The Guv'nor

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Launch, grow, and monetize their podcast everywhere. Acast.com From Luminary, this is British Villains.

When I was a kid, I'd come home from school and there'd be the smell of cigar smoke wafting from our kitchen. Various blokes would be around the table laughing and joking. There was Jerry the truck. He could get you a car at very short notice. I don't know how he did it, but he could get you any fucking car. Then there was Don the Dent. He was the dentist on call if you had your tooth knocked out. And believe me, he was definitely kept busy. I also remember one bloke in particular.

His name was Wally the Peak. He was a gypsy and a jeweller, but he didn't have a jewellery shop, so he wore all his stock like a human fucking display cabinet. Rings, chains, women's earrings, the lot. I think the real reason Wally captured my attention was because he'd always give me and my sisters money. He used to stick his hand in his pocket, he'd pull out a wad of cash, and slowly peel off a twenty and give us one each. It was amazing.

Anyway, for hours they'd play cards, swap lies and drink scotch. To anyone else it looked like they were doing fuck all. But now that I know how villains operate, this was a board meeting, and they were full-on grafting. I'm William Green, and this is British Villains.

The local villains of the time were were real hard men, local hard men who were fighters, they were extortioners, they would go into a pub and they would demand drinks and they would take money. The weapons was used was was uh Sand weighted, sand in a button and tie it up in a knot. They see death. They see destruction. There was this other bloke in our kitchen. Lovely fella. Had a bright smile, always a kind word, always gave me a hug.

I had no idea that he was one of London's most notorious living villains. My name's Freddie Fulman. Uh I was born in Battersea in nineteen thirty-two. And uh I was the the youngest of five brothers. I had four older brothers. Freddie Foreman, born and bred in South London. He was one of the strings that tied the whole London crime world together.

Nothing happened in South London without him getting wind of it. He was good at being a villain. He understood the rules of the streets, and he was brilliant at not getting caught. But Freddie was also someone you could call if you got into a situation. Freddy could fix anything. My dad and Fred, they've been mates since they were kids. They grew up poor, and I mean poor. But the trauma of war was caused by the noise and the lack of stability.

The air raids every night, the eerie whistling of bombs dropping above you, the massive amount of destruction all around. All of that stayed with these kids. Dead people fucking li lying on the pavement and it was so common though, you know, and uh and and uh you was you really scared. I mean there was moments when you really f was frightened. These days

Fred, eighty five years young, still lives in London. So me and my dad went to see Fred. I don't think my dad had seen him since the last time Fred was in prison. It's a little tricky interviewing villains, discussing classified information with people who quite frankly don't like to talk shop, especially when it's being recorded.

I asked Fred how old he was when he first got arrested. First time I got arrested was when uh I I was a in my teens. Uh it was it was a a GPH uh uh having a pancha. That's grievous bodily harm. A tad more than a punch up. Punch up with another gang of kids in Dalwich, uh North Dalwedge, Peckham really it was. So here we are, in Fred's flat. It's in Maidervale, a nice West London neighbourhood.

To give you an idea of how Fred lives today, his flat is bursting at the seams with memorabilia. There are stacks of books and DVDs all about British crime, and plenty of them mention Fred. As I'm sitting there. Help but notice that Fred's using a giant gold bar for a doorstop. I thought to myself, is that real? I mean, it looks fucking real. I thought I'd start off by asking Fred about some of the other weapons that were used in his early days. The weapons that was used was old Woolly Sock.

Sand weighted, sand in the bottom and tie that with a knot and a couple of little still things like a barber's chair when you had your feet in a barber's chair where you put your footrest There was like a couple of those little things. These were the the offensive weapons we supposed to be ha had, which we did have, you know.

Bits of a footrest. They were basically using anything they could get their hands on. He tells me about a time when as kids they were hauled up in front of the judge for possessing said weapons. They nicked about six of us. 'Cause the kids grasped each other out there as soon as the police was there with their mums and there was any kids.

And we were at the old bailey, in the old bailey, the dock at the old bailey. Prosecution's getting up and we're all sitting there and he's saying and he f uh he giving his speech, the opening speech. The only reason Fred Foreman wasn't involved in the Great Train Robbery was because he didn't want to be. As we've mentioned before, villains in London made up a relatively small community, and everyone was in each other's business.

Especially when it came to jobs like the train robbery. Fred heard about the robbery when Bruce and Buster went to see him to discuss him coming on board. But Fred had been busy working overtime on his own big job. The reason was Bruce came to me had asked me, uh and I declined because I just had four bars of gold off and he said, You've had the gold that you And that was only a few weeks prior to the train.

You know, uh well, a month, perhaps a month before. Yeah. Right. So I I wasn't involved with it. Uh uh I d just still got one dad in it. What's that out there? No. That's confirmation on the gold bar then? Twice the size of they they were it was searched Biggest gold bobby since the Spanish mine they put in the paper. And what year was that like sixty two? Just before the train, right. So Fred wanted to lay low for a bit. He was almost always at the top of any suspect list for these big heights.

So now wouldn't have been the time to start robbing the Queen's train, no matter what the payout. Anyway. Went to the rest of the gold bars, Fred. And did they ever get any of it? Did they got any Well, I got it all over to Switzerland. Got it in the into a Swiss bank and got every penny at uh at the right price. It'cause it didn't have to be SA'd.

Because it's essay me. Well you t you have to go to uh Johnson Mathis and they they evaluate the quality of the gold. Well these bars, twenty-eight pound bars, twice the size of them ones. And underneath the window that it's Rand, got Rand and it's got all serial numbers and the quality of the gold. Every bar's the same quality, you know.

There's no doubt that Freddie Foreman was an expert bank robber who was known for participating in historically big jobs. But who is he really? First up, there's the Fred the public knows. Fred was a career villain, a villains villain, a troubleshooter. He worked for a time with the Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie Cray. Probably the most notorious crime figures of the era.

He also worked with other firms. Fred was tried twice for murder, but never convicted. He went to prison, once for armed robbery, once for playing the part in disposing of a body. The facts state that he was an intimidating villain who was connected to some of the most violent and hardcore gangsters of the London underworld, including Tommy Marks. Ginger Marks. We'll hear about Ginger Marks later. And then there's the thread I know through my dad.

Friendly bloke, great storyteller, lovely guy. I mean, the first time you met Fred, you thought he must be a bank manager, because that's how he looked. Maybe this was a deliberate act to gain your trust. Either way, I liked him, and so did my dad. Regardless, you just can't tell the story of British crime without including Freddie Foreman.

Fred Foreman's a very uh important person uh when we talk about the postwar London crime scene. Dick Hobbs, our resident criminologist who specialises in British crime. We are stick about Fred. He had uh the skills and the personal abilities uh to work with a wide range of people. He wasn't restricted by territory, that's important to say. Although he was from South London. And his base was in South London. He wasn't restricted by that at all.

He had a a good relationship with Charlie Cray, with the Cray twins' older brother. which uh i enabled him to meet the craze and to work with them briefly. I mean I've met Fred a couple of times, uh, to this day he's a very charming man, he gets on well with people, he looks you in the eye and he talks to you. He's articulate, he's thoughtful, um he's a bright guy. And I think these personal characteristics and his uh reluctance to get involved in the kind of

juvenile sort of gang warfare that the Krays were interested, particularly Ron Cray was interested in. Um, that was his that was his skill, that was his ability to just to just keep out of that as much as he could.

And to make money, because that is really what it's about. There aren't many blokes still standing who knocked around with Bruce Reynolds, who did business with the Krays or the Richardson. Except Fred and my dad. The the the two main families that we talk about when we talk about crime in i in London are the um are the Cray family, the Cray family. and the Richardson family. The Cray family, East London, born in Hoxton, moved to Bethnal Green, Um

And the Richardson brothers from South London, Peckham. For the American listeners, we'll start with the Cray twins, if only because they're the best known. Certainly whenever I go to the States and let's talk about organised crime there, people say, Oh yeah, I've seen the film. of the Crays, I've seen this, I've read the book on the Crays, etcetera, etcetera and they're just like American mafia, or they're just like an Italian crime fact. Well they're not, they're different. So the Cray family

They settle in Bethnal Green. Bethnal Green, East End of London. Back then it was dirt poor and crime was rife. Three brothers. uh Charles Cry, the oldest, and the two twins, the most famous, uh Reg Cry and Ron Cray. But the main thing that they experience is that they experience the um the trials and tribulations of war as children. They see death. They see destruction.

they're aware of the tension and the fear that is in the air. Um Gradually the Craig brothers learnt about violence, they learnt about boxing, and they started to really look up to local villains. And the local villains of the time, we're talking now i into the into the nineteen forties.

And the local villains of the time were were real hard men, local hard men who were fighters, they were extortioners, they would go into a pub and they would demand drinks and they would take money from the from the people that ran the pub. And these guys really hadn't changed from the hard men of the nineteenth century. They were kind of Dickensian characters, you know. They they they they had all had fantastic n nicknames and they

th they they had big, big reputations and they were extremely tough, violent men. They were they were violent to women, they were violent to neighbours. They w were n nice people but nonetheless The craze started to look up to these guys because they were making money. They were making their own money. They weren't rich, but they were making money and they had were respected people in that area.

And they started to comi copy them, they started to mimic them. By the time they become teenagers they're known to the police for fighting. They're known as being good at fighting. Indeed, the the the only talent that the Kray Twins ever had was violence. That's what they did. That's what they were good at. They w they went on to become lousy businessmen and not very good gangsters actually, but they were very good at violence. They had a talent for violence.

And the Krays certainly did not uh hold back from from using weapons and in their time they used every kind of weapon in order to to enforce their uh their their reign and Nothing unusual about that. In that respect, nothing's changed. As I pointed out already, British villains and American gangsters were different animals. But the truth is, a lot of London villains were influenced by what they saw happening overseas and in the movies.

This was particularly true of the Krays. They adored criminals. They liked big name criminals. Ron Kray adored Al Capone. they started to mimic the kind of American model of of of organized crime th w that they'd seen on on on the films. A barber would visit

um the family home. They still lived at home with their mum. Um they a barber would uh visit th the family home to give them a uh to give them a haircut because um Ron Cray knew that that's what Al Capone had done so he was mimicking Al Capone. So i there was a lot of this a lot of it was front. a lot of this was about um was about uh publicity, uh about celebrity. They liked celebrity, they liked uh hanging around with uh actors and actresses and famous boxers.

The British actor Tom Hardy played both the crays in a film called Legend. While preparing for the roles, he consulted Fred. Hardy penned the introduction in Fred's book about the craze. He wrote, How is it that this underworld enforcer has given so much of his time to coach me in the way the twins walked, talked, scratched their heads, and even giggled? Well,

Freddie was there and he fiercely believes that if you're gonna tell the story of Gangland London, then you better tell it right. They were always being photographed and and shown in in in local newspapers.

Uh the local newspaper was the East London London advertiser. Now in terms of being a good gangster or a a smart gangster, the craze never made huge amounts of money. The craze made more money when they were in prison than they did when they were outside prison. Now one of the things that gangsters do is they take over businesses.

So there's a bit of extortion, you know, there's a bit of give me five pounds a week and I'll make sure there's no trouble. It's gonna cost you ten, it's gonna cost you twenty, it's gonna and eventually they become partners in the business and of and then the legitimate people, the the non criminal people just walk away from it and they leave the

to to the gangsters. It's it's classic. It goes on all over the world. You'll you'll find this all over the world. When this happened with the with the craze, when they took over a business, they killed the business stone dead. They were useless.

'Cause they ran it like a boys' club. They ran it like a boys' club. There's money being taken out of the till, there were fights, they were doing the fights, they were they were hurting people, they were doing the fighting rather, they were hurting people.

that they were damaging people because they they liked violence and they were very good at it. It was their main talent. And they couldn't run these businesses. So they would take over a business and within a year or so the business was flat and useless and gone. And they'd move on to something else.

The Krays weren't great businessmen. I think everyone at the time knew that. What's more interesting is the stuff people didn't know. Ron Cray was wa was mentally ill, severely mentally ill uh i ill, and he um became dysfunctional as a criminal. Pretty m dysfunctional as a criminal, except for his violence. Um Redge Crystal.

was struggling with his sexuality. Um it appears now in retrospect that rage was probably bisexual. Um and you've got to remember this is an era when um homosexuality was illegal. So this was this was quite difficult for for Reg Crow to deal with. He married a young woman. It was a chaotic marriage, things went wrong, she committed suicide. he reverted to taking um drugs and drinking heavily and his violent activity

um tended to dominate the commercial activity of the of the Cray firm. So they became violent. Ron Cray me Ron Cray meanwhile wa wa was gay. Uh he was severely mentally ill. And the combination of these two things came together and they committed um I don't think we've got time to go into the details of the murders, but they committed um at least two murders. You can't overstate the hardships of being gay back then.

It was illegal to be homosexual, and the punishments were extreme. So being openly gay was just not an option for most people. So the craze in particular as gay Murderers were lived in really interesting times. I mean I I'd say if they were around now they'd be on Celebrity Big Brother, they'd be in the jungle, they'd be doing all of this stuff, they'd have their own websites, they'd have their own clothing ranges, you know, you name it. You you you name it. It would um

Yeah. It'd be good when it Queer Eye with Ron Cray. Because that that campness which is now part of the way we all live and part of the way we consume and part of all kinds of things. was was not central to the culture then. So they went for this hyper masculinity. in order to cover up their conflicted sexuality.

And I think that's kinda interesting. So that's the craze. In my dad and Fred's era, the other big firm in South London were the Richardsons. Charlie and Eddie. They were a big time family firm and they were very successful. They were in South London and the Richardson were very different. The Richardson's uh a similar age.

They came through the Second World War, they saw and heard and suffered all the things that everybody else suffered during the Second World War. But after the Second World War they showed as very young men that they had a punch for hard work. They could grow. And they set up a scrap metal business.

They also made money from various other um activities, including uh long term frauds. Now a long firm fraud would be uh you would set up a business And you would buy your stock um from a l from legitimate firms and you would pay on time and you would build you would do this over several months, maybe longer, and you would build up a a good line in credit.

And then one day when you had a good line in credit from multiple suppliers you would make a big order from each one of those suppliers and you would bring the goods in and you would disappear. And that was a long firm fraud. And the Richards although the the Krays did it as well, the Richardsons were particularly good at it, particularly uh adept at making money from long firm from long firm frauds.

They didn't fuck about. They gathered uh around them a a group of of uh of men who uh in terms of their violent potential were far more potent than than the craze. The people the craze had round around them were uh competent. Uh but that was about it. The group of people that that the Richardsons had around them w were were were serious criminals and and and w of a proven extremely violent background. And they became involved in what was later to be called the torture trial, the torture cut.

where um they it was alleged that um they had set up an informal trial of key individuals who had allegedly taken money from them from these long firm frauds that they've been setting up that they've set up. And um and they would torture them, allegedly. Uh they would um attach uh a generator uh to the private parts of of of uh some of their pr prisoners, in quotes, and um torture them with uh elec electricity. So they captured a few of them, took'em back and put'em on trial, didn't they?

The criminal underworld at the time was shifting to a dark place. Very dark. Professor Hobbs has his own take. From my perspective and I've looked at it quite closely, um, the torture trial, this these allegations that that uh people were were tortured, um, had their toenails ripped out with pliers and all kinds of things like that, were severe severely beaten. Um I can't see any records of any scars, of any medical records, of any x rays, of any photographs.

And my gut feeling is there was a severe uh exaggeration of what was going on because it suited everybody to get these guys put away for as long as possible. Of course. As we know, everyone has a version. Here's Fred's. And remember Dr. Hobbs. He actually knew these fellows. Really. Put an electric thing on their text testicles. and s sending them out bollock naked with and leaving them at telephone boxes with with no clothes on and to you know, to

That's what they done. So they were Oh of all people scary. Nasty people. Just nasty. Yeah, things you wouldn't dream of doing, you know. Since we're on the subject of nasty bastards, let's talk about Frankie Fraser or mad Frank as he was known.

Not just the villain. Mad Frank was a fucking psycho. I spent some time with um Frankie Fraser, who's of course known as Mad Frankie Fraser, for good reason. Um And and Frank liked violence. And he was introduced to violence early on. A very intelligent man was was Frank and he he was very um keen to point out that he didn't come from a particularly deprived background.

Except the air element of deprivation that does come in, according to him, was that his parents were not criminals. And that was a drawback for him. The family were not criminal. Now for him that's a that's a that became a drawback. Because other young men, when they were first started to get arrested, could take advice from the family. They could say, Well say this to the police, don't say that to the police. When you go to court this is how to behave. When you go to prison

Mention this person, mention that put this is how you're gonna go. He didn't have any of that. And he regarded that as being a drawback in his chosen career. Fraser ended up spending several decades in prison. That's a big old price. to pay for that lifestyle that he had only briefly. That he had only briefly.

But he did it and, you know, I I asked him about it and he said, No, I wouldn't change a thing. Why he was, and that was the way he's wired and I've got no answer to why he was wired like that really.

Speaking of the children of criminals, the In Fred's flat, there's an impressive metal bust of him made by Nick Reynolds. Who was also a noted artist, as well as a musician. So I um I said to my dad, Who's the kind of the nine most famous living or infamous um criminals in England that days? That's Nick. Bruce Reynolds's son. There's a paradox here, you know, and I want to explore this, how how sort of people that are vilified

um by the media on on one hand can then be fated on the celebrity circuit the next. This didn't make any sense to me, so especially kind of growing up with it and so close to it. So he gave me a list and I cast all of their heads. Um you know, I molded I molded their faces for an exhibition called Cons to Icons. And um I did Mad Frank in a in a straitjacket. Mad Frank being Frankie Fraser.

But the f the funny thing is is uh I nearly killed him when I was doing it'cause they have to breathe um through straws in their nose. And because his nickname um was the dentist,'cause of apparently he used to go around with a pair of pliers, you know, ripping people's teeth out and stuff like that.

Um so I thought right, I've got this old fashioned dentist chair and I had him sat in the dentist chair and um was covering his head and I said to him, Look, this it's gonna be on you for about half an hour, forty minutes.

Um, any problems, you know, just put your hand up, you know, and um and I'll take it off, you know. So, okay, understood. So I put the straws up his nose, started putting everything on and I'm chatting away with him, you know, and I get the odd little nod here and there. You all right, Frank, you know. Thumbs up. All of a sudden

I said to him, Are you alright f and I was look I looked at his knuckles and his hands were shaking and his knuckles were white and I said, You alright there, are you alright? And he didn't respond and I thought, bloody hell, what's going on? What's going on? So I quickly pulled everything off. Luckily it had just started to To go hard and he's there panting, panting for breath. And I said, What what's what was that?

My nose has been broken so many times, he said, um I didn't realise uh how difficult it is to breathe that long through my nose. And he said about halfway through, he said, I I couldn't breathe through my nose. I said, Well what were you doing? So I was holding my breath. I said I said what

Why why why didn't you just put your hand up and and tell me you was in trouble and I could have a he goes, because no one else has done that yet, have I? I didn't want to be the first. He didn't want he he would have rather suffocated than then chicken out. And that's um Now, in my opinion, Mad Frank, Frankie Fraser, was a violent nutter. And to some degree, the Krays were too. They didn't care about being legitimate businessmen.

That's why I don't put Fred in the same category, because even though Fred was a career criminal, he also ran lots of above-board and very successful businesses. Here's Dick Hobbs. I think that's a great point. Yeah, they are ordinary people. Most of'em. Some of them are not. I mean some of the people I've met are complete nutcases and you're glad to get out of the room. But not many.

Not many. I mean I have I have interviewed, talked to, spent time with a few uh criminals who are quite frightening, they're cold, and when they talk about violence, they like it. They they they like the memory of the violence. They like the effect it has on them. And they like the effect the effect that it has on the listener as well, because they can see your if they're talking about gouging someone's eye out and they can see your repulsion.

And they like that power they've got over you, they like that ability, you know. They they like that. Yeah. But they're few and far between them. They're few they're few and far between. They are out there, but they're they're few and far between. And uh you know, Fred Foreman in his day was a

Physically a formidable man, there's no doubt about there's no doubt about it. But um he was a rational man. He knew what he was doing, uh he made choices, and um for a big chunk of his life those choices paid off.

My ma George got blasted with a shotgun, right? There's one story that Fred remembers in fine detail. That's the funny thing about villains. When it comes to certain events, they possess these impressive retentid memories. Other times when questioned, their memory fogs over and they begin to mumble incoherently. Anyway, it all begins with Fred's brother having an affair with a known London villain's girlfriend. Not a clever move. Brother got shot. in Vauxhall they had a council flat

And my George was bit and all you know what sailors are, free and easy, bright and breezy. Right. The ladies' pride and joy. Right. He used to put it about a bit, George, and when the clubs had with a Mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio.

the blombird, who used to come in the club. They used to come in five four or five handed uh and I even took a at f finished up partying up my p place in Milton Road up in O'Neill. We used to go back there till early hours of the morning, I had a cocktail bar and I called her and finish off, you know what I mean? And but sh and sh sh and uh for this reason, right, she run run off this day.

when she found out I it I was his brother. She didn't realise it. George's brother. Anyway, there was this I never knew what was going on, never knew nothing about it. But he'd been seeing that and he got Evans, Jimmy Evans got to see it. I have about it. So George, the good-looking sailor, is playing with fire because his new girlfriend is married to a villain called Jimmy Evans.

who was banged up in prison at the time. And uh he'd already done another guy with a knife a blade, which he'd had a bit of a f a flea with, and went through his private parts. And stabbed him there and cut his thumb off. The guy at the guy lost his thumb with with the blade. Right. And he had this house of peacocks that that they had these peacocks w bone and they're better than any guard dogs, any noise I went there great. They had them d in the Napoleonic Wars and all that they used

So they they're a bit of history with'em, you know. And he had this speaker and uh It he uh he w he went out and got a four ten with a guy, four ten shotgun. Shotgun, but it wasn't big enough. He went back and What's the smallest one under a four ten is a two ten? Uh uh is a smaller one. Uh anyway, they're d different size cartridges. But it wasn't big enough for what he wanted. He'll got the four ten ones versus the bigger one.

And uh'cause that'll come out later on in the evidence. Anyway, let's get back to what happened after Jimmy Evans found out. Evans brings his mate Tommy Mark. Street name Ginger Marks to help resolve this situation? And uh he uh uh George was with his four daughters and his wife having a meal tea time. And Daddy Pen Broke lived two doors uh on along from him on the balcony. Here's an interesting fact.

Danny Pembroke was one of the train robbers who got away. Had a second, less stressful career as a London cabbie. Anyway, carry on, Fred. And uh he was as you come up the stairs of the Belkney in the flat, so he just to left his George's flat, then Daddy left two t fr flats further down. So he He he's having a meal and it uh it it gets I suspect that if George had been a villain like Fred and not a sailor, he wouldn't have opened that door.

This wasn't a social call. Right, Ginger Marks, yeah. And Jimmy Marks says, Uh oh, it sounds so sound so living, right? He said, I don't know, mate, I don't know I don't know their names, but I can ask that someone else, you know, I don't know who it is. And uh oh I he shut the door, went back and had a mill, he's kept on with his mill. And about five minutes later

he knock knock on the door, it goes to answer the door, goes it opens the door. But it's a bit darker now'cause th they'd taken the little bulbs out on the stairs, apparently, on the flats. So it was a bit dark and He steps out of the shadows. with a shotgun blast him, he held it too close. If it had stood back, the the shot would have spread. But it didn't it come out like uh in a in a bolt and a mass. Didn't have time to spread.

It took in a a bigger area'cause he's uh aiming at his private bars. Trying to shame in the pollock. Yeah, yeah, that's what he was aiming for. But it didn't he come out to too solid, like before it spread. It was too close up. And of course it hit him yeah, right yeah, in the leg there. And and you could put a bottle a champagne bottle in into the wound. You could put it in there, honestly. Like that it was his wound, like that.

And and George George was at the door, he hit the wall at the end of the passage. That's the with a blast. It knocked him from the door to the back wall at the end of the passage. And who came out, who heard it? Danny. Our elusive train robber Danny. Danny P. And he came road up the door and saw George to stay, No one had mobile phones in the or f phones in the house. But he had to run down Danny to to a a red pillar post box. And uh people waiting they used to queue up outside to

get in and take uh make a phone call. And he gets in there and phones up an ambulance. Ambulance comes, takes the Thomas's hospital. One of the daughters come round to the pub to tell me what had happened. I'll go up to St. Thomas's, it's full of coppers everywhere. I go into the walled uh he's in bed. He can hardly he's semi conscious. And as he's lying there, he's he's just lying there. And I said to him, George?

Ginger top, ginger top,'cause the covers are in there, you know. So ginger top, who's ginger top? But he you got the one who come and knocked on the door and asked for someone that he he half recognised him, you know. Right. Uh so I don't even know who it was. The agonizing weight for the doctor paid off for George because they were able to save his leg. And uh and saved his leg. Amazing. And he had his leg on him till the the age of ninety three. How lucky was that

This was not the end to this story. Revenge for this shooting was not an option. It was expected. But so he's laying in the bed and he saw he's giving me the chins at Tom and I didn't know that. So what Is from that manner I go to the twins stay away, don't I? Right. The Cray twins. And remember, they knew everyone. And um I mean that catch you now and I s I said, you know anyone my name but d who called Ginger Tob?

But Char Charlie Quay said, Fucking course of course the Twin said, Yeah, we don't know. He's lived round the corner round. Oh d oh, I said, Oh. I said uh what what what's uh he's uh he's g he's going and worked uh he works with uh Jimmy Evans. He's the fight guy that burns out all the Jewish uh stout uh all their factories. So it turns out that Ginger Marks' area of expertise was burning down factories for insurance claims, particularly in the East End of London. It was also a dual thing.

The Craze informed Fred that Ginger Marks had been hired to rob a jeweller's that weekend. So he's he said he's got I told him he's got to bring the Tom Man to me after the rubbery, so I'll have it off him and so He's got to work with the guys he works with and it turns out it was him.

I asked Fred at one point if he thought it was worth it. The life of a villain. A life of crime. He goes, I don't know. I spent 20 years in prison. I don't know if it was worth it. Probably not. As we're about to leave, Fred told me about a time he and his crew broke into a safe. A safe inside a glass factory, of all things. It's an all-night work in there. So in this big factory

It's all bang, crash, you hear all these noises and machinery going. That's right. They planned to break into the safe in the factory while the factory workers were just carrying on with their shifts. But luckily for them There's no security, apparently. We've been told there's no security, right? And the office windows

looked out onto the work uh where all the work was going on. So we made our entrance there and the Peter was over at the side. So we had to build a tent. The Peter's the safe the safe, yeah. We had to build a tent round the safe and burn it open and and then wait for it to cool down. We have got to wait like ten, fifteen minutes or so, you know. So we go w we go and sit down below the window and all of a sudden

We're having a sandwich with a glask of tea there and we're just sitting there relaxing and So you're on the job you're having a cup of tea? Well yeah waiting for the the Peter to cool down. You had to wait for it to be a big thing. They bring you sandwiches and tea with you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you're on the job. Oh yeah, of course.

When I think of that image, Freddie Foreman in the middle of a robbery, pausing for sandwiches and tea. In effect, taking a fucking lunch break, just like the factory workers in the next room over. It occurs to me that a villain like Fred, for all his notoriety, crime and money, he really was quite ordinary. When we left his room, he was sitting in his armchair, staring out his window onto a grey London afternoon. And he looked like any other man in his twilight years with time to reflect.

Grew up poor during the blitz, something he said. Nightmares about. Did his best to get ahead with what he had, sometimes wits, sometimes fists. He did time. He has big regrets. But he's also a bloke who took his sandwiches to work. Because being a villain was his job. In a recent magazine article, Fred goes to great length to say he doesn't glamorise criminals. He regrets how his life turned out. The last thing he tells the reporter, I just hope it encourages kids to get a good education.

In this bonus episode, we were pulled down a rabbit hole of the who's who of nineteen sixties organized crime. Freddie Foreman let us into his world. Just a little. As we've mentioned before, most of the players from that time are long dead, their stories buried along with them. Freddy Foreman walked the pavements of London, north, south, east and west.

He wasn't tied to any place or anyone. He was and remains the governor. And he doesn't shy away from any of it. The money, the violence, the police. Every villain we've covered on this podcast has had to live with the knowledge that their actions affected people. Because there are no victimless crimes. Here's my final thought. Today, our banks have highly sophisticated security systems, and CCTV is following our every move. But crime hasn't gone away, and neither of villains.

Because people in difficult circumstances will always look for ways to beat the system, to make readies whatever way they can. Today, people lock their doors at night, don't talk to their neighbours, and public housing communities are broken and divided. The class system in England is still in place. Which means some people will make the decision to hustle their way out of poverty, whatever way they can. It has always been just about economics, and that's the truth, at least my side.

I'm William Gray. And this is British villains. Thanks for listening. Ninth Planet Audio and Western Science. Executive producers are William Green, Aaron Ginsburg, Jimmy Mellon. The show was written by Rosecrans Baldwin and Vanessa Sad. Nick Reynolds and Edward Rose composed the theme, music by Michael Cruz. Producers include Christina Moore, Annette Runhell, and Stephanie Aguilar. The show was sound designed and engineered by Dan Leen.

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