A FORMER Evening Advertiser journalist told today how he became a trusted friend of the Krays.
Robin McGibbon is to auction dozens of Kray-related items in the town where he once worked.
Mr McGibbon went to Fleet Street after a stint as an Adver sub-editor in 1963.
After setting up his own publishing company in the early 1970s, he became publisher and later ghost-writer and biographer to Charlie Kray.
Charlie was the elder brother of Ronnie and Reggie, the notorious gangster twins who dominated London with a rule of iron before they were jailed for life.
Mr McGibbon became a close friend and confidante of all three.
Ronnie died in 1995 and Reggie last year. Charlie died in 2000 at the age of 73, while serving a 12-year sentence for a drug offence.
Over the years, Mr McGibbon, now 60 and living in Kent, received dozens of items of memorabilia from the brothers, including many letters, but has now decided to sell them.
They will go under the hammer on April 11 at Dominic Winter Book Auctions in Maxwell Street.
Many have never been seen in public before.
Mr McGibbon explained: "The era has been eventful, but it's over they're all dead now.
"I don't see any point in keeping these things in the loft.
"I decided to enclose some letters from Charlie written before and after his conviction for drug offences in 1997 to demonstrate how very different he was from the twins.
"While their childlike, barely legible scrawl indicates lazy arrogance as much as a lack of education, Charlie's neatness, and ability to say what he feels in comprehensible sentences, shows that he was a more compassionate, likeable human being with a far superior intellect."
The twins were jailed in 1969, with a recommendation that they served at least 30 years.
At the same time, Charlie Kray was given 10 years for disposing of the body of one of their victims a charge he always denied.
He was released after serving six years and eight months, and Mr McGibbon was drawn into the world of the Krays shortly afterwards.
The archive, expected to fetch a total of more than £10,000, includes:
About 80 letters written by Ronnie and Reggie Kray between 1985 and 1993, covering a wide variety of subjects and providing an insight into their mental state toward the end of their lives. Ronnie's letters cover issues such as his resentment at what he described as lies in other writers' biographies, including one written by his then wife, Kate.
Matters raised by Reggie include media coverage, charity work and an accusation that Mr McGibbon didn't understand the way of life in the East End of London.
A photograph of Swindon film siren Diana Dors showing a copy of her autobiography to Charlie and his parents, watched by Diana's husband, Alan Lake.
Lake was to shoot himself dead shortly after Diana Dors' death from cancer.
A photograph of all three brothers with Hollywood film star George Raft, boxing legend Rocky Marciano and Frank Sinatra's bodyguard Eddie Pucci. Pucci was murdered on a US golf course by a Mafia gunman.
A signed copy of The Kray Portfolio, a luxuriously-bound and presented large format book issued in the 1990s and mainly containing photographs, many of which had never been published before or have been since.
A set of 10 letters written by Charlie Kray to Mr McGibbon between September of 1996 and November of 1998 from Belmarsh Prison in South London. This was before and after his final conviction for supplying cocaine.
Mr McGibbon said: "They illustrate, very clearly, what a caring man Charlie was and how he valued the support his friends were giving him during his imprisonment. They also show his sadness at not being free to visit his dead son's grave, and the trust he had in me as I struggled to complete the update of his autobiography without him there advise me."
A unique copy of David Bailey's famous 1960s studio photograph showing all three Kray brothers, specially printed by Bailey for Charlie Kray and with a written dedication to him. It was taken from the original negative at Charlie's request about 30 years after it was taken.
Dominic Winter Book Auctions document specialist Richard Westwood Brookes, said: "I find this a remarkable archive.
"It offers a fascinating insight into the psychological make-up of the Krays, who were our most spectacular criminals of the 20th century."
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