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.