The writing of The Black Widow
Towards the end of my time as Crime Correspondent for The Mail on Sunday I got to know Kate Kray, the former wife of gangland legend Ronnie Kray. Kate is a bubbly, vivacious, blonde with enormous charm who has been able to trade on her association with the notorious Kray twins by developing a network of underworld friends and contacts who trust her completely. As a result she has become a highly-successful author of crime books both fiction and non-fiction.
One day Kate and I got to discussing her friend Linda Calvey, the legendary gangsters’ moll and female armed robber known throughout the underworld as The Black Widow and the model for Linda La Plante’s hit TV series Widows about a gang of criminals’ wives. At the time Linda was serving a life sentence in the female lifers’ wing of Wakefield Prison along with the likes of Myra Hindley and Rose West. Kate said that Linda was keen to have a book written about her life to boost her campaign for early parole. For some reason Kate was not keen to actually write the book herself so I volunteered. Kate would acquire the material during her regular visits to see Linda and I would actually write the words.
Kate smuggled a tape recorder into the prison and asked a series of questions, at my prompting, every time she visited. Linda would then answer the questions in detail and add anecdotes of her own in the privacy of her cell. The next time Kate visited there would be a tape recording to take away for me to transcribe. This procedure lasted for many months until eventually the book was written and published.
One of the reasons I took on the task was that I thought Linda’s incredible story would make a great movie but in the event the book must have slipped under Hollywood’s radar because no film producers or studio chiefs ever came to call. I don’t know whether the book made any difference but Linda Calvey was eventually released in 2008 after 18 years inside. She has since married for the third time.
The cover blurb for “The Black Widow – the Life and Crimes of Linda Calvey” reads: “Known as The Black Widow because every man she has ever been involved with is either dead or in prison, Linda Calvey is the stuff of East End legend. Her life of crime began when her first husband was shot dead by police when an armed robbery went badly wrong. Left alone with two young children, she began to take part in robberies - first as lookout, then as a getaway driver and finally donning a balaclava and wielding the shotgun herself. Then she met Ronnie Cook, a tough, violent gangster who was eventually jailed for his part in the Brinks Mat bullion robbery. On his release, Calvey hired hitman Danny Reece to dispose of her husband and in 1991 they were both jailed for life for his brutal murder. They later married in prison”.
One day Kate and I got to discussing her friend Linda Calvey, the legendary gangsters’ moll and female armed robber known throughout the underworld as The Black Widow and the model for Linda La Plante’s hit TV series Widows about a gang of criminals’ wives. At the time Linda was serving a life sentence in the female lifers’ wing of Wakefield Prison along with the likes of Myra Hindley and Rose West. Kate said that Linda was keen to have a book written about her life to boost her campaign for early parole. For some reason Kate was not keen to actually write the book herself so I volunteered. Kate would acquire the material during her regular visits to see Linda and I would actually write the words.
Kate smuggled a tape recorder into the prison and asked a series of questions, at my prompting, every time she visited. Linda would then answer the questions in detail and add anecdotes of her own in the privacy of her cell. The next time Kate visited there would be a tape recording to take away for me to transcribe. This procedure lasted for many months until eventually the book was written and published.
One of the reasons I took on the task was that I thought Linda’s incredible story would make a great movie but in the event the book must have slipped under Hollywood’s radar because no film producers or studio chiefs ever came to call. I don’t know whether the book made any difference but Linda Calvey was eventually released in 2008 after 18 years inside. She has since married for the third time.
The cover blurb for “The Black Widow – the Life and Crimes of Linda Calvey” reads: “Known as The Black Widow because every man she has ever been involved with is either dead or in prison, Linda Calvey is the stuff of East End legend. Her life of crime began when her first husband was shot dead by police when an armed robbery went badly wrong. Left alone with two young children, she began to take part in robberies - first as lookout, then as a getaway driver and finally donning a balaclava and wielding the shotgun herself. Then she met Ronnie Cook, a tough, violent gangster who was eventually jailed for his part in the Brinks Mat bullion robbery. On his release, Calvey hired hitman Danny Reece to dispose of her husband and in 1991 they were both jailed for life for his brutal murder. They later married in prison”.
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