Kray twins

Their parents already had a six-year-old son, Charles James (1927–2000).

A sister, Violet (born 1929), died in infancy.

The twins contracted diphtheria when they were three years old.

The Kray household was dominated by their mother, who remained the brothers' most important influence during their childhood.

Their father was a rag-and-bone man with a fondness for heavy drinking; his work led him to live a semi-nomadic lifestyle as he travelled all over southern England looking for junk to sell, and even when he was in London he frequented pubs more often than his home.

The Kray twins first attended Wood Close School in Brick Lane and then Daniel Street School, Bethnal Green.

Ronald (Ronnie) Kray (24 October 1933 – 17 March 1995) and Reginald (Reggie) Kray (24 October 1933 – 1 October 2000) were English organised crime figures, and identical twin brothers from Haggerston, who operated mostly in the East End of London from the late 1950s until their arrest in 1968.

With their gang, known as the Firm which was based in Bethnal Green, the Kray twins were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets, gambling and assaults.

Ronald and Reginald Kray were born on 24 October 1933 in Haggerston, East London, to Charles David Kray (1907–1983), a wardrobe dealer, i.e., a dealer in secondhand clothes, and Violet Annie Lee (1909–1982).

The Krays were thorough Eastenders - Charles from Shoreditch and Violet from Bethnal Green - and were apparently of mixed Irish, Austrian Jewish and Romanichal descent - although this has been disputed.

The brothers were identical twins, with Reggie born ten minutes before Ronnie.

In 1938 the family moved from Stean Street in Haggerston to 178 Vallance Road in Bethnal Green.

Mrs. Kray was regarded as a minor celebrity in Bethnal Green for giving birth to and raising a healthy pair of twins at a time when the child mortality rate was high among the British working class.

In the interwar period, it was normal that one of the twins born into working-class families would die before adulthood, and it was most unusual that both the Kray twins survived, making their mother the object of much admiration in Bethnal Green and causing her to have an inflated ego.

There was a feeling within Bethnal Green that there was an almost unnatural emotional closeness between the twins and their mother, who shunned the company of others.

Ronnie later stated about his childhood: "We had our mother, and we had each other, so we never needed no one else".

One of the Krays' cousins who attended school with them, Billy Wilshire, recalled: "It's hard to say exactly what it was, but they weren't like other children".

The Krays' biographer, John Pearson, argued that their mother planted the seeds of the malignant narcissism that the twins would display as adults by encouraging her sons to think of themselves as being extraordinary while spoiling their every whim.

During the Second World War, the elder Kray deserted from the British Army, having been conscripted in September 1939.

The Kray twins were called up to do National Service in the British Army in March 1952.

Although the pair reported to the depot of the Royal Fusiliers at the Tower of London, they attempted to leave after only a few minutes.

When the corporal in charge tried to stop them, he was seriously injured by Ronnie when he punched him on the jaw.

The Krays walked back to their East End home.

They were arrested the next morning by police and turned over to the army.

In September, while absent without leave (AWOL) again, the twins assaulted a police constable who tried to arrest them.

He spent the next fifteen years living as a fugitive, being finally arrested in 1954.

During this period, he was only irregularly involved in raising his family.

Meanwhile, the twins were evacuated to East House in Hadleigh, Suffolk, with their mother and their older brother.

The family remained in Hadleigh for about one year before moving back to London, as Mrs. Kray missed her friends and family.

While they were in Hadleigh, the twins attended Bridge Street Boys' School.

At their peak in the 1960s, they gained a certain measure of celebrity status by mixing with prominent members of London society, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.

The Krays were arrested on 8 May 1968 and convicted in 1969 as a result of the efforts of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read.

Each was sentenced to life imprisonment.

In a 1989 interview, Ronnie described Hadleigh as the twins' first time in the countryside, recalling that both were attracted to the "quietness, the peacefulness of it, the fresh air, nice scenery, nice countryside – different from London. We used to go to a big 'ill called Constitution Hill and used to go sledging there in the winter-time."

The influence of their maternal grandfather, Jimmy "Cannonball" Lee, caused the brothers to take up amateur boxing, then a popular pastime for working-class boys in the East End.

Sibling rivalry spurred them on, and both achieved some success.

Ronnie was considered to be the more aggressive of the twins, constantly getting into street fights as a teenager.

The British scholar Jonathan Raban wrote that he had a "low IQ" but that he was an avid reader who especially liked books about T. E. Lawrence, Orde Wingate and Al Capone.

Raban attributed much of Ronnie's "savage petulance" as a teenager to his rage over having to hide his bisexual tendencies.

Ronnie, upon being certified insane, was committed to Broadmoor Hospital in 1979 and remained there until his death on 17 March 1995 from a heart attack; Reggie was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2000, five weeks before he died of bladder cancer.