How the Kray Twins’ insatiable appetite for violence was born in east London’s boxing rings

At the Old Bailey one afternoon fifty years ago the Kray twins, the iconic boxers, businessman and bullies, were sentenced to life in prison and swiftly moved to adjourning cells below the ancient court.

A witness insists they each gently removed their fitted jackets and started shadow boxing, not talking, just jabbing, moving, ducking, showing little feints. And in that dull gloom they danced their boxing dance for the last ever time in each other’s company. The witness said they threw identical punches, the same combinations and footwork during their dark farewell that day in early 1969.

The twins had been both amateur and professional boxers, had two disjointed careers and then a lifetime of boxing hype, invention, total lies and some neglected truths. In 1946 they fought each other in the Hackney Schools championships and Ronnie beat Reggie. The following year they both won the Hackney title and Reggie became London schoolboy champion.

I was always told Reggie let Ronnie win when they met. The Hackney Schools Championship did exist, they did fight each other, but tales of joining - for a day - a travelling booth and knocking out men when the pair were still 14 are wonderfully invented. “I broke 11 jaws,” Reggie would tell people and he probably did in his life after boxing, which included torture and other essential everyday gangster pursuits, but inside a boxing ring he never broke a single jaw.

In 1951, when the twins were just 17 and looked like they were much younger, they turned professional one night at the Arena in Mile End, part of their soon-to-be infamous manor: they each won, but they were not the main attraction and there was no plush velvet finery for the two scrawny teenagers with their dark-gelled hair, large noses and memorable ears. It was a real night of fights, Reggie and Ronnie were real boxers and not the feared men at the centre of a demented firm of villains. On that night at the Arena they were just undercard scratchers.

In late 1951 they quit, had their last legal fight under British Boxing Board of Control rules and moved on to a world of pinkie rings, sneers, old German handguns, a pervert peer, relentless sexual innuendo, a murder or two and then a withering life behind bars. They still got to fights, always loved a fighter in their company and up until the very sad end their closest friends were people from the boxing business. Mike Tyson exchanged Christmas cards in the last years and heavyweight world champion Sonny Liston has been a guest at one of their clubs.

In the ring they had met men like Johnny Star, who was done in three rounds by Reggie and entered the ring with just one win and six defeats on his record. Reggie weighed 9 stone eight pounds that night and looked like he needed a good meal and he probably did.

The twins were 18 when they stopped boxing: Ronnie finished with four wins from six fights and Reggie with a perfect record of seven wins from seven fights. They quit one night in December 1951 at the Royal Albert Hall when Reg won, Ronnie lost and their bother, Charlie, also had a win. It was a glamorous finale to their short career of fumbling in lost venues like Lime Grove Baths and Wembley Town Hall on Monday and Tuesday nights.

They always travelled back to their Bethnal Green home through London’s west end, captivated by the bright lights, the greedy promises in seedy Soho and they made their wild plans as they ate their saveloy and chips in the cars. Ronnie and Reggie were coming, make no mistake and the gloves were off.

“Reggie was the cool, cautious one with the skills of a potential champion and importantly he always listened to advice,” said Charlie. “Ronnie was a good boxer and very brave. But, he would never listen to advice and, unlike Reggie, he would never hold back.”

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Ronnie did stop all four of the men he beat. However, a lunatic business of fake Kray boxing memorabilia has emerged with fight posters giving the twins absurd records and nicknames in fights that simply never happened. One poster, cunningly packed with facts and actual boxers, claims Reggie won 57 fights, 57 by knockout and was known as The Class Act. Reg actually stopped two of the seven men he beat.

Their matchmaker in 1951 was Mickey Duff and they had a fractious, one might even say, toxic relationship with the influential boxing figure. When the twins stopped fighting and started making money in their own wondrous way, Duff refused them membership to exclusive boxing clubs in some of the smarter hotels. It was very basic discrimination, but Duff was fearless.

“They were both useless, especially Ronnie,” insisted Duff. “I used to look for the biggest cripples in the world for him to fight.”

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A long, long time after they finished fighting and after several harsh snubs by Duff it was time for action. The Kray twins sent Duff four dead rats through the post. Duff reported the vermin to the police and named names.

“That bastard [Duff], he’s a slag,” Reggie remembered fondly. “I sent him a rat through the post - I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

When the Twins were finally arrested in 1968 it was reported that they had a list in their pocket, a handwritten list containing the names of some lucky men. The list was titled, so the story goes, Men That Must Die. Duff, perhaps Britain’s greatest ever fight figure, was on the list. “I would like the think I’m at the top of it,” Duff once told me. He probably was.