Gay kray
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As much as I love showing how inspirational the Queer people of history can be…. they weren’t all wholesome heroes. And I’ll be the first to admit… sometimes it’s fun to write about a bad guy. And Ronnie Kray definitely fits the bill.
Ronald “Ronnie” Kray and his brother Reginald “Reggie” were born on October 24, 1933 in London. Their parents were Charles David Kray and Violet Annie Lee, they had a brother who was older than them by six years named Charles James Kray. Reggie was the older of the two — by ten minutes. At three years aged, both twins came down with diptheria. They attended college, first at Wood Close School and later at the Daniel Street Institution. All in all, a fairly plain childhood.
As adolescent boys, thanks largely to their grandmother, the twins took up amateur boxing. Egged on by their sibling rivalry, they actually managed to be kind of successful at it. (Inherent violent tendencies probably helped too.) In March of 1952, the twins were called upon to join the National Service in the British Army. Although they did show up to the depot as they were supposed to, they tried to lea
He was a a thug, a bully, and a murderer who made himself a British popular hero. He was a friend of Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, and he once said, “I’m homosexual but I’m not a poof”. We use the deplorable story of Ronnie Kray to explore class, crime and postwar British attitudes towards homosexuality. A content note: this episode contains frank discussions of childhood sexual abuse; as such, listener discretion is advised.
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SOURCES:
Campbell, Duncan. "The Selling of the Krays: How Two Mediocre Criminals Created Their Own Legend." The Guardian, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/the-selling-of-the-krays-how-two-mediocre-criminals-created-their-own-legendlegends
Kray, Ronnie. My Story. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1993.
Pearson, John. Notorious: The Immortal Legend of the Kray Twins. London: Arrow Books, 2011.
Pearson, John. The Profession of Violence. New York: Harper Collins, 1995.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Ronnie Kray
The twins were born in Hoxton and the family moved to Bethnal Green in 1938. They both took up boxing. On organism called up for National Service, they immediately went absent without leave, and were held briefly in the Tower of London. They were convicted and sent to a military prison.
On discharge from the army they both took up crime full-time, but also became fashionable nightclub owners, and mixed with celebrities in the 'swinging sixties' era.
In 1964, the Sunday Mirror reported that Scotland Yard was investigating a homosexual relationship between an unnamed peer (actually the Conservative peer Robert Boothby) and a major underworld figure (Ronnie Kray). Boothby wrote to The Times denying being gay, and said that he had only met Ronnie three times, and the Sunday Mirror was forced to pay him £40,000 to avoid a libel suit. However letters came to light in 2009 showing that there had indeed been a friends
Were the Kray twins gay?
Author claims Kray twins had incestuous relationship to camouflage their sexualities
Joseph Patrick McCormick; 31st August 2015, 5:01 PM
An author has claimed that Ronnie and Reggie Kray had an incestuous sexual relationship to conceal their same-sex attractions.
The Kray twins, who were notoriously violent gang leaders in the East End of London in the 1960s, spoke extensively to storyteller John Pearson.
The author spoke as the film ‘Legend’ starring Tom Hardy as both twins is released.
Speaking to the Mirror, Pearson said Ronnie Kray was gay and that Reggie Kray was bisexual.
He said they had a sexual relationship because they could not be open about their sexualities.
Pearson said in a book about the twins: “Homosexuality was nothing to be proud of in the East End.
“But as they became more notorious, Ronnie became quite shameless about it.
“According to Ron in the preceding days they had sex with each other because they were terrified about people finding out.”
Pearson has written three books on the subject of the infamous twins, and claims that Ronnie told him about the relationship during on of many interviews.
He says he waited until both twins were dea