General Chat

I was reading in the paper about some dreadful woman who is going to be sentenced for being a really anti- social neighbour.

It seems that one of the neighbours she intimidated was one of the Kray twins enforcers and he is fifty- five!

I remember them being tried and sentenced and I think I was fifteen and now I am sixty- one.

What I don't remember was them having child enforcers. He would have been nine!

The number of people I have met over the years who were members of their gang I don't wonder they held so much power. Their gang must have numbered thousands, with a juvenile branch too.

Yeah the bad old days. No anti-social neighbours.

No sort of crime be it everso small ( cars, shop lifting ) was committed without the permission of the local firm or the miscreant was soon sorted out. The London Met were for better or for worse totally entangled with the firms, going to each others weddings and funerals and even marrying into each other's families.

Children could play on the street. Your bike wouldn't be nicked and if it was you'd get it back inside 24 hrs.

The Richardson's knew the way the game was played. The Kray's were mental and brought the sky down at the Blind Beggar ( still there, not much changed ).

I don't really think that life in Tower Hamlets is better today then in the 1960s. I detest the way that it is being stolen by city estate agents and the government. Bigger thieves than the 60s firms ever dreamed of. Today's gangs from the subcontinent war over east London territory and people suffer worse ends than John McVitie.

I <3 London - what's left of it.

But what I am alluding to is the number of people, including those who were still at primary school when they were eventually banged up, who claim to have been members of the gang.

I often hear the same thing Sharron about who "knew" the Krays, although I only know a few people who really did meet them. They once visited our house, long story, I was a baby so don't remember them. I know lots of true stories re The Krays, the stories weren't told to me as a boast, but as a fact, not pretty stories either.

It seems that some people love to be seen as a part of a gangland story, but a lot of those who do, weren't, if they were, they wouldn't brag about it..

I did once interview their cousin. He really was and he wasn't proud to be.
He was a very pleasant man who had been caused a lot of problems in his youth by being related to them.