Reggie Kray Remembers

Five Years in the Hospital Wing

The following are extracts from the autobiography
BORN FIGHTER
by Reg Kray

When During my stay in the prison hospital I was locked up for twenty-three hours a day, although I could have another hour in the TV room if I wanted. In this room, on the top floor, all the nutters would sit staring at the TV screen - that's if it wasn't being hurled to the ground with a crash. I used to sit on my own at a table to the left of the room and write letters.

During rest spells from writing, I would take in everything I saw, and I saw some strange goings-on. Some of the unfortunate inmates who were sick or who didn't know a better way of life would scoop their plastic cups into the swill bucket beneath the tea-urn, collecting the slops which they would then drink.

The patients in the hospital were in a worse state than those who had been certified and sent to Broadmoor, because they had yet to be assessed and so the medication they so badly needed had still not been sorted out.

I spent five Christmases in that part of the prison, and on each Christmas night I would go to the toilet which had a window overlooking miles of the Isle of Wight. I would peer out of the window and wonder what life went on amidst the twinkling lights I could see in the distance, and I thought to myself that any Christmas I spent differently to this would be a bonus.

Each day I say a prayer. It is not a prayer said in despair or sorrow, it is a prayer of thanks. I'm thankful for my friends and family, for being given the chance to live again through my writings despite the walls which have surrounded me, for being fortunate in my health when others are so tragically disabled, and for being given the ability to cope with my sentence.

I decided long ago that the best way to beat my sentence was to go along with the tide rather than swim against it and drown, to enjoy each day rather than wishing the time away. I cram as much into each day as possible because the more one puts in, the more one will get out of that day. I suppose, at times, I am happier than others who may be sunbathing in Miami Beach or jetting round the world from one luxurious hotel to another. One may as well build castles in the sky as dungeons below in ones thinking. It's just as easy to be optimistic in life as pessimistic.

I believe that Ron and I were predestined to become known, either by fame or infamy. I seem to have walked a double path most of my life. Perhaps an extra step in one of those directions might have seen me celebrated rather than notorious. I always wanted to be recognized as the king of the clubs, but I chose the path I chose, so now I must walk it.

Buy BORN FIGHTER, published by Arrow Books. ISBN 0-09-987810-0