Queering the pitch: the Kray twins

High time we had a bare chest again! In this instance it's two for the price of one. And these, children, are definitely the sort of men your mother warned you about.
I have recently developed an interest in the Krays, for reasons that will become apparent as this post progresses. Of course I sort of knew about them, but I watched a documentary (We Ruled London, independent Studios UK Ltd, 2009) which both illuminated their world & infuriated me in equal measure. Using archive footage, it brings the underworld of London's east end in a previous age to life. It's a different world from now: the Krays had no involvement in drug dealing at all, that came along after they were imprisoned: their racket was protection. It's also very apparent what a pair of thoroughly nasty pieces of work they were. So unsuitable that I thought Ronnie was quite hot in footage of a TV interview they did. Shifty doesn't begin to describe them, although that Cockney accent is always sexy.
And off their heads - I can't think of a better way to describe it. I don't merely mean Reggie's long-standing mental illness (I believe when he died in Broadmoor his diagnosis was paranoid schizophrenia), but a more overarching sense of not being right. The film uses a wild understatement in describing Reggie's shooting a family friend in the foot for some imagined slight as 'unstable'. It was evident that they were on some roller coaster of being unaffected by the influence of their actions on other people, that at its most extreme must move over into personality disorder.
And they ruled the East End with a rod of iron. *Everyone* was simply too frightened of them to get on the wrong side of them, & to get witnesses for their eventual prosecution the Crown had to make deals with so many people who would otherwise be facing criminal sentences as well.
But the film made one omission which is very telling. It is a matter which I have known about in a general way for yonks, so it must have been in the public domain. Yes girls, murder & protection rackets were not enough: they were another sort of man your mother warned you about. They were Queer. And do you know, that film makes not one mention of it. Reggie had a lifelong gay orientation: numerous partners & even procured lads for Lord Boothby. This was well known in the Firm: let's face it, you wouldn't want to call one of the Krays a poof, & if anyone ever raised an objection he told them didn't know what they were missing. Ronnie was mainly hetero, but did have flings with men as well, on rare occasions admitting it to family members only. This is based on what they told one of their old neighbours, who grew up with them & has written a biography of them. I find it simply astounding that in 2009 (I'm actually watching the 1990 film as I write this & Reg has just kissed a man) a documentary can pull no punches about organised crime and murder, but can't bring itself to mention homosexuality!
Outrage at that aside, I do have a twisted reason of my own for bringing the Krays up. The second picture shows two underworld crime bosses strolling around their manor. Not what you'd expect from a homosexual & a bisexual twin. They were Queers, duckie, but not confined to the worlds of hairdressing & interior design. Of course I'm not for an instant condoning their crimes, but it's so good to hear of Queer men who break the stereotypes.
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