Wannabe in My Gang? Read Online Free PDF

Empire Theatre, but Campbell could not attract enough celebrities for it to be put on. Eventually it was agreed that it would be a charity boxing show. Boxing clubs from West Ham and Newham in the East End agreed to provide the fighters. The donated items that I had received for the failed event in Wolverhampton could now be auctioned off between bouts at the show, which was to be held at the Prince Regent Hotel in Essex.
    Campbell was really enthusiastic. He went on about all the people that he was going to invite. ‘Everything will go well,’ he assured me. ‘We will raise a lot of money for James.’ Looking back, I regret not asking him exactly which James he had in mind.

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    LOOKING AFTER YOUR OWN
    After my first visit to Ronnie, he would ring my house two or three times a day and I would visit him at least once a week. To be honest, I felt sorry for Ron. He seemed like a man who ‘knew’ everybody, yet in reality had nobody. His life revolved around his infamous name, which after two decades in custody was all he had left. He genuinely believed that people on the outside were worried or interested in what he was up to. Ron was still living in the 1960s when he was a somebody in the East End, a force to be reckoned with. I got on really well with him but thought of him as the sort of old-age pensioner who sits down next to you in the pub and starts reminiscing about his ‘war days’ rather than some mythical manic gangster. Conversation in the main revolved around the 1960s in preference to the present or the future. Then again, there was very little else he could talk about, having spent the last 20-odd years of his life in a cell. As for the future, I doubted if he had one beyond the walls of Broadmoor.
    It was true that Ron was not a well-balanced man. He wasn’t foaming at the mouth or barking at the moon, but he was a very paranoid person. Ron the good guy wanted to be liked and do good things for people so he could read what a nice man he really was. He thrived on publicity and it was as if he was screaming out for affection. Ron the bad guy would also court publicity, revelling in the fact he was portrayed as Britain’s most infamous gangster, and had no regrets whatsoever about his murderous past. This two-fingered gesture at the authorities cemented his reputation as gangster number one and undoubtedly made him feel as if he had ‘achieved’ something. Ron the good guy was easy to deal with, while Ron the bad guy was a fucking nightmare.
    On one visit to Ronnie Kray, I was surprised to see Roger Daltrey, lead singer with The Who, sitting at the table. In my youth I had been a big Who fan, so I was quite impressed, not to mention pleased, to meet him. Ron introduced me to Daltrey, who listened painfully to me reminiscing about Who concerts I had attended over the years and Who songs I considered to be masterpieces. It soon became apparent to me that Daltrey had endured this conversation a thousand times before so I reluctantly shut up. Given an opportunity to speak, he explained why he had taken the time to visit Ronnie. Daltrey was apparently obsessed with the idea of making a film about the Krays.
    He said it was the only British gangster film worth making and, handled the right way, would make as good a film as The Godfather , if not better. I learned that very early on in the negotiations Daltrey had been going to Parkhurst Prison to talk things through with Reggie. Apparently, Reggie also thought it was a good idea and had set the wheels in motion for Daltrey to make the film. Daltrey had already paid for three scripts to be written and had even lined up actors to play the lead roles. Hywel Bennett was to play Ronnie and a lesser-known actor, Gerry Sundquist, was to play Reg. Bill Murray, who played Detective Don Beech in the television series The Bill , was to play Charlie. Daltrey’s idea was that violence wouldn’t be a major force in the film. He was more fascinated by the twin element and