FRANCES
Fifty years ago, a 21 year old woman, a stunningly beautiful bride, walked down the aisle of an East End church to marry a handsome but notorious criminal.
Following a courtship which had lasted seven years, Frances Shea had finally tied the knot with Reggie Kray, one half of the notorious Kray twins duo, the East End gangsters who terrorised London in the Fifties and Sixties.
David Bailey's poignant black and white images of that wedding day -- the only time Bailey ever worked as a wedding photographer -- were the starting point for my journey into the past to discover the real story behind Frances' marriage to Reggie -- and the truth about the life of the beautiful girl that had remained Reggie's fixed obsession since the day he first met her as a schoolgirl. Because just two years and two months after that highly publicised wedding day in April 1965, Frances was gone. She'd died by her own hand, with an overdose of drugs.
I knew I faced an enormous challenge in writing this book, simply because the story involved the Krays and their fame, mostly cultivated by the Twins themselves throughout their lifetimes, had spread far beyond the East End of London over many decades. Nearly thirty books had been written about them. A movie had been made about their lives while they were still alive. Their respective funerals in 1995 and 2000 were widely reported around the world. They'd been convicted of murder and for that reason they went to prison in 1969 and remained there. But in the midst of all this, I knew, right from the beginning, that there was a compelling, if dark story about what happened to Frances --and why she was desperate to escape Reggie's world for ever.
Even all those years on, fear of the Kray name and their criminal reputation hindered me. Many people flatly refused to talk to me. Some, so disgusted by the Kray reputation, told me they had actually burned letters and documents linking a close family member to the Krays. Others, incorrectly believing that a single photograph of Frances and Reggie in a nightclub was a passport to a huge payday, were downright angry when they learned that this was not the case. Some people blatantly asked for cash for questions, hanging up when I explained that sorry, this wouldn't be possible. Others talked excitedly of their 'connections' but had never even met Frances or the Krays. It was pretty much what I'd expected.
Yet in time, a picture of Frances emerged from my interviews and research. Not of a scared, neurotic, drug dependent young woman as she'd been portrayed previously, especially in the 90s movie, but of a very different girl, far from the 'arm candy' label she'd previously been handed.
Frances Shea was bright. Intelligent. Imaginative. A grammar school girl, a lover of Tennyson and literature. A beautiful, immaculately clad girl who was curious about the world around her, certainly. But not in any way scared of Reggie Kray, who worshipped her beauty, believing that by showering her with expensive presents, escorting her to posh West End nightclubs and taking her on lavish foreign holidays -- at a time when most East End girls would be more likely to holiday in a caravan on the Essex coast than go abroad -- he would somehow draw her ever closer, bind her to him for good.
The Kray Twins had already committed many crimes and even gone to prison for them in the years before that April wedding day. But I realised, as I went through the story, step by step, the senseless and brutal murders for which they were eventually imprisoned for life, took place after the wedding. Frances had left Reggie after just two months living with him and returned to live with her parents. Her downward spiral -- for that is what it was -- took place in those last tragedy strewn two years. Yes, there was a great deal of fear and terror in Frances' life. But it was generated by the scary presence of Ronnie, Reggie's twin. And the violence he represented.
Tragically, this really was a case of three people in the marriage. Just as Reggie never wanted to let Frances go, Ronnie was equally possessive of his twin. It was a bitter, ugly triangle: Reggie, ever conscious that his twin's behaviour could be totally out of control, was torn:he couldn't have a normal relationship with the girl he worshipped because his twinship and their crimes together, their very image as uber gangsters, dominated his life. In many ways, he wanted out, dreamed of a domestic life with wife and kids.
But he was tied fast to his twin: the other half of me, as the wreath said so explicitly at Ronnie Kray's funeral.
Because this was the Krays there were many myths to dispel, stories that had somehow been interpreted as 'truth' over the years. For instance, there were many stories in the press that Reggie had confessed, in his prison cell, that it was Ronnie who had killed Frances, given her the pills. The truth was: on the night Frances took her fatal overdose, Ronnie Kray was in hiding from the police in another part of London.
Then there was the question of Reggie's ambiguous sexuality: At 32, he'd married Frances knowing that his youthful adventures with young men were a distinct part of his life. Indeed, in 1966 Frances had wanted the marriage annulled for non consummation and legally changed her married surname back from Kray to Shea. Reggie had stalled, telling her he would organise the legal side of the anulment. Before it could go to court, Frances was dead.
Keep going with research and eventually you will find truth. In the National Archives, in examining a Home Office file from 1969 which documented Frances' mother's fruitless attempt to have Frances' remains removed from the Kray burial plot in Chingford and buried elsewhere under her maiden name, I uncovered a chilling message to the world from beyond the grave: copies of Frances' suicide notes to her family, unseen until then. Obviously, Elsie Shea had taken copies of these tragic notes to show the authorities, to plead her case. The authorities, in turn, had informed Mrs Shea that because Reggie Kray owned the freehold to the burial plot, only he could give permission for Frances' remains to be removed. This, of course, was never going to be forthcoming.
It is, in the final analysis, a desperately tragic story of a young woman caught up with a possessive man with a history of violence. History, of course, was very much against Frances: divorce remained expensive and nigh impossible for ordinary people back then. Young women still expected to go to the altar as virgin brides in 1965 -- which suited Reggie perfectly. And a young girl from a working class background wouldn't have too many opportunities back then to run off and form a new life elsewhere -- other than within a marriage.
One of the Kray Twins Firm, now an elderly and frail eightysomething in a care home, summed it up for me succinctly: 'She knew she was trapped' he said.
That was, indeed, the core of it. To this very day, people find themselves trapped in possessive or violent relationships from which they find it difficult or impossible to escape. Sometimes the ending to their story is as tragic as the story of my book. So Frances the Tragic Bride is dedicated to those people and their families. For as I learned in writing Frances, it is often the families that have to live on with the terrible legacy of such crimes, decades after they had taken place.
Following a courtship which had lasted seven years, Frances Shea had finally tied the knot with Reggie Kray, one half of the notorious Kray twins duo, the East End gangsters who terrorised London in the Fifties and Sixties.
David Bailey's poignant black and white images of that wedding day -- the only time Bailey ever worked as a wedding photographer -- were the starting point for my journey into the past to discover the real story behind Frances' marriage to Reggie -- and the truth about the life of the beautiful girl that had remained Reggie's fixed obsession since the day he first met her as a schoolgirl. Because just two years and two months after that highly publicised wedding day in April 1965, Frances was gone. She'd died by her own hand, with an overdose of drugs.
I knew I faced an enormous challenge in writing this book, simply because the story involved the Krays and their fame, mostly cultivated by the Twins themselves throughout their lifetimes, had spread far beyond the East End of London over many decades. Nearly thirty books had been written about them. A movie had been made about their lives while they were still alive. Their respective funerals in 1995 and 2000 were widely reported around the world. They'd been convicted of murder and for that reason they went to prison in 1969 and remained there. But in the midst of all this, I knew, right from the beginning, that there was a compelling, if dark story about what happened to Frances --and why she was desperate to escape Reggie's world for ever.
Even all those years on, fear of the Kray name and their criminal reputation hindered me. Many people flatly refused to talk to me. Some, so disgusted by the Kray reputation, told me they had actually burned letters and documents linking a close family member to the Krays. Others, incorrectly believing that a single photograph of Frances and Reggie in a nightclub was a passport to a huge payday, were downright angry when they learned that this was not the case. Some people blatantly asked for cash for questions, hanging up when I explained that sorry, this wouldn't be possible. Others talked excitedly of their 'connections' but had never even met Frances or the Krays. It was pretty much what I'd expected.
Yet in time, a picture of Frances emerged from my interviews and research. Not of a scared, neurotic, drug dependent young woman as she'd been portrayed previously, especially in the 90s movie, but of a very different girl, far from the 'arm candy' label she'd previously been handed.
Frances Shea was bright. Intelligent. Imaginative. A grammar school girl, a lover of Tennyson and literature. A beautiful, immaculately clad girl who was curious about the world around her, certainly. But not in any way scared of Reggie Kray, who worshipped her beauty, believing that by showering her with expensive presents, escorting her to posh West End nightclubs and taking her on lavish foreign holidays -- at a time when most East End girls would be more likely to holiday in a caravan on the Essex coast than go abroad -- he would somehow draw her ever closer, bind her to him for good.
The Kray Twins had already committed many crimes and even gone to prison for them in the years before that April wedding day. But I realised, as I went through the story, step by step, the senseless and brutal murders for which they were eventually imprisoned for life, took place after the wedding. Frances had left Reggie after just two months living with him and returned to live with her parents. Her downward spiral -- for that is what it was -- took place in those last tragedy strewn two years. Yes, there was a great deal of fear and terror in Frances' life. But it was generated by the scary presence of Ronnie, Reggie's twin. And the violence he represented.
Tragically, this really was a case of three people in the marriage. Just as Reggie never wanted to let Frances go, Ronnie was equally possessive of his twin. It was a bitter, ugly triangle: Reggie, ever conscious that his twin's behaviour could be totally out of control, was torn:he couldn't have a normal relationship with the girl he worshipped because his twinship and their crimes together, their very image as uber gangsters, dominated his life. In many ways, he wanted out, dreamed of a domestic life with wife and kids.
But he was tied fast to his twin: the other half of me, as the wreath said so explicitly at Ronnie Kray's funeral.
Because this was the Krays there were many myths to dispel, stories that had somehow been interpreted as 'truth' over the years. For instance, there were many stories in the press that Reggie had confessed, in his prison cell, that it was Ronnie who had killed Frances, given her the pills. The truth was: on the night Frances took her fatal overdose, Ronnie Kray was in hiding from the police in another part of London.
Then there was the question of Reggie's ambiguous sexuality: At 32, he'd married Frances knowing that his youthful adventures with young men were a distinct part of his life. Indeed, in 1966 Frances had wanted the marriage annulled for non consummation and legally changed her married surname back from Kray to Shea. Reggie had stalled, telling her he would organise the legal side of the anulment. Before it could go to court, Frances was dead.
Keep going with research and eventually you will find truth. In the National Archives, in examining a Home Office file from 1969 which documented Frances' mother's fruitless attempt to have Frances' remains removed from the Kray burial plot in Chingford and buried elsewhere under her maiden name, I uncovered a chilling message to the world from beyond the grave: copies of Frances' suicide notes to her family, unseen until then. Obviously, Elsie Shea had taken copies of these tragic notes to show the authorities, to plead her case. The authorities, in turn, had informed Mrs Shea that because Reggie Kray owned the freehold to the burial plot, only he could give permission for Frances' remains to be removed. This, of course, was never going to be forthcoming.
It is, in the final analysis, a desperately tragic story of a young woman caught up with a possessive man with a history of violence. History, of course, was very much against Frances: divorce remained expensive and nigh impossible for ordinary people back then. Young women still expected to go to the altar as virgin brides in 1965 -- which suited Reggie perfectly. And a young girl from a working class background wouldn't have too many opportunities back then to run off and form a new life elsewhere -- other than within a marriage.
One of the Kray Twins Firm, now an elderly and frail eightysomething in a care home, summed it up for me succinctly: 'She knew she was trapped' he said.
That was, indeed, the core of it. To this very day, people find themselves trapped in possessive or violent relationships from which they find it difficult or impossible to escape. Sometimes the ending to their story is as tragic as the story of my book. So Frances the Tragic Bride is dedicated to those people and their families. For as I learned in writing Frances, it is often the families that have to live on with the terrible legacy of such crimes, decades after they had taken place.
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