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.

“All the London casinos were crooked” – gangsters, gambling and bullfighting

Micky Fawcett (left) with Michael at the May Fair hotel in 2014

“So how did your son Michael become a bullfighter in Spain?” I asked former Krays associate Micky Fawcett in the bar of the May Fair Hotel in London last week.

“Well, in the late 1970s,” Micky told me, “I was having a bit of trouble with the gendarmes in London so, around Christmastime, I got in a car to Spain with Michael, his mother and his mother’s sister. We got a flat out there. I had been in Spain before – with Billy Hill.”

“Why were you with Billy Hill?” I asked.

“He wanted to see me because he had pulled that masterstroke which I mention in the book.”

Micky’s autobiographical memoir Krayzy Days goes way beyond his days with the Kray Twins, Ronnie and Reggie.

Young Micky Fawcett (left) with Reggie Kray & Reggie’s wife

“I was out with Reggie in Mayfair one night,” Micky told me, “and we went to go in the 21 Club in Chesterfield Gardens and they wouldn’t let us in, so Reggie chinned the doorman and we went off to the Astor Club in a bad mood. The Astor was in an alley behind where we’re sitting now.

“Reggie owed lots of money in income tax at the time. He had just given me Esmerelda’s Barn (a Knightsbridge club) and said: You take it over. I dunno if you can do anything with it. Sell it to someone or something.

“And, down at the Astor, we saw this guy called Murphy. He was a rick.”

“A rick?” I asked.

“He sits in at the game in a casino but he’s working for the house. Cheating. All the cards are marked. And Reggie said to this guy: You might be able to do something with Mick here. And the guy said: I don’t do anything without I contact The Old Professor.”

“The Old Professor?” I asked.

“Billy Hill,” said Micky. “Anyway, Reggie was furious. It was another knock back to him that night. So we went in the office at The Astor and Reggie phoned Billy Hill and said: Listen. We’ve got somebody here who says he can’t do any business with us unless he gets the OK from you.

“And Bill said: Bring him round straight away.

“So we threw the guy in the car and took him round and Bill told the guy: Get in the kitchen, you. I’ll deal with you in a minute. Then Bill said to Reggie: Can I just throw him out? For old times, sake, eh, Reg?

Billy Hill at home. (Photo: Krayzy Days)

“And Reggie said: No, he’s going in the River.

“And Bill said: No, Reg, think about it. This will be the last place he’s ever been seen. Just for old times sake, eh? I’ll just throw him out.

“So Reggie said: Go on, then.

“And Bill went in the kitchen. A bit of noise. – Oh! Agh! Ugh! Ah! – All over the top. And Hillsy came out and said: I just kicked him up the arse and threw him out. Here you are Reg. And he gave Reggie a brown envelope. Wot’s this? says Reggie.

“There’s a monkey in there, said Hillsy.”

“£500?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Micky. “And Billy told Reggie: It’s a gift. It ain’t nothing. We’ll be friends.

“So Reggie said: OK. And he took it because he didn’t have any money at all. He was skint.

“Anyway, about 48 hours later, I’m round Vallance Road (where the Krays lived) and Hillsy phones up. He says: Reg, I’ve got a problem. Can you get me some help?

“So Reggie gets a few of the more fierce-looking characters around. He didn’t give me nothing. I’d had nothing out of the £500. He said to me: Mick, you stay here and man the phone in case anything goes wrong. And away they go.

“A couple of hours later, he comes back and he ain’t saying very much. Eventually, I ask him what happened and he says: It was a false alarm, really. He was up there playing cards with some of his mates – the waiters out of the local restaurant. Foreigners.”

“So what was the problem?” I asked.

Teddy Machin (Photograph from Krayzy Days)

“Well, I’m going to tell you,” said Micky. “I tell Teddy Machin about it and he tells Hillsy who says: Oh yeah. I know Mick. He came round here with Reggie. Bring him out here. I’d like to meet him. He was in Spain by then. He used to be back and forward to Spain. He used to get about. He’d been to South Africa. So I got on the plane and went out to Spain.

“And it turned out they hadn’t been waiters. They had been alarmed at the Twins moving in to the 21 Club and chinning the doorman.

“The 21 Club was one of the top casinos in the country. They were a bit concerned cos they were running the gambling in London. Someone wrote a book about it. (The Hustlers: Gambling, Greed and The Perfect Con and there was a 2009 TV documentary titled The Real Casino Royale and a Daily Telegraph article.) One of their customers was George Osborne’s uncle.”

“The recent Chancellor of the Exchequer?”

“Yeah. At Aspinall’s, above the Clermont Club, just round the corner from here. They was all crooked. At some point, Billy Hill had said to John Aspinall: You can either blow the whistle and ruin your business or you can include us in it. And Aspinall said: Well, I’ve got no choice, have I? You’re in it.

More on the Unione Corse in the book

“The ‘waiters’ who were with Billy Hill when Reggie went round were the Unione Corse who were running the gambling in Mayfair.”

“They were running all the casinos?”

“Yeah. All the casinos were crooked, near enough. They had a system where they could mark the cards. I don’t know how. Nobody did. But they did. And Billy Hill did.

“So, when I went out to Spain, he told me all the story about how it was the Unione Corse. He wined me and dined me a bit. He took me to the Marbella Club and he said: Come over to Tangier. He had a club there as well and they were in Tangier as well. So I went there with him. Boulevard Hassan II was his address there.

“Anyway, that’s how I got the flavour for Spain. And, when I was in Spain, he took me to bullfights.”

“So,” I asked, “when you later went out to Spain with your son Michael and his mother, how old was Michael?”

Micky Fawcett chatted in Mayfair last week

“Nine. And I said to Michael: I’ll take you to a bullfight. And we did. Then, a few days later, we were on the beach and Michael was messing around with the muleta – the red flag – and he’s playing bullfighters.

“And the fellah who had the concession for that part of the beach was an ex-bullfighter who fought as El Solo. He introduced Michael to other bullfighters. All of a sudden, we were catapulted right into the middle of that sort of thing. The man who ran the bullring had been written about by Hemingway.

“So they have to test the little baby bulls and they see which ones are brave. And Michael was just playing at fighting with the little bulls.”

“There was,” I asked, “no sticking swords or anything else into them?”

“Oh no, no,” said Micky. “Baby bulls. But, while we were there, doing all that, an English woman who was a journalist started making enquiries about Michael and, next thing you know, there’s a picture of Michael in the bullfighting magazine El Ruedo with writing underneath in Spanish all about him. He was 10 years old by then.

“And I didn’t know at the time, but it was also in the Evening Standard in London. So there I am out in Spain trying to keep a low profile and Michael’s got a big picture and article in the big bullfighting magazine and in the Evening Standard back in London – and it was even in the local paper The Stratford Express.”

Young Michael Fawcett got publicity

“He must have been proud,” I said, “aged ten.”

“Nah,” said Micky. “He didn’t care. He said: Oh no! It’ll spoil my image! Cos he was into music.”

“How long did this go on for?” I asked.

“A few months, I suppose. What happened was I then ran out of money.”

“So you had to come back to Britain?”

“Well, no. Not quite.”

“Is this,” I asked, “when you ended up in jail in Belgium or somewhere?”

“Worse,” said Micky.