Gangsters' Wives (25 page)

Reggie had to come first. He arrived handcuffed in a van with two police escorts. He had to come in through a side door first and sit in the front row. I filled the church up according to the plan, then as the music played, the coffin came in. Six men from the four corners of London carried the coffin – Freddie Foreman from the South, Charlie Kray from the East End, Alec Stein and Teddy Dennis from the West End, Johnny Nash from North London and their oldest friend Laurie O’Leary.

By this time Reggie had been transferred to Maidstone Prison. On one of my visits there in 1996, I went with a woman called Roberta who’d been writing to Reggie and was going to meet him.

On the way there, we talked and she asked me why I’d said no when Reggie proposed. I told her: ‘I really don’t want to be a prison wife. I don’t mind being a prison visitor, but I don’t want to be a prison wife. As a visitor, if I don’t want to go one time, I don’t go. But a wife has got to go. If she doesn’t go one time, the next time there’ll be a row.’

After that, Reg told me casually over the phone a couple of times that Roberta had been to visit him by herself on the train. That was all right. Then the next thing I knew, they were engaged.

I started laughing. I rang up Charlie and said: ‘What do you think about this Roberta?’ He said: ‘She’s a dark horse, that one.’

I said, ‘If he wants to marry her, let him marry her.’ And he did. They got married in Maidstone. The best man was an inmate, Bradley Allardyce. Charlie didn’t go to the wedding.

But I wasn’t jealous. I have no jealousy. I’ve never known the word. I wasn’t jealous when I was working as a model, even when I was surrounded by the most beautiful girls. I’ve made films with gorgeous women. I did a film with Ursula Andress and I thought she was fabulous. I did a scene with Raquel Welch. We were rowing on a boat topless and she was wearing a brown leather bikini. She was absolutely beautiful – those legs, those boobs, beautiful tawny hair. We were all top models and looking at her thinking how gorgeous she was. It would never have crossed my mind to think: Why aren’t I her? I’ve worked with Charlton Heston, Joan Collins, Tony Curtis, but I’ve never known jealousy.

Reggie died in 2000 from cancer of the bladder. The last time I saw him was in Wayland Prison in Norwich two months before he died. He looked dreadful and could hardly walk. I knew the application had gone in that day for his compassionate release. I said: ‘Reg, they’re going to grant it.’ He said, ‘I don’t think so, they’ll make me suffer.’ I said: ‘No. They’re going to grant it.’

Of course he should have been released when he’d served thirty years but they still kept him there for another two years. Sent him from Maidstone to Wayland.

That last visit, I cuddled him and gave him a kiss. I knew I wouldn’t see him again and it was a really sad occasion. Reggie gave me a letter to an old friend in the East End who he wanted to visit him. He knew he was dying. He knew it was the end. All I took away with me was this letter, sealed, to take to Jack.

When the doctors gave Reggie six weeks to live, he was released, but at first he was released to a hospital. No one was allowed to visit. Then from the hospital he went to the Town House Hotel in Norwich. I’ve stayed there since. I was talking to the people who owned it. They said if anyone came in to visit while Reggie was there, they had to phone up to Roberta to see if those people were allowed up. Even his old friends who’d been with him for decades, like Freddie Foreman and Mad Frank Faser, had trouble gettingg in to see him.

Reggie died there In that hotel room. I didn’t even try to visit. I didn’t know If I’d have been allowed through the door. I thought: I’ve got all my memories. I’ve had all those years. He knew what I was made of and always treated me with great respect and affection.

It was a very emotional day, Reggie’s funeral. We knew it was the last brother as Charlie had died just a few months before. There would never be another funeral like it. I think it was the saddest of the funerals – because it was the last brother and because there was a lot of fuss over the pall bearers.

I know the pall bearers who should have carried that coffin. They were members of the Firm – old, old friends. Roberta wanted Bradley Allardyce from prison and Tony Mortimer who was a member of the pop group East 17 and who’d been visiting Reggie for a few years. All these young people. She didn’t want Freddie Foreman and his son Jamie. I asked her why not. She said, ‘He broke away from all that stuff two years before he died.’ And then she said, ‘I don’t want any villains. I don’t want it to be a Ronnie Kray funeral.’ I said: ‘No, it’s a
Reggie
Kray funeral and he
was
a villain. He murdered someone and he served thirty years for it. But that’s not to say that the East End don’t want his old friends to carry him. They do.’

As far as I’m concerned, Freddie Foreman and his son Jamie should have carried that coffin. Tony Lambrianou should have carried that coffin. Teddy Dennis should have carried that coffin.

That funeral symbolised the end of an era. The last of the Kray twins to go. There’ll never be another pair like them.

Of course the myth will go on because the youngsters are still reading the books, watching the films. To me though, they weren’t a myth, they were real. They were Ronnie and Reg – Mrs Kray’s sons.

I’d like to thank Stephen Breen of the
Belfast Telegraph
and Else Kvist of the
East London Advertiser
for all their help. Also Bernard O’Mahoney, Jason Marriner, Wensley Clarkson, Barrie Tracey, Charlie Seiga, Graham Johnson and Paul Knight for their generous advice. I’m grateful to Ebury Press and Perseus Books and to Nick Johnston at Quercus. Special thanks to David Griffin and Sarah Tovey on the Costa del Sol.

(1) Entrance to the Courtneys’ sex dungeon (Copyright: author)

(2) Jenny Courtney in sex dungeon (Copyright: author)

(3) Jenny and Dave (Copyright: Jenny Courtney)

(4) Judy Marks (Copyright: author)

(5) Judy and Howard’s wedding – from
Mr Nice and Mrs Marks
by Judy Marks, reproduced by permission

(6) Jackie ‘Legs’ Robinson and Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair – from
In Love with a Mad Dog
by June Caldwell and Jackie ‘Legs’ Robinson, reproduced by permission

(7) Anne and Carlton Leach (Copyright: Wensley Clarkson)

(8) Anne in her lapdancing days (Copyright: Anne Leach)

(9) Anne in her lapdancing days (Copyright: Anne Leach)

(10) Anne and Carlton at their wedding (Copyright: Anne and Carlton Leach)

(11) Anna Connelly and Viv (Copyright: Anna Connelly)

(12) Becky Loy (Copyright: Wensley Clarkson)

(13) Lyn and Terry (Copyright: Claire Louise Diggins)

(14) Flanagan with nude portrait (Copyright: author)

(15) Flanagan with signed photo of the Kray Twins (Copyright: author)