The Krays at Shoreditch Town Hall
The infamous East-End gangsters, The Kray brothers were at large in the Shoreditch area during the 1950s and 60s. While they were undoubtedly notorious for spearheading organised crime, they often showed a more compassionate side, contributing to the community. We uncovered a few interesting stories for our history book, More Light, More Power: 150 Years of Shoreditch Town Hall which show both sides of the iconic duo.
Undercover Card Games:
In the 1960s they hosted regular card games in the large antechamber of the men’s toilets. They used this area so that if the police raided they could quickly disperse into the toilets and all look as if they were just making use of the facilities! The following excerpt was taken from Reggie Kray’s East End Stories, by Reggie Kray and Peter Gerrard:
Every area had its own gang, and where there were leaders like John Nash, Ronnie Diamond and Tony Parchita, there would be followers aligning themselves with ferocious loyalty under the banner of the leader’s name. We had no quarrel with the Nash gang, in fact we were quite friendly with them. Even today I class John as a good friend. With some of the others we had an uneasy truce. In the main, confrontation with most meant an explosion of violence. A dice game in the toilet area of Shoreditch Town Hall ended in a battle when we found out some cheating was going on. Our gang pulled out concealed weapons and done the lot of them.
Charity Auction in the Assembly Hall:
The Twins were great boxing fans and were once very well thought of as boxers themselves. They also liked to contribute to ‘good causes’ – donating plenty of cash, often in a very public way.
One evening at a boxing match in Shoreditch Town Hall there was a ‘charity auction’ of a few things from the ring. Tommy Trinder, a well-known comedian (‘You Lucky People’ being his catchphrase) was the auctioneer. The Krays bid for everything, often bumping the bids up between them!
The final item was a huge bouquet of flowers. The Krays were again the highest bidders. After the applause died down, they passed the bouquet back to Trinder and said: ‘Give this to the nurse’s home, with our compliments’.
Courtesy of Philip Harfleet, from his blog ‘Chronicles of a Croydon Boy’.
The entrance hall to Shoreditch Town Hall as it looked in the 1960s
Mother Kray: A personal story and another perspective from the Isaacs
My brother was a hairdresser and the Krays’ mother used to go there to get her hair done!
Michael told us a story once. She used to go to him on a Friday to have her hair done, and Michael and her, she used to go every week, they became on first name terms. Michael told us that when it came to pay, she would pull – he didn’t know who she was – she’d pull out a bundle of fivers! And Michael used to say to her, ‘you know, you shouldn’t really walk around with all that money’ he said, ‘it’s dangerous!’ She used to say about ‘her boys’ and she’d come in and say, ‘look what my boys bought me yesterday’ and it was like a solid gold cigarette lighter and things like that! She’d put out wads of money and my Michael never knew who she was or who her kids were, so he’d say ‘you must be careful! Don’t walk around showing that off!’
Isn’t it strange that they became so notorious, and yet their mum carried on as though everything was just quite normal? They had a very good side to them…