Autobiography

It was only much later that the full story came
out.
Cornell had been shot by Ronnie Kray himself
at 8.33 p.m. on the night of 9 March 1966 in
the public bar of the then notorious Blind
Beggar pub. It was rumoured that Ronnie killed
him because Cornell had called him a ‘big fat
poof’. It is more than possible because
Cornell, six feet tall with a neck like a tree
trunk, was not afraid of anybody and had
grown up with the twins in the back streets of
the East End.
He was big, strong and aggressive, a heavy
drinker prone to violent outbursts. He teamed
up with Charlie and Eddie Richardson and their
enforcer Frankie Fraser in the fight against his
former neighbours for control of gangland
London and the West End.
The uneasy truce between the warring factions
had ended after the shooting of the
Richardsons’ cousin Dickie Hart, and it was
only a few days after his killing that Cornell
and Albie Woods stopped off at the Blind
Beggar, following a visit to Jimmy Andrews
who had lost a leg in a previous shooting.
The Kray twins were in the Lion pub in Tapp
Street when they were told Cornell was in the
area. Ronnie immediately told Reggie he was
going to ‘do’ Cornell, and he, John ‘Scotch
Jack’ Dickson and Ian Barrie picked up their
weapons en route from one public house to the
other. Ronnie and Barrie walked into the bar
and, without a word; Ronnie Kray took out his
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