in there anyway. You’ve only got a few of your own social standing.

  The robbers had the highest standing – not housebreakers, or fucking muggers, or petty criminals. That was against our nature: we only went for the big prizes. Bunker couldn’t stand pickpockets, or conmen, or fraudsters.

  This boy, Tony Denham (left), out of south London, has boxed, but he’s an actor as well. He’s been in that comedy Benidorm, had other TV parts and was in the film St George’s Day (2012), with my Jamie. I have him marked down to be one of the firm – Mick or Big George – if a film or TV series is made of my life. I’d like to give him a turn because he came out to Spain when I put on a boxing show, Spain vs London (we won four bouts and the Spanish also won four). I had the Eltham Boxing Club housed in the Alcazaba and they didn’t want to go home. This photo was taken in the Red Pepper restaurant

  Christian Simpson (second from left) is my godson. He came over from New Zealand on the eve of his twentieth birthday just as I was being released from the Security Express sentence. He’s staunchly loyal, a really big part of my life, and he’s fought a few battles alongside me with no sign of fear at all. He’s built a great career for himself, working alongside some of the biggest names in the music industry; his protection services are highly respected. He’s since married a beautiful Aussie girl named Stacey. I have all the time in the world for her, and for her parents, my Aussie mates Neal and Bron.

  Eddie Avoth (second from right), from Wales, was British and Commonwealth light heavyweight champion. John Brunton (right) had the hotel in Norwich where they did all the security arrangements for Reggie Kray. Bill Curbishle
y put up the money for him to stay there when he was released from prison. That’s how I got to know John and he’s been a friend ever since.

  His daughter had twins of her own, but one of the girls was stillborn. They had to break his little granddaughter’s legs and reset her feet; she was also blind in one eye so they operated on it. That’s a little fighter! A determined little girl, she’s amazing. She’s running around now, just got a slight limp. It was weird: she was in a room on her own and they could hear her having a conversation. It was the twin that died: ‘She’s in the cupboard, I’m talking to her.’ Like Reggie and Ronnie Kray, they used to get the vibes: ‘I’ve got to get a message to Ronnie’; or Reggie: ‘See how he is.’ They had this mental connection. Charlie said, ‘It’s fucking uncanny with these two, they’ll both say the same thing together.’

  The same thoughts came into their heads at the same time. Cliffy Anderson (above, right) was the barman of the Double R club. I nicked him off the Kray twins to work behind the bar of the Prince of Wales, with John Doyland and the other barman. The twins got the hump over that, didn’t like it. I’ve known Cliff most of my life and he also gave evidence for my defence at the Old Bailey. He’s my oldest friend; I’ve known him since the fifties and he still rings me every day to see that I’m ok, or if I need anything. He fought in the Army Boxing Team as a light heavyweight alongside Henry Cooper.

  The others in the photo are the actor Frankie Paul Oatway and my godson Christian Simpson – we were invited as VIP guests to York Hall in the East End to watch some topquality boxing.

  Derek Rowe (below, centre, with former middleweight boxing champion Alan Minter on the right) was a photographer. When I had the Marshalsea he had the top floor as a photographic studio. He used to photograph radiograms and objects for showrooms but he’d also do modelling. I took loads of girls there for photos of them in dresses and costumes – it was a nice little thing if you wanted to sweeten up a young bird.

  I saw him years and years later; he just turned up out of the blue and I hadn’t seen him since the sixties.

  He said, ‘I never paid you any rent, Fred, did I?’

  But I only charged him a tenner a week because I had the gym underneath and the recording studio. I basically let him have it for nothing because he did me favours. He used to take ringside shots for Boxing News Illustrated and send the photos over to The Ring in America.

  He’s a nice guy.

  In Australia, my eldest brother Herbie (left – with Wally, who was a para and with the SOE in the war, George and me), who’s dead now, used to go to the Army’s Colonial Soldiers Society, where he got cheap food and beer. He lived in this club for expats; he was treated much better than he was in this country, they really looked after him out there. He was happy by then, but hadn’t always been because he’d lost his little girl when she was twelve years old – she got polio in her lungs. He kept her off school because she wasn’t looking well.

  Two nurses were lodging in his house; they got in touch to tell him to come back home and told him that she was dead. He was broken-hearted, and that’s when he took his other kids to Australia.

  They never came back.

  My Danielle (seen here with Jamie and me) has four sons of her own now – including Freddie Junior, who works for Harrods. Danielle, Gregory and Jamie all live over in different parts of Bromley and Beckenham. My Gregory runs the Freelands pub in Bromley.

  Janice King and I have been partners for twenty-six years now. We fell in love out in Spain. My and Maureen’s marriage had gone but then I met Janice and it was inevitable that it happened. I still looked after Maureen, even when I came out of the nick. My family have had everything; they’ve had the best. That’s what I did all my time for – providing for them, giving them an education, holidays and homes.

  That’s Roy Hilder, who’s like another son to me, with his wife Sue, standing next to Janice. He was a boxing trainer and manager, down at the Peacock Gym. He’s a wheeler-dealer; he’s over in Italy, Austria, all round the world and he has a good head for business.

  Roy and Sue are my two dearest friends. They met in my pub, The Prince of Wales, for the first time, and that’s where they did their courting. I’m in contact with Roy all the time. He takes time out to come and see me – more than most people who should.

  For about five years my Gregory and I had the Punchbowl pub in Farm Street, Mayfair, near the big Catholic church. (That’s Panamanian ex-boxing champion Roberto Duran in the pub overleaf, second from right, and Pandy, far right.) It’s got a lot of history: they used to have a little court at the back, where they’d pass the booze through this little opening. It goes back to the days of Tyburn.

  But now it’s changed hands. The filmmaker Guy Ritchie took it over, with a few other people from Prince Harry’s mob. They’ve sold it on to some other people now, but they’ve kept on the same staff that used to work for us. They’ve spent about a million quid on it – you wouldn’t believe it now. It’s a much, much better place than when Ritchie took it over.

  There are pictures of him and Madonna out on the pavement with the name ‘Foreman’ over the top. We were trying to keep it all fucking quiet, but he loved the notoriety! I pitched the film Bronson to the two of them because I’d spent time with Charlie Bronson up in Full Sutton, Yorkshire; I got very close to him.

  We used to have little drinks on a Friday night on the food boat. We would get the cheese and biscuits out, pork pies and vodka and tonics. I took him under my wing and it was the best time he had in prison. We used to say, ‘Come on, Charlie, your turn to sing!’ because we were having a little drink-up. It was only from six till eight because you’re banged up at eight o’clock. He’d sing ‘What a Wonderful World’ by ‘Satchmo’ (Louis Armstrong) – he’d been in the nick for the past fucking twenty years!

  But he kicked off one night – there were a couple of fellows from Wales he had a few words with. They were calling in through the window: ‘LGs’ (London gangsters) they called us. They were giving him some stick and he smashed up the furniture in his cell. In the morning, they opened up the cell door for breakfast and work but, as we all stood out on the wing, Charlie jumped out bollock-naked, covered in boot polish, with a fucking bandana round his head like Rambo, a broom handle sharpened into a spear in one hand and a leg broken off the prison table in the other!

  He has to perform to an audience because all the other prisoners are waiting for him to kick off: ‘When’s Charlie gonna start?’; ‘When’s he gonna attack a screw or a prisoner?’; ‘When’s he gonna get up on the roof and throw all the slates off?’

  It’s a real shame all of this, because Charlie has a good heart and all he really needs is a break, another chance in life. It’s been far too long, and no man should have to go through what he has. If he could just get out of that hell hole then we could have that pint together that we promised each other.

  I advised Tom Hardy on his character for Bronson, and that’s the way he played it in the film. He’s made up as a clown: he’s got a normal face and then he turns to the other side with a clown’s face. That’s exactly what I told them and the director made sense of it.

  When I saw the vans for the new Krays film, Legend, at Pellicci’s (the Bethnal Green café frequented by the twins since their youth) I went in there and there was Tom. They’d been rehearsing in there. He was dressed up like Ronnie Kray; he introduced me to Scotch Pat and all the different characters there. I never asked who would be playing me, or if I’m in it or not – so I don’t know and I don’t care.

  The Krays (1990), with the Kemp brothers, was a complete load of rubbish. Let’s hope the new Krays film is better than the first. I read the script by Brian Helgeland – I’d taken him down The Punchbowl, had a meal with him because he wanted to do a film with me. But he went back to America and, the next thing I know, he’s doing a script on the twins. I suppose he thought that was a better story; fair enough.

  But I could see a bit of myself in The Long Good Frida
y (1980) with Bob Hoskins – by virtue of the fact that I went up the river on the boats, raising money for the boxers at the Olympics. I had the pubs. There were a few deliberate fires at the betting shops because of the opposition from people opening shops on your doorstep.

  It was a common way of doing it, so long as no one got hurt.

  Then there was the cold store where I worked at the meat market, hanging up sides of beef – where they had the faces all hanging up in the film. There was the Irish connection too – I got nicked out in Ireland and wound up in Mountjoy because the IRA put up a bank out there I was going to rob.

  Then there was the casino he had that was burnt down, or bombed. Then I was done up on a robbery with a dye gun by a security guard, and I had it coming out the pores of my skin for fucking months! You put the shower on and there was this fucking dye coming out all the time; it took ages to get rid of. People used to come round and say, ‘Where’s Fred, in the shower?’ because I was in there all the time – which they say in the film.

  Someone was really feeding them information about me for the character. All of those things came together. I think it’s the best film they’ve ever done about the gangster life.

  This is Cliffy Anderson, my godson Christian Simpson and me at Ronnie Biggs’s funeral in January 2014 (below).