Free Bringing Down the Krays by Bobby Teale Page B

was yet another big party. For Ron it was simply a way of saying: ‘Up yours’ to the Establishment. Alfie and David got into trouble that night; in fact they got barred for chatting up the cigarette girls. But it wasn’t for long.
    The good times continued, with the Krays at the heart of the sixties nightclub scene. David told me how they were in El Morocco one night when Ronnie pointed out the actor Edmund Purdom (who was very famous at the time) to him. ‘See him? I want you to meet him here tomorrow at ten and bring him over to Vallance Road,’ he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world to pick up a film star and take him to a little terraced house in the East End. So the next day he metEdmund Purdom as arranged and took him over to the Krays’ house. Ronnie called out, ‘Mum, make us a cup of tea?’
    When Violet came in with the tray she couldn’t believe her eyes.
    ‘Is that really him? In our house?’ Ronnie introduced her to him. When Violet had gone out, Ronnie handed the actor two hundred pounds, saying, ‘Give it back to me when you can.’
    But it wasn’t just film stars that David got to drive around. He was in El Morocco one night when Ronnie gave him orders to pick up someone the next day – someone who was to become far more famous than any sixties matinee idol … but only after he was dead.
    Ronnie told him: ‘Right, Dave, go out tomorrow morning and pick Jack the Hat up at Aldgate at 10 a.m.’ David said ‘All right,’ without the faintest idea as to why. The next morning he found Jack standing on the corner waiting for him. He told him to drive down Commercial Road, do a left and pull up. Jack then said: ‘Don’t move from here. I won’t be a minute.’
    Jack McVitie was an armed robber, getting a bit pissed a bit too often, taking too many of the drugs he was peddling, but otherwise inoffensive enough. He wore that trilby hat to hide a bald patch. He was very sensitive about it.
    David waited patiently in the car, glancing up in the mirror a few minutes later to see Jack running towards him with a bag in his hand. He’d just robbed a bank. David couldn’t believe it. Jumping into the car, Jack shouted: ‘Get off the manor, I’ve just done a bank!’
    David had just acted as an accessory to a bank robbery without even knowing about it. He never got a penny for it. Laterhe said to me, ‘I was just used, stupid gofer that I was. I didn’t dare complain or Ronnie would just tell me to shut up or he’d give me a slap.’
    David told me about another crazy night when he and Alfie were summoned to go round to see the Colonel at Vallance Road about seven in the evening.
    Alfie got out of the car and David went to park round the back. Ronnie came out, all suited and booted and said: ‘Where’s your car? I want you to drop me somewhere.’ So they went back to the car, and Ronnie jumped in the front, Alfie got in the back, and David took his place behind the steering wheel.
    Ronnie was wearing a camelhair coat. He told David he needed to go to a meet in a pub in Stoke Newington. When they arrived, Ronnie said something to the geezer behind the bar and went upstairs while Alfie and David waited downstairs. They stood there for about an hour until Ronnie came back down and told them, ‘Take me back to Vallance Road. The three of them duly climbed in the car and David drove them back.
    When they got there, Alfie and Ronnie went in ahead of David. Ronnie took off his overcoat and David heard him say to Alfie: ‘Put that in the yard. Watch how you go with it … very gently.’ Only then did my brothers both realise the coat was full of explosives.
    Ronnie just grinned when David asked him about it. He said: ‘If any of them had gone for me, the whole pub would have gone up.’
    Turns out Ronnie knew someone who’d been in the army and was an explosives expert. Presumably it was him who hadmade up the coat for him. If my brothers didn’t know by now, it was as clear as day