A few decades ago, in a time that is now a relic of my former life, walls were both symbolic and vital. I was a cop, but there were times when it was perhaps more advisable to deny that fact – an enforced yet necessary barrier – especially when I was undercover or off duty drinking in a pub of ill repute. I won’t deny that I regularly concealed some of the more unpleasant experiences from my loved ones. Emotional fortifications weren’t uncommon, although to what extent my mental health was impaired is open to speculation, no matter how rounded I may consider myself to be many years after surrendering my warrant card.
Physical walls were essential too, and easier to appreciate. Keeping offenders at bay – particularly the viciously violent – was best served by the erection of huge physical walls around our prisons, custody blocks, and other less obvious places that fell outside of the criminal justice sector. One of the latter institutions was a regular tea stop of mine. The seemingly impregnable outer wall – nonetheless breached on several occasions – was imposing, iconic, and intriguing, especially in relation to the infamous inmates situated a few strides away from the safety of the Formica table where I sipped my mug of hot tea and often devoured one of the best full English breakfasts ever. Broadmoor Hospital had an aura that seeped through the walls of this high-security psychiatric hospital in leafy Crowthorne, Royal Berkshire, England.
The most notorious criminally insane patients housed there at Her Majesty’s pleasure during my time stationed at nearby Bracknell nick included Peter Sutcliffe – aka the Yorkshire Ripper – convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980; Ian Ball who attempted to kidnap Princess Anne in 1974; Charles Bronson whose alter-ego was “Britain’s most violent prisoner,” and who also staged a three-day roof protest causing a quarter of a million pounds worth of damage to the Victorian building; and Ronnie Kray – of the notorious Kray twins – who controlled organised crime across great swathes of the East End of London from the late 1950s to 1967. The identical gangster twins have been the subject of several films and documentaries – my personal pick being the 2015 film “Legend” in which Tom Hardy skilfully portrayed both Ronnie and his brother Reggie.
As an ex-cop, I guess it would be easy for me to simply dismiss the Kray twins as callous criminals who were both long overdue lengthy imprisonment at the time of their arrests and eventual convictions. Of course this analysis is sound, although I find the judgment of historian Harry Sherrin to be the most compelling testimony: “The Krays were undoubtedly ruthless criminals, responsible for violence, coercion and a 2-decade-long reign of terror in the city’s underworld. But they were also complex, damaged and at times even charming men.”
They were celebrities too and frequently rubbed shoulders with the glitterati including Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. High-society photographer David Bailey indeed often captured them on camera. However, the wall of silence that had previously stood firm protecting the twins from incarceration fell when both were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in March 1969 – Ronnie for the murder of George Cornell on 10th March 1966, and Reggie for the slaying of Jack “the Hat” McVitie on 29 October 1967. The former murder occurred in the most public of settings when the youngest twin – by a factor of ten minutes – casually walked into The Blind Beggar pub, and upon hearing his victim utter the words “Well, just look who’s here,” nonchalantly shot him in the head in front of a wide eyed audience of drinkers. Almost fifty-six years later, I was at the scene of the crime, drinking a beer, and wondering why I was captivated by the felonious history that should have been the extreme polar opposite of my law enforcement heritage; the dark anti-matter of my matter-of-fact criminal justice allegiance; the flipside to my law and order coin. Whichever way I diced the situation those that busily took photographs of the walls of this once den of iniquity seemed to share my confusion. So, was this healthy enquiry or evidence of a collective morbid fascination with the dark side of human behaviour?
I was reassured to learn that this voyeurism was perhaps not as sinister as I may have initially predicted. In the BBC Science Focus review, this human trait was reassuringly classified as a protective mechanism: “Evolutionary psychologists say that we’re drawn to these tales because murder, rape and theft have played a significant part in human society since our hunter-gatherer days. It’s in our nature to be highly attuned to criminal misdemeanours, and we instinctively want to discover the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ so we can find out what makes criminals tick, and to better protect ourselves and our kin.”
Dean Fido, Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Derby, concludes a complementary narrative that more readily chimed with my ingestion of beer: “As humans, we are always looking for something new and novel. Whether it’s good or bad, we need something that creates an element of excitement. When we mix this desire with insight and solving a puzzle, it can give us a short, sharp shock of adrenaline, but in a relatively safe environment.”
As my eyes gazed upon the walls, some littered with memorabilia of those distant times and the events of that particular day, I wondered if the naming of food offerings was a line that should not have been crossed. A man had lost his life at this exact location in the most brutal of circumstances and his murder was remembered by overt commercial exploitation. Yet, wasn’t this the very essence of history – keeping the critical lessons of antiquity alive and real even if it came with chips?
No doubt sensing my continued curiosity, a fellow drinker interrupted my reflection and asked if I had seen the bullet hole? Pointing skyward, I saw the supposed aftermath of the execution; a hole – probably caused by Ronnie’s associate who fired into the air at the same time as Ronnie took the fatal shot – proximate to a framed record of the original ceiling covering on the nearby wall; equally, this looked like a hole created by thrusting one of the nearby pool cues aloft – but who knows the truth? And in this instance fables clearly sell fries.
At that moment, the walls and the overhead interior connected with me, and Ronnie Kray once again captured my consciousness as he had done all those years ago as a young police officer whose job it was to protect the public from his criminal intent. Once again, I felt an eeriness that was simultaneously electrifying and frightening.
History is gripping. Go out and grab some today. It could save your life.
© Ian Kirke 2022 & all photographs
@ianjkirke