What really happened Once Upon a Time in London – one gangster’s view

In my last two blogs, actor/producer/writer Terry Stone was talking about his new movie Once Upon a Time in London (released in the UK two days ago), which told the story of Jack Spot and Billy Hill, the dominant figures in London crime before the Kray Twins managed to capture the headlines in the mid-1960s. 

I thought it would be interesting to watch Once Upon a Time in London with Micky Fawcett, who was an associate of both Billy Hill and the Krays and who wrote arguably the most factually accurate book on the Twins: Krayzy Days.

So we watched Once Upon a Time in London and had a chat.

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Micky Fawcett at Elstree and Borehamwood station

MICKY: There was a lot of money spent on it.

JOHN: All the main Jack Spot stuff is before your time.

MICKY: Yeah. All the pre-War stuff.

JOHN: What did you think of it?

MICKY: It’s like a violent fairy tale. Not my cup of tea. There was so much of it.

JOHN: The violence.

MICKY: Yeah. Too much. It cheapened it, in my opinion. It devalued it.

JOHN: Why?

Jack Spot and wife Rita go to court in 1956, after they were both attacked by five men

MICKY: All that violence was too much for me. I mean, the violence didn’t work, did it? It’s no good unless you’ve got thoughts and reasons; plotting and scheming. But they did the fight scenes pretty good.

JOHN: You seemed amused with one bit where someone was just hitting and hitting and hitting someone else.

MICKY: You’d have only had to do it once.

JOHN: You thought all the hitting people over and over was too violent?

MICKY: Yeah. And throwing darts in people’s faces… I thought it was over the top. But they put it in to appeal to the audience, which is fair enough. Most of the violence was over the top, though the fight with the Twins at the end was very realistic and the Twins were very realistic in the way they were talking. The Krays was a good bit of casting.

JOHN: The actors are real-life twins.

Terry Stone as Jack Spot in Once Upon a Time in London

MICKY: And Jack Spot was a good bit of casting. Terry Stone acts the role of Jack Spot very well. He’s very believable. Though Spot, what I saw of him, he wasn’t quite as outwardly aggressive. A bit shrewder. I only really knew him for about five minutes when I was 17. And I met Spot again when he was old. He came in the gym one day. He was all bent-over. Hillsy was quieter. He was very smart.

JOHN: Smartly-dressed?

MICKY: Yeah. His attitude. He would have shirts made. Very, very smart. He paid his bills and played the game. Jack Spot knocked everybody.

JOHN: Knocked?

MICKY: He didn’t pay any bills. Wouldn’t… you know what I mean? He was a totally different type of person to Billy Hill. That sounds like just an on-the-surface thing, but it shows you their natures. Billy Hill was very keen on his clothing. All that beating up and getting back up. He wasn’t into that. He was a bit of an actor too.

JOHN: Acting the part of being a gangster?

MICKY: Yeah.

JOHN: There must have been lots of actual violence, though.

MICKY: Well, in his book, Billy Hill says whenever you cut somebody (with a razor), always do it this way. (HE DEMONSTRATES)

JOHN: Vertically down the cheek?

MICKY: Yes. Because, if you do it this way (diagonally) and you happen to cut them here (round the bottom of the chin) you’ll probably kill them and only a mug kills people. That’s what he said: “Only a mug kills people for no reason”.

Not necessarily totally 100% true…

JOHN: Billy Hill’s book was called Boss of Britain’s Underworld.

MICKY: Yeah. That book. Hillsy said to me: “It’s the biggest load of bollocks ever written: don’t believe a fucking word in it.”

JOHN: When you have to choose between history and legend, print the legend.

MICKY: I knew Albert Dimes as well. He was very hot-tempered was Albert: typical Italian. In the fight in Frith Street in Soho, in the film, they didn’t show Spot getting hit on the head with the scales or some big metal scoop. There was a woman in the shop called Sophie Hyams. She hit him on the head.

JOHN: She’s mentioned but you don’t see her hitting him. Bad for his image in the film, I guess. I didn’t really fully follow the stuff on the racecourses.

MICKY: That’s where it kicked off. The racecourses. The sponges. They can’t just demand money off you. At the racecourses, the bookmakers had to write the odds up on the board and they had a man who went along and wiped it all off. The bookmakers had to pay and there was a squabble with Albert Dimes at a racecourse.

The Kray Twins: were not always up for a fight

The Twins backed out of that. They didn’t want to know. And they were afraid of Billy right until the end. Right till the very end. The Twins didn’t want to know when it kicked off in 1955. They were 22 at the time. All the big men were fighting. The Names.

I was told there was a phone call made to them and they said: “It’s nothing to do with us.”

I was with Reggie one day in their Double R club and Big Pat said: “Jack Spot and Johnny Carter have come in the club!” It was like God had come in. They looked up to him and Billy Hill.

JOHN: What did Billy Hill think of them?

MICKY: He told me he suggested they write the letter to the Home Secretary about Frank Mitchell. He told me: “You don’t think those two brainless cunts had the sense to do it, do you?” He didn’t have no time for them at all.

JOHN: You went out to Spain with Billy Hill. (MENTIONED IN A 2017 BLOG)

Teddy Machin (Photograph from Krayzy Days)

MICKY: Yeah. He told Teddy Machin to invite me out. He was 58 at the time and he seemed like an old man to me. One day we were lounging round the pool – me, Machin, Hillsy – and I said: “I was coming out here with a mate of mine anyway. He’s opening a shooting club up near Madrid.”

And Hillsy said: “Mick, you may have said something that’ll set you up for life.”

I said: “What?”

It was when General Franco was in power. 

Hillsy said: “In Spain, the only licensed gambling allowed is in a shooting club. There’s nowhere else you can gamble. I’m with a mob, the Unione Corse; we fucking run the West End (of London)”

JOHN: What’s the best film you’ve seen about this era?

MICKY: None. There are some good French gangster films I like. The Godfather is a good film but things like the wedding and that are not to my taste.

JOHN: It’s a very Catholic film. Lots of ceremonial-type stuff. Did you see The Long Good Friday?

MICKY: Yeah, but I can’t remember it.

JOHN: The Wee Man?

Martin Compston as Glasgow’s Paul Ferris in The Wee Man

MICKY: Yeah. I thought it was good.

JOHN: Good. But not necessarily spot-on with the facts: very much Paul Ferris writing his own version of events and creating his own legend.

MICKY: I thought it was… realistic. I think the best gangster film I’ve ever seen was Casino.

JOHN: Oh, yes. Lots of true stories. The bit about the eyes popping out was true, wasn’t it… Why did you like it?

MICKY: Well, it was all sort-of reasoned. And the woman playing-up. The wife. They weren’t like gangsters; they were like cafe owners. The best bit was when they were talking and someone said: “He won’t talk. He’s a good kid. A stand-up guy. He’s solid.” And one of the others says: “Look… why take chances?”

JOHN: So they get him killed.

MICKY: Yeah. Why take chances?

Johnny Depp (left) as Donnie Brasco, with Al Pacino

JOHN: Did you ever see Donnie Brasco?

MICKY: Oh yeah! Maybe that’s a better one. Maybe that’s the best one. Very, very good. Al Pacino was the best in it. A feller I knew – he’s dead now – he was exactly like that.

JOHN: Someone should film your book Krayzy Days.

MICKY: Yeah, but it’s all different things, ain’t it? It’s not one story. 

JOHN: The unwary would assume it’s all about the Kray Twins, but it isn’t. There’s the Unione Corse and…

Krayzy Days – remembered as they were

MICKY: Well, nothing much happened with the Unione Corse. Billy Hill wanted me to… I was going to do the Unione Corse thing here, but I got in trouble – I wish I hadn’t – and Hillsy kept away from me, because he knew the feller I was arguing with – Teddy Machin – and he knew something would go down not-too-good and Machin got shot. 

There’s all that stuff in the book and the Tibbses are at the end of it. Someone put a bomb in his car; dunno who. The best story, though is the Banksy one which doesn’t involve any violence. I sold one of his old pictures the other week – a print that he’d done – numbered.

JOHN: All legal and legit and above-board?

MICKY: Yes. Of course.

Once Upon a Time – Terry Stone, Terry Turbo, Princess Margaret & Mad Frank

In yesterday’s blog, former ‘rave’ organiser Terry Turbo – now film producer Terry Stone – was talking about his new film Once Upon a Time in London (released in the UK yesterday).

He has also produced the three (soon to be four) Rise of The Footsoldier movies, Bonded By Blood and other true crime films.

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Terry Stone played Tony Tucker in Rise of the Footsoldier

JOHN: You were saying you are interested in true crime.

TERRY: Yes. In Rise of the Footsoldier, although there’s a lot in there that was made up, all the Essex Boys stuff was true. I’ve got a friend who’s on the Murder Squad so I know for a fact what stuff happened.

The conspiracy theories at the end are open to interpretation, but I know for a fact that all the Essex Boys stuff is 100% true. I look at that film and I’m proud of it.

JOHN: The title Once Upon a Time in London… It’s presumably intentionally reminiscent of Sergio Leone – Once Upon a Time in the West, Once Upon a Time… The Revolution, Once Upon a Time in America.

TERRY: Once Upon a Time in America was one of my favourite movies. If you were to ask me what film Once Upon a Time in London is most like, it would be the British version of that. We were not trying to copy it, but we went: What stories haven’t been told in this country?

JOHN: And Once Upon a Time in America was vaguely based on the truth – the early days of organised crime in the US.

TERRY: In Once Upon a Time in London, everything in that happened. There’s nothing made up. The only scene that may have been changed slightly was the darts scene. That may not have happened. But the guy was getting tortured and, instead of having darts thrown at him, he might have had bits of his ear being cut off. But we thought: That’s too much like Reservoir Dogs, so why don’t we just do the darts cos it’s funny and no-one’s ever done it. It’s just fucking terrifying.

JOHN: It is. And it’s in character. ‘Mad Frank’ Fraser would do that.

The real Jack Spot (played by Terry in Once Upon a Time in London) after being attacked by ‘Mad Frank’ Fraser in 1956

TERRY: He would. He’d be pulling your teeth out with pliers or he’d be cutting bits off you. He was a fucking lunatic. That’s why I liked him as a character. He’s so fucking off-key. He spent possibly 60% of his life in jail. He just liked violence. He didn’t care about money; he just wanted to hurt people. Maybe he wasn’t wired-up right; I dunno. If you said to him “Go and kill that guy” he would just do it and then worry about it when he was in jail and then kill someone else and think: Oh well, I might as well kill him as well because I’ll be in jail anyway. That was how his thought process worked.

JOHN: He once offered to do free dental work for me if I ever needed it done. I wasn’t quite sure how to take that. I presume he meant dental work on other people; not on me. I think he was just trying to live up to his legend.

TERRY: When I met him, I was shocked. What shocked me about all of the people from that era was how fucking small they were. You meet them all now and they’re these tiny little fellers. Maybe we’ve just become bigger through genetics or food or whatever

JOHN: How tall are the Adamses?

TERRY: I dunno. All the people that I’ve met now all seem bigger. When you meet someone who is part of a firm or someone who’s heavy-duty nowadays, they look the part. They don’t have to be six foot high and twenty stone, but they look the part. With the old ones, because they’re now in their 70s and 80s, they’re lovely little old men and you think: Did he really go round pulling people’s teeth out? He seems such a nice guy.

JOHN: All the really violent people I’ve met have been very quiet and polite. The SAS men I’ve met have been terribly polite and quiet. I guess, if you move in certain circles – certainly criminal circles – it’s best to be polite to strangers in case they turn out to be homicidal maniacs living on a hair-trigger.

The real Billy Hill, subject of Once Upon a Time in London (Photo from Krayzy Days)

TERRY: There’s a old saying: Walk softly but carry a big stick.

JOHN: Well, if you really are dangerous, you don’t have to ‘big it up’ to prove it to yourself… Anyway… There are obvious sequels to Once Upon a Time in London. The continuation of the Billy Hill story and the whole of the ‘Mad Frank’ Fraser story.

TERRY: We’ll see what happens with this one and if it goes the way we think it’s gonna go – worldwide with someone like Netflix or Amazon – then, if they think they want some spin-offs or more films – then happy days.

A lot of people from that era have now retired or are dead. But we have access to Frank’s surviving family, access to the Sabinis – all of the people. So we have access to all the stories.

JOHN: The Godfather had real criminals in small parts. Was Once Upon a Time in London the same?

TERRY: There’s a few. And we used a few fighters. There’s a few people in there, if you’re into fighters or underworld figures. But we didn’t cast any villains in big parts.

JOHN: Real dodgy people often don’t look dodgy. I always thought Johnny Bindon looked a bit wimpish on screen. Though I wouldn’t have said that to his face.

TERRY: That’s a good story, that is. John Bindon. The only problem is, when I’ve talked to people about it, they’ve all gone: “Well, he was sort of an actor/villain. But he didn’t really do anything.” His selling point was shagging Princess Margaret and smoking weed with her. He was in the Sixties set, but with all the people I’ve mentioned it to, no-one really bit on it and I don’t know why.

JOHN: It’s psychologically fascinating. The end is a bit of a downer, but that could be handled.

TERRY: I would fucking love to play John Bindon. That would be a great part.

JOHN: That’s what they all said he had.

Poster for Once Upon a Time in London at Leytonstone tube station, East London

TERRY: The problem, being a working class London lad with my sort of build is you get regularly asked to be the henchman or the murderer. Do you wanna clump someone? I don’t mind doing that, but I actually want some substance to it. 

The part I play in Once Upon a Time in London was interesting because it had range – there was a family involved. I hope when people see the film, people will react: Oh! Actually, he can be more than just the guy who says “I’m gonna do you in” and all that shit.

If you haven’t got the material to show what you can do, nobody will give you the chance as an actor. Sometimes people are lucky: they get a part and shine.

JOHN: Sylvester Stallone held out and wouldn’t sell the Rocky script to anyone unless he was cast as Rocky.

TERRY: And he was absolutely on his arse. He was waiting on tables, doing anything, living in a fucking bedsit and they were offering “Here’s a million dollars for your script” – which is probably $5 million now – and he was unknown. And then he went and won a fucking Oscar and the rest is history. But a film about John Bindon… Everyone I talked to about it said: “There’s not really a story.”

JOHN: A massive rise and fall. Fleeing to Ireland at the climax; all that.

TERRY: But think about the kids now, right? They go and watch Legend because it’s Tom Hardy. They watch Footsoldier because it’s people getting bashed-up and carved-up and thrown through windows and girls with their tits out. If you say there’s a film about John Bindon, they’d say: “Who’s that?”

JOHN: But people don’t know about Jack Spot and Billy Hill.

TERRY: They know it’s the ones before the Krays. That’s the hook.

JOHN: And the Krays are in the trailer, which is great.

TERRY: But you look at John Bindon, what would you say?

An uncompromising photograph of John Bindon and Princess Margaret on the island of Mustique.

JOHN: They made The Bank Job about robbing the bank to get the compromising photos of Princess Margaret, though she was never named. Do you think that story is true?

TERRY: Well, if you were the government or the Queen, you’d be going: “I wanna get them fucking pictures!” And you would probably reach out to… 

I know a friend of mine who is… y’know… a villain. 

And the government have actually said to him: “If you do this, then…” … just like they went to the Mob and asked them to kill Castro. There are things the government can’t do and, if a gangster does it for them, they’ll do him some favours or they’ll overlook things. That’s how the world works.

JOHN: Wasn’t it Lucky Luciano who helped the Americans invade Sicily in the Second World War? Local knowledge and local contacts. Anyway… So what’s next for you?

Terry in his previous incarnation

TERRY: I wrote a book about the club scene (King of Clubs – Sex, Drugs & Thugs) and we have just-about signed a deal with a big TV company to turn it into a TV series. And I’ve just done two documentaries about the birth of drum & bass and the birth of garage music. It’s me and the DJs and the MCs talking about it and how big the brands were. 

I’ve also got a feminist horror film. I’ve got a couple of business partners – Richard Turner and Chris Howard. 

We’re always trying to do something new. We’re developing a lot of TV stuff and animated stuff.

… MORE ON THIS HERE …

Micky Fawcett remembers the gay Kray Twins and their talkative mynah bird

Krayzy Days – remembered as they were

Micky Fawcett, a close associate of UK gangsters the Kray Twins, pops up every now and then in this blog.

He wrote arguably the definitive ‘inside’ story about Ronnie and Reggie – Krayzy Days.

So we were having a chat in Stratford, East London, yesterday…

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MICKY: Did you know the Twins had a mynah bird?

JOHN: I don’t think I did.

MICKY: They were given this mynah bird and it was very good at imitations.

“Mum! Mum!” it used to say and COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH. – it used to take off their dad’s cough – Old Charlie. 

“Some money! Some money!” it used to say; “Get some money!” and “What’s YOUR name?”

It frightened the life out of people. They used to have it in the corner of the kitchen.

The best one was when Old Charlie ‘outed’ Ronnie.

There was me and Dukey Osbourne and Ronnie, who was sitting at the table with a basin of stew and a bull terrier laying at his feet. 

JOHN: What was the dog’s name?

MICKY: Dunno. Don’t know if it had one. Anyway, this was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and there was a bit of noise in the hallway. And it’s their old man, Old Charlie, coming home pissed.

Ronnie squawks like his mynah bird and says: “Mum, mum! The drunken old bastard’s here!” 

And the mynah bird goes: “Drunken old bastard! Drunken old bastard!”

Old Charlie Kray – the Twins’ father

Old Charlie comes in, straightening his shirt cuffs and his tie – he was always straightening himself up – and he says: “Shuddup, son! What I’ve heard about you today, you’re gone! You’re GONE! You’ve completely gone! That’s what you are. What they’re saying about in the pub, in the 99 (a pub in Bishopsgate) is disgusting! You make me sick!”

Ronnie says: “Shuttup, you old cunt! Shuttup! Fucking shuttup!”

He got up, rushed over to Old Charlie and he’s got hold of him by the collars and he’s still got the knife and fork in his hands and the dog was attacking Old Charlie’s leg, but not fiercely. And, with the knife in his hand, Ronnie – he hadn’t actually meant to, but he – scratched Old Charlie’s cheek by his nose – a little trickle of blood.

And Old Charlie’s shouting out: “Violet! He’s cut me! He’s cut me!”

At that point, I took my leave and was out the door. I was gone.

Next day, I went round to see Reggie and he was limping slightly. I asked what was wrong and he said: “Ronnie kicked me up the bollocks.”

JOHN: Why?

MICKY: I dunno why. I didn’t ask. You didn’t ask questions like that.

JOHN: Surely everyone always knew Ronnie was gay from the beginning? From when he was a teenager or whatever.

MICKY: No. I don’t suppose so. Well, people didn’t want to know. Nobody used to say it, did they? Not in them days. I remember the first time anybody told me.

JOHN: About Ronnie?

MICKY: Yes. Well, about the pair of them. It was a close friend of mine. I don’t think ‘gay’ was a word then. ‘Poof’, maybe. He said: “They’re poofs” or whatever. 

I said: “Yeah?” 

He said: “Course they are. Why do you think all them young boys are coming round? Can’t you tell?”

Micky Fawcett (left) first met Ronnie Kray around 1956

JOHN: How long had you known them at that point?

MICKY: A couple of years, I guess. About 1956 maybe. They were quite young. (The Kray Twins were born in 1933.) It was billiard hall days. I remember we were outside this billiard hall. I think Ronnie had done his famous escape from Long Grove mental hospital.

JOHN: Which was?

MICKY: Reggie went in to visit him and Ronnie walked out.

JOHN: Being twins.

MICKY: Yeah. I knew Reggie but not Ronnie then.

I remember the first time I met Ronnie. I saw him from the back and thought he was Reggie. He was walking up to the billiard hall and I come up behind: “Hey! Reg!” 

And he said: “I think you want my brother.”

JOHN: But they looked different. Reg had a narrower face and Ronnie’s was wider.

MICKY: In the pictures when they were younger, they don’t look so different.

The Kray Twins in their younger, boxing, days

JOHN: Of course. The boxing pictures.

MICKY: But they didn’t look quite the same. Ronnie was scruffier the first time I met him. Not scruffy intentionally.

He had just come out of a mental hospital.

The bottom of his trouser leg was roughed-up a bit and his boots were a bit… You know how you can imagine someone who has just come out of a…

Reggie was very, very smartly dressed.

JOHN: Was that always the case?

MICKY: Later on, towards the end, Ronnie was a very smart-dressed feller who went to Savile Row tailors for his clothes. Reggie dressed very smart, but went to Wood’s in Kingsland Road. It was like East End boy and West End girl.

JOHN: Ronnie being the West End girl.

MICKY: Yeah.

JOHN: You always dressed very smart yourself.

MICKY: You had to be. It was part of the thing. I was five years younger. Reggie was very impressive when Ronnie was away. Reggie was running the Double R club. You always get trouble in clubs. He was very smart. You can imagine the rest, can’t you?

Maybe it played a part in their hatred for the rest of the world.

JOHN: What did?

MICKY: Being gay at that time. Although it worked for them as well because the stars – a lot of them were gay – used to come to see them in the Kentucky club or the Double R.

When they were younger, they didn’t want anybody to know.

JOHN: Did they get picked-on at school for being gay or did no-one know?

MICKY: Well, I think they were frightening everybody. I imagine that. Reggie didn’t want anyone to know. He wanted to be one of the boys.

JOHN: He didn’t ‘come out’ at all, did he?

MICKY: Not totally, no. He did when he was in the nick. I don’t want to… People talk about them when they were away in the nick; what they did. But it’s too… distasteful.

The Kray Twins and why violence is more effective when it is unexpected

So I was having a chat with Micky Fawcett at Westfield in Stratford, East London.

Micky wrote Krayzy Days – arguably the definitive book about his sometime close associates the Kray Twins.

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(L-R) Micky Fawcett, Reggie Kray & Reggie’s wife Frances

JOHN: A few weeks ago, you were telling me about a director who was writing a film script from your book, but there were disagreements over the script.

MICKY: Yeah. 

JOHN: One was the incident where, instead of sudden, unexpected violence, he wanted to build up the tension.

MICKY: Yeah. There was a feller I was friendly with – Ronnie Curtis – and his wife was having an affair with his best friend – Albert Lovett.

JOHN: Are these people still alive?

MICKY: No.

JOHN: Thank God for that. Carry on, then…

MICKY: Ronnie said to me: “Albert’s been seeing Sheila. I’m going to…” You know. And a couple of days went on and he never did anything and I thought to myself: Oh, well, nothing much is going to happen here.

But there was three of us all working together and we had a meeting at 10 o’clock one morning in Joe’s caff in Upton Park, just off Green Street. We had our meeting and coffee or whatever we had and, as we walked out of the caff, Ronnie Curtis said to me: “Oh, I got a letter from a pal of ours. The heading is in red ink. I wonder if that means anything?”

So I got the letter and I’m looking at it and – BOOM! as quick as that – the blade has gone right through down Albert’s cheek and into this mouth… Cut all his gums. And Albert has turned round and he’s got his overcoat on and Ronnie is slashing at his arse and it’s all being shredded and there’s blood everywhere. And two policemen were walking along in plain clothes on the other side of the road and they ran across and there was chaos but I was gone and so was Ronnie Curtis gone.

JOHN: And the argument with the film director writing the script was…?

MICKY: He said: “What we do in a film is, in the cafe, we build up the tension – We will have Ronnie fiddling around with his dinner and we can see something is wrong and something is going to happen.”

And I said, “No. No. No. The whole thing about it was the surprise. The shock.” We really argued about that. He’s not doing the script now. I don’t see him any more.

JOHN: Well, I think you’re right. Ultra-violence happening without warning is much more shocking than seeing people’s foreheads sweating and the audience knowing something is about to happen.

MICKY: Yeah. That’s what it’s all about.

JOHN: If anyone ever says: “The way it is normally done in the movies is…” that is a very good reason NOT to do it that way. It is usually better to tell the truth. Though the only problem about the truth is that it’s often so OTT it is unbelievable. The truth is often just so Over The Top you have to tone it down.

MICKEY: That thing that happened at Joe’s caff is just something that has always stuck in my mind. Second only to when I was out having a glass of beer with Reggie (Kray) and he shot a feller in the toilet.

JOHN: What had the other guy done?

MICKEY: Well, we went to a drinking club in Islington. We went downstairs to the toilet and BAAAAAAAAAAAANNNGG!!!! and Reggie has shot the feller standing at the next urinal in the leg. The echo!!! It was deafening!

JOHN: Why did he shoot him?

MICKY: He never explained it and I didn’t ask. We went back upstairs and we left as casually as I could muster.

JOHN: Who was the guy?

MICKY: Soppy Cooper was his name. All I know about him is he came from Hoxton. That was probably enough for Reggie. Neither of them – the Twins – liked people from Hoxton.

JOHN: Because…?

MICKY: I dunno. They had come from Hoxton. It was before they had got their own way with the world. They were ordinary people once, weren’t they… Frances, Reggie’s wife, came from Hoxton.

JOHN: But Reggie never said why he shot the bloke?

MICKY: No. He said: “I think I shot him in the head.”

And I said: “No, it was definitely the leg.”

“But as I shot him,” Reggie told me, “the gun jumped and he put his hands up to his head.”

“That was because it was so loud,” I said. “He was putting his hands up to his ears. It was deafening.”

Which gangster films do gangsters like?

Reggie Kray, Micky Fawcett, singer Lita Roza, Ronnie Kray, actress Barbara Windsor & actor Ronald Fraser in the 1960s

In a blog a couple of weeks ago, I was saying the word ‘gangster’ is a strange word but, if it has to be used, then Micky Fawcett, a close associate of the Kray Twins, probably counts as one.

A former one. He wrote the highly-admired memoir Krayzy Days.

I got talking to him about movies.

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JOHN: You told me that people in the business like The Godfather: Part II. That surprised me.

MICKY: Did it?

JOHN: It’s a lovely film, but I think about two-thirds of it is in Sicilian. I think Paramount considered putting it up for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film.

MICKY: Maybe that’s why people liked it. My favourite ones usually are the French ones – I’m watching one now on television – Spiral – this is the second series – it’s a subtitled French police thing.

JOHN: Oh, like those Scandinavian noir TV series.

MICKY: Not so much the Scandinavian ones; more the French.

JOHN: Why?

MICKY: Realistic. In the last one I saw, there were two policemen on a stake-out who have a fight with each other. You didn’t get that in Dixon of Dock Green. When I was growing up, everyone used to say: Oh! English gangster films! They’re useless! I remember them talking in The Kentucky Club with Joan Littlewood and one of her crew. You go down to get costumes for them films and you get a black shirt and a white tie… but nobody dresses like that! They were in the Kentucky surrounded by genuine gangsters.

JOHN: I think British gangster films got better after Get Carter. That and The Long Good Friday were good.

MICKY: They didn’t do much for me. There was Villain with Richard Burton…

JOHN: That was based on the Krays, wasn’t it?

MICKY: Richard Burton thought he was playing Ronnie Kray, yeah.

JOHN: Why was that good?

MICKY: I never said it was.

JOHN: It just felt to me like watching Richard Burton playing a part. I never really believed in it. I believed Donnie Brasco.

MICKY:  Yes, that was very good. But it was too good for the ordinary person.

JOHN: Why?

MICKY: Well, people like to see more shooting and violence and all that type of thing if they’re gonna watch a gangster film. But Donnie Brasco was very, very realistic. The scenes with Al Pacino in the house. A really, really good film.

JOHN: I don’t know if it’s true, but there was a distinction made in it that, if you introduced someone as “a friend of mine” he was a friend of yours but, if you introduced someone as “a friend of ours” he was a made man in the Cosa Nostra.

MICKY: That worked. It used to. They’re gone now: the Mafia. It’s the Russians now.

JOHN: I think maybe it helped it was made by an English director – Mike Newell, who did Four Weddings and a Funeral – he could see things objectively.

MICKY: Goodfellas I liked – That beginning and the cigarette as a currency.

JOHN: I don’t really like Martin Scorsese – in Mean Streets they really did just mutter.

MICKY: I thought that was a good film.

JOHN: The Departed was OK and I liked Casino. I think a lot of that is based on reality. The head-in-the-vice scene where the eye pops out.

MICKY: The line I remember in Casino is when the old-timers are talking and the boss says “Look, why take a chance?” So they shot him.

---

(EXTRACT FROM THE CASINO SCRIPT)

The BOSSES are gathered around a conference table as the 

lawyers and nurses silently walk out the door as if on cue.

                      NICKY (V.O.)

          See, when something like this happens, 

          you know how things are gonna work out.

          It’s always better with no witnesses. 

          So, what about Andy?

THE CAMERA PANS FROM ONE BOSS TO THE OTHER.

                      FORLANO

               (Putting down his 

               oxygen mask once the 

               door behind him is 

               shut)

          He won’t talk. Stone is a good kid. 

          Stand-up guy, just like his old man. 

          That’s the way I see it.

                      BORELLI

          I agree. He’s solid. A fuckin’ Marine.

                      CAPELLI

               (Holding his oxygen mask) 

          He’s okay. He always was.

          Remo, what do you think?

                      GAGGI

               (Pause)

          Look… why take a chance? At least, 

          that’s the way I feel about it.

---

JOHN: And I think that was based on a real incident too. Any British equivalent to that?

MICKY: No. No. The trouble is, for me… If you was a professional footballer, you wouldn’t really want to watch films about professional football too much, because you’d be criticising them all day long. When you’re surrounded by it, as I was for years…

Banksy, the Lawyer and the Gangster – and the confusing matter of copyright

Micky Fawcett – art lover – at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London.

My last blog was about an artist who was interested in gangsters.

This one is about a gangster who took an interest in art. 

The word gangster is faintly meaningless. It just means someone who is in a gang. So schoolchildren could be gangsters if they are in a gang, if you wanted to use the word in that context.

In the UK, the Kray Twins are another type of gangster. And, if someone was a close associate of theirs – if he was part of their ‘gang’ – then I suppose he could be called a gangster.

Micky sips a quiet coffee while perusing a shot of himself and ‘Brown Bread’ Fred Foreman in Brian Anderson’s recent photographic book

Micky Fawcett was a close associate of the Krays.

In Lock Stock and Two Smoking Cameras, Brian Anderson’s recent book of photographs of British crime figures, shot over ten years, Micky Fawcett is described as “a man who would not hesitate to use guns and razors, a well-known associate and part of the inner Kray circle in the 1960s. Author of Krayzy Days, which is said to be the best book written about the Krays due to Micky’s first-hand knowledge”.

(In the YouTube video above, Micky Fawcett appears at 1 min 03 secs.)

Krayzy Days tells of far more than just Micky’s life with the Krays. He was and is a man of many interests. Around 2006/2007, he took an interest in art and was involved with the Smudge Gallery in Spitalfields Market, London.

Page One of the letter from Banksy’s lawyer

On 17th November 2006, the street artist Banksy’s lawyer, sent a three-page letter to Micky. It started: “It has come to our client’s attention that a number of our client’s copyright works have been used by you without our client’s permission first being sought or obtained.”

The letter referred to “the continuing flagrancy of the infringement complained of (within the meaning of Section 97 (2) of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998)”.

Particularly miffing – Banksy art ad

Banksy – who is, lest we forget, famous for painting graffiti, usually uninvited, onto walls owned by other people – seemed to be particularly miffed that ads had appeared saying: 

PSST!

WANNA BUY A BANKSY?

VISIT SPITALFIELDSARTMARKET.CO.UK

A couple of days ago, I asked Micky about what had happened:

The Smudge Gallery in Spitalfields Market in London in 2006. It is no longer trading.

---

JOHN: Have you still got the shop?

MICKY: No.

JOHN: Because?

MICKY: The market was completely redeveloped and we no longer had the premises. So that was that.

JOHN: How long were you involved in the gallery?

MICKY: A couple of years, maybe.

JOHN: What had you done to incur the wrath of Banksy’s lawyer?

MICKY: We had hired a cameraman to go around taking pictures of all the Banksies, which we then transferred onto canvas and sold and we were very, very busy. The one with two policemen kissing was very popular. They all were, really. It was a tremendous business.

JOHN: That’s surely legal? You were taking photographs of something on a wall in public view from the public street so that’s in the public domain, isn’t it?

MICKY: No, it’s not legal at all.

JOHN: Surely, if it’s outside in the street, I can take a picture of it, can’t I? And the photograph is my copyright.

MICKY: You can take a picture of it, but you can’t put it onto a canvas as if you’ve done the picture.

JOHN: Banksy never put them on canvas, though. He put them on walls. So it’s not masquerading as his work. It’s your original work of art – a canvas print of your original photograph of something Banksy did on a wall in a public place.”

MICKY: When he puts it on a building, they can sell the building.

JOHN: So that’s private property. But, you could surely take a photograph of Wembley Stadium and then sell a canvas of your photograph. I think you should go back into the art business again.

MICKY: No, I don’t want to go into the art business or any other business. You do it.

JOHN: But you might sue me for stealing your idea. Banksy is famously secretive. What was your response to the lawyer’s letter?

MICKY: Eventually, via a barrister, a straightforward Who is this Banksy? We never heard another word from them.

JOHN: Nothing?

MICKY: They came and put a sticker on our window saying NONE OF THE CONTENTS IN THIS SHOP ARE GENUINE BANKSIES. THE ONLY THING BY BANKSY IN THIS SHOP IS THIS NOTICE.

JOHN: You should have taken a picture of the notice, printed it on canvas and sold it.

MICKY: I know. We should have kept the notice.

JOHN: Come to think of it, how do I know you are not Banksy?

MICKY SAID NOTHING AND JUST LOOKED AT ME.

My surprising top ten blogs of last year

(Photograph by Ariane Sherine)

I started this blog in 2010 and it is usually referred-to as a “comedy blog” but, just out of quirky interest, here is a list of what were my Top Ten blogs in terms of hits last year.

This list is obviously more a reflection of who my readers are than anything else…

1) Where the Kray Twins gangster film “Legend” got it all so very badly wrong

2) The practicalities of putting your head in a gas oven: my 2nd suicide attempt

3) Krayzy Days – Why London gangster Ronnie Kray really shot George Cornell inside the Blind Beggar pub in 1966

4) What the REAL Swinging Sixties were like – gangsters and police corruption

5) Hello to the Bye Bye Girls – Ruby Wax’s offspring – two Siblings on the Fringe

6) Creating a Legend – The Krays and the killing of ‘Mad Axeman’ Frank Mitchell

7) What it is like to be on the jury of a murder case at the Old Bailey in London

8) Why Chris Tarrant’s TV show OTT was taken off air – a naked Malcolm Hardee

9) Edinburgh Fringe, Day 12: How to destroy a comedy career & other news

10) The death of an Italian archaeologist who knew so many 20th century secrets

Robber & unlicensed boxer Roy Shaw’s trouble spending some stolen money

Micky remembers Krayzy Days (Photograph by Michael Fawcett)

This is often described as a blog about comedy, but it is really about sub-cultures.

So I was having afternoon tea in London with Micky Fawcett, a former associate of the Kray Twins. He wrote what is arguably the definitive book on that era: Krayzy Days.

“Did you ever meet Roy Shaw?” he asked me.

Wikipedia currently says Roy Shaw “was an English millionaire, real estate investor, author and businessman from the East End of London who was formerly a criminal and Category A prisoner.”

By 1974, he had already spent around 18 years in more than 22 different prisons.

But he is most remembered now for his career as an unlicensed boxer.

The selling blurb on Roy’s 1999 autobiography Pretty Boy (written with Kate Kray) says:

“I don’t huff or puff or growl at anyone. But I live by a merciless code. For me violence is simply a profession… I wouldn’t hurt women, children or the ordinary man in the street. But if you are a man and you take a liberty with me or cross me, then believe what I say, when it comes to retribution, I have no pity or conscience.”

Roy Shaw (right) with gangland figure Dave Courtney

“I think I only met him a couple of times,” I told Micky. “I think I drove him home once after a film shoot. I think he was a bit punch drunk by the time I met him.”

“He got sectioned,” Micky said. “You know what for?”

“What?” I asked.

“Punching people,” said Micky.

“Habit,” I suggested.

“He kept punching everybody,” said Micky. “I knew him when I weighed 5 stone 2 pounds.”

“Five stone?” I asked.

“We were boxing as children,” said Micky. “I seen him when he was a kid, running about. He was a real character. When he was in Borstal, he escaped by tying a psychiatrist up. I was Essex Schoolboy Champion or something. I think Shawy might have gone further. He was lighter than me. He must have got bigger all of a sudden. Maybe with the help of a few steroids.”

“He wasn’t very tall,” I said.

“No,” agreed Micky.

“And he had some rather dodgy eyes,” I suggested.

“That’s right, yeah,” said Micky. “Have I told you about the night I had out with Shawy?”

“Did it involve elephants?” I asked.

“Elephants?” Micky asked. “What’s that? Slang? Elephant’s trunk; drunk?”

“I just like stories with elephants in.”

“I can’t help you there,” said Micky.

“Ah well,” I said.

Roy Shaw’s autobiography, published in 1999

“Anyway,” said Micky, “I had a memorable night out with him. He told me: Listen, I done a robbery recently. I’ve got the money but they’ve got the numbers.”

“Numbers?” I asked.

“He had robbed the Daily Mirror, I think it was – and he had the money, but they had the numbers on the notes.”

“The serial numbers?” I asked.

“Yeah. So he said: I just wanna spend it. Get rid of it. Fancy a night out in the West End?

“So off we went to the Bagatelle nightclub (in Cork Street, Mayfair) and there was all the girls and the booze and the champagne and whatever you wanted and Shawy was paying for everything. It was a decent nightclub. Hostesses and all that. Jack Fox owned the Bagatelle,

“I went to have a slash in the toilet, came out and Jack Fox said: Excuse me. See your mate in there? He came down here the other night and he was chewing glasses.

Roy challenged World Champion Muhammad Ali to a fight (Photo in Roy’s Pretty Boy book)

“He could chew glasses. Have you ever heard of that?”

“There used to be a man,” I said, “called Monsieur Mangetout.”

“Anyway, I told Jack Fox,” Micky continued, “Don’t worry. He’ll be alright. He’s a mate. Don’t worry about him. He’ll be as good as gold.

“We were having everything we wanted but Shawy couldn’t get rid of the money because, at the end, Jack Fox gave him a very small bill: £5 or something.

“So we went on to another drinking club, Shawy’s went behind the bar, got the geezer out and said: I’m gonna have a lay down. And he lay down behind the bar and that’s as much as I can remember.

Willy Malone’s funeral, May 2017, reported in the East London Advertiser

“On another occasion, he was on his way home one night and there was a little drinking club in Aldgate owned by the Malones: Charlie & Willy. They were the people you ‘spoke to’ in Aldgate. Gambling, SP Office: take bets over the phone. They had this little drinking club. Aldgate was a rough area back in them days: in the 1950s. Around 1958; maybe even before.

“Anyway, Shawy wandered in there on his way home. And Willy Malone said: I don’t want you in here, ‘performing’. And Shawy said: What you talking about? Look, I’ve come to have a drink. I’m not looking for trouble. You seem to think I am, but I’m not. And Shawy pulled out a huge knife and said: Look!  and threw it on the floor. There you are, he said, now I’m harmless. I’m not looking for trouble.

“And, at that point, Willy Malone has gone and hit him on the chin – Shawy’s pissed – and knocked him out.

“When Shawy was out, they told Willy Malone: You know who that geezer is? Oh! He’s a fucking monster! He’ll kill you! He didn’t know the strength of him.

“When Shawy came round, they had gone.

“Willy Malone came and saw The Twins. They didn’t really like Shawy, because they were jealous of anyone with a bit of a reputation. So they didn’t do much to help or anything like that.

“But then Willy Malone was walking along in Whitechapel late one night and Shawy saw him and went up to him and said: I think me and you had better take a walk and have a talk, hadn’t we? And then he chinned Willy Malone.”

“It all ended happily then,” I said.

“Unless,” said Micky, “you was Willy Malone.”

“Mmmm,” I said.

“Shawy was in a massive armoured car robbery,” said Micky. “£87,000. This was back in 1963 in Kent. Most of the people who were on it got nicked, maybe all of them. I didn’t know ‘em all. Shawy got nicked because he was driving about in a white Mercedes-Benz sports car which he’d bought straight away – the next day or a couple of days later. He was on the dole at the time.”

Roy was sentenced to 18 years.

“He ended up in Broadmoor, he was given ECT treatment…”

He ended up in Broadmoor, where he was given experimental ECT treatment to make him less violent. The result, according to the doctor at Broadmoor, was to make him “even more aggressive and unpredictable”.

“He was married,” Micky told me. “He was in Malta with his wife at some point or other but that was way, way, way back. I dunno what happened.”

“When I met him,” I said, “I think he was on dating sites.”

“You know what happened to him, don’t you?” Micky asked me.

“What?”

“He did quite well. He was in the unlicensed boxing business and then they had him as a doorman and he was popular around that time. He was a big name.

“But he went on dating sites and he met a bird who robbed him of every penny. He had a house and a Rottweiler dog and everything he wanted but she sorted him. Took all his money.”

According to the Daily Telegraph’s 2012 obituary of him, “in 2009 he won a court battle with Linda Finnimore, a 43-year-old blonde who had acted as a manager when he was a boxer. Ms Finnimore claimed that she was Shaw’s ‘common law wife’ and that he had given her more than £600,000 in a share of profits from a £2.6 million land sale. But the judge accepted Shaw’s claim that he was a ‘Mr Trusty’ who had been taken for ‘a right mug’ by a ‘natural fraudster’ 30 years his junior.”

So it goes.

How ‘Brown Bread Fred’ Foreman stopped Ronnie Kray from killing

Micky (left) met Fred in August (Photograph by Steve Wraith)

At the beginning of August this year, Micky Fawcett, a former associate of the Kray Twins, Ronnie & Reggie, re-met Fred Foreman at the Radisson Hotel in London’s Tottenham Court Road.

I blogged about it.

They had not met since the 1960s.

When I met Micky more recently, I asked him about ‘Brown Bread’ Fred.

“I used to see him quite a bit,” he told me. “I had some quite interesting times with him – he had that pub in the Borough, just as you come over London Bridge. I used to go and see him and go upstairs and have a glass of vintage port with him.”

“Brown Bread is Cockney rhyming slang for Dead,” I said. “He had a reputation.”

“He saved a man’s life once,” said Micky. “No-one really believed him. But I was a witness to the fact he did.

“The Twins were trying to get a spieler (an illegal gambling club) going underneath the Regency (a club they owned). A few of us were down there and Ronnie walked out of the toilet, pulled out a revolver, put it at a feller’s head and the gun jammed.

“Everyone was diving under the tables. Fred, Reggie and myself leapt forward and Fred ended up wrestling with Ronnie to try and get the gun out of his hand and eventually he did.

Micky Fawcett’s memoir of crimes past

“What had happened was this feller called George Dixon had had a spot of bother with the Nash family and he was a bit concerned. So he had said to Ronnie: I’m having a bit of trouble with the Nashes; I wonder if you could help me?

“And Ronnie said: Yeah, OK, but keep out of the way until I give you the all clear,

“Then this feller Dixon saw Charlie Kray and said: I had a bit of trouble with the Nashes and Ronnie said he would help me. Could you find out what’s happening?

“So Charlie said: Yeah, OK. Come down the Regency on Monday.

“So Dixon had disobeyed Ronnie, but it was a little bit deeper than that. Because I think something had happened sexually between Ronnie and Georgie Dixon.

“When it happened, Ronnie started shouting out: Just cos you know me in one, don’t mean to say I’m… and you’re using me to… – and you wouldn’t have known what he was talking about if you didn’t also have an evil mind and suspect the worst.

“Since then, it’s gone into folklore but no-one believes Freddie Foreman saved a feller’s life. And he did. I was there.

“He’s got a documentary coming out next year. I think it will be good.”

(Left-right) Micky Fawcett, Michael Fawcett, Brian Anderson, Steve Wraith and Fred Foreman.

Away from the Fringe, life goes on… Micky Fawcett meets Brown Bread Fred

Micky Fawcett (left) and Freddie Foreman re-met recently (Photograph by Steve Wraith)

The Edinburgh Fringe is a bubble.

Outside, real life goes on.

Life is not all about comedians.

Here is a photo of Kray Twins associates Micky Fawcett and ‘Brown Bread’ Fred Foreman meeting recently in the Raddison Hotel in London’s Tottenham Court Road.

Apparently, they had not met since the 1960s. 

That previous 1960s occasion is described in Micky’s book Krayzy Days.

This is the way he describes it.

---

At the meeting I agreed to every detail for the killing of Billy Stayton.

Freddie Foreman said he would put a car in a certain location. The boot was to hold a sawn-off shotgun. Billy was to be driven to a pub on Hackney Marshes and we would be assisted by Albert Donoghue, a fella who some have said was given an initiation by the twins.

You can read elsewhere that they shot him in the leg to see if he’d go to the police and when he didn’t he was accepted.

Whoever wrote that needs to be shot in their own leg. It’s complete rubbish.

He was shot for sticking up for Lenny Hamilton and just another reason why I find it so hard to read some of those books.

We left the meet and I got into Freddie’s Citroën. He showed me how the suspension could be moved up and down to compensate for weight.

“Fred,” I said, once we pulled off, “don’t bother to put that gun in the boot. In fact, don’t bother with the car because I’m going. I’m finished. I don’t want to know. I’m off the firm.”

“Hmm,” was all he said.

I said: ‘I don’t want to know. All them fucking people they’ve got round them, I don’t know them, I don’t know their backgrounds. They’ll be putting it on them all eventually. This is ridiculous! Leave me out of it. I won’t be turning up. Drop me off.”

I got out in Cable Street and I went home and I forgot about them.

(From left) Teddy Smith, Micky Fawcett, Johnny Davis, Reggie Kray, Freddie Mills, Ronnie Kray, Dicky Morgan & Sammt Lederman at Freddie Mills’ Nite Spot in the 1960s (Photo: Krayzy Days)