Monday 23 August 2010

The Krays: Twincest's New Poster Boys

"They fought as one. They killed as one. But did the Kray twins' uncanny bond lead them to break the ultimate taboo?" asks a headline in today's Daily Mail.
"The ultimate taboo"?!!
What on Jupiter could that be? - Did they write an article about gay men and mental health?
No - it's something even more taboo-y.
The Mail are running extracts based on a new book by John Pearson, who wrote what's regarded as the definitive book on The Krays, The Profession of Violence.
The Mail probably paid a small fortune in serialisation rights, so Pearson must have some really eye-popping new revelations about Ron and Reggie to reveal.
Saturday's Daily Mail had some stuff about The Krays association with the Tory queer peer, Lord Boothby, where Pearson "reveals the full, shocking story he was gagged from telling".
Though hadn't Pearson already written how "the true story of Lord Boothby and the Krays can finally be told" in The Independent On Sunday in June 1997?
The pulled-quote rather gives the gist of the new revelation away; "They discovered they were both homosexual and were so concerned with keeping it secret they only had sex with each other".
The feature in The Daily Mail today is 2,600 words long - so what do we find out about this taboo-busting tale?
"In adolescence they discovered they were both homosexual. At the time and given the macho nature of the East End, this struck them as so shameful that they attempted to conceal it. According to Ron, they were so concerned to keep their secret hidden that for a while the only sex they had was with each other."
And that's it.
Presumably Ron Kray must have told Pearson this at some point.
'Ad a word in 'is shell, like.
Presumably it must have crossed Pearson's mind to ask for a bit more detail, what with this being a pretty big bombshell, and him planning another book and all.
And presumably Mr Pearson shrugged his shoulders and thought to himself; "Probably best not to pry..."

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