Reg and Ron Kray: Our story

Reg: Introduction

Gartree prison, December 1987

I did not intend to tell this story, not unril the day they finally release me. I have always believed that if I spoke out, if I told the true story of the kray twins, it would count against me, that the authorities would make me serve every single day of the thirty years in prison to which I have been sentenced.
But then I received a letter from my brother Ron in Broadmoor. Ron and I have never lost touch. We write every day and every few months i'm taken to Broadmoor in an armoured truck to spend the day with him. Why the armoured truck, I don't know. After twenty years in captivity, I am not likely to do a bunk now.
Whenever we meet we spend the day talking. We don't talk about the past, we talk about the future. Ron and I have always believed we will be released one day. We have to believe it, it's all there is. We talk about the house we'll live in together in the country and about the places we want to see before we get too old. For years now we've talked about going to India and China, two of the most beautiful and interesting countries in the world. Everytime I see Ron, that's all he really wants to talk about - how we'll go to India and China and what it will be like.
Then I got a letter from him - and it bloody broke me up. Me, the man who was supposed to be the hard man of Pankhurst, the toughest con in the place. What it said was this:

Dear Reg,

I have reason to believe I will never get out.

I feel a bit sad tonight, as much as I have resigned myself to the fact that I won't be getting out. I would have loved to have come to India, China and all the other beautiful countries.

But I hope you will visit all these places, as that will compensate me, if you go instead. It will make me happy that one of us has been to all these places. Apart from this, I am very happy.

God bless

Ron

Those, to me, are the words of a man who has lost hope. After twenty years of trying, the system has finally crushed the spirit of my brother. That's why I now want to tell my side of the story, and why I want Ron to tell his.

I want society to know the true story of the terrible Kray twins, so that people can judge for themselves if we've paid the price. And if our punishment for telling this story is that we shall stay where we are, then what the hell? My brother believes he's never going to get out anyway, and i will continue to baffle the doctors and psychiatrists who say that fifteen years as a Category A for seventeen years, and, believe me, I'm still as sharp as a razor.

And I will be when I get out - whether it's in one year or ten.