ONE OF THE FAMILY 40 Years With The Krays A Memoir

Hardback. The untold, intimate history of the twins and the woman who raised them. Told with humour and insight, it looks back across the decades at the life of this close knit, notorious East End family. Maureen Flanagan, a then 20 year old hairdresser started visiting the Kray family home in Vallance Road each week to give the twins’ mother, Violet, her weekly shampoo and set. Over the cups of tea and the rollers and hairpins, Violet began to confide in ‘Flan’ about her life, her incredible pride in her twins, the celebrities who visited her at their humble East End home - and her troubled relationship with her husband, Charlie Senior. This intensely personal relationship with the Kray family would last for over 40yrs. When Violet, already dying of cancer but determined to do her best for her beloved boys, had to travel across the country on her prison visits, Maureen went too. After Violet died in 1982, Maureen made a promise that she would look after the boys. Her loyalty never wavered - she continued to visit the twins and their brother Charlie at every possible opportunity - right up to the very end of their lives. A fascinating, intimate history of an extraordinary family, this is a detailed story of a unique relationship across the decades. Told with humour and insight, it reveals a great deal more about the Kray twins and their close-knit East End family. Illus. in colour and b/w. 357pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. As New in dw.