The End with Flan

Behind the headlines… are the people who were there.

In this bonus episode of The Krays Web, we step away from the timeline and go behind the scenes — sharing a powerful interview with Maureen “Flan” Flanagan, who helped organise the funerals of Ronnie, Charlie, and Reggie Kray.

From personal memories to extraordinary details, this episode offers a rare, first-hand perspective on the final moments of the Kray story.

In this episode:
• How the interview with Flan came together
• Behind-the-scenes recordings from the research journey
• Flan’s memories of organising Ronnie Kray’s funeral
• The scale, logistics, and personalities involved
• Stories from Charlie Kray’s funeral
• Reggie’s illness and final days
• The challenges and tensions surrounding Reggie’s funeral
• Seating plans, rivalries, and managing powerful figures

Why it matters:
This episode brings you closer than ever to the reality behind the story — told by someone who lived it. It’s a reminder that history isn’t just events… it’s people, memories, and moments.

Follow the show for more exclusive interviews, untold stories, and deeper dives into the people connected to the Kray twins.

More bonus episodes coming soon — including interviews with detectives, authors, and those connected to the Kray story.

Links to Resources

Check out my website for resources used and social media links : thekraysweb.com

Contact me : wendyceepods@gmail.com

Music by Captain Fat Hands captainfathands.com

Transcript

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Wendy Cee 0:23

Welcome to the Krays Web, a podcast about the infamous Kray twins and those associated with them. I'm your host, Wendy C, and this is season one, The Krays, episode 18, The End with Flan. Please note that there is some swearing in this podcast and descriptions of violence. I'll be adding specific trigger warnings where needed. The voices that you hear throughout the podcast are all my family and friends who have rallied around to help me to make this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to. I've used lots of sources when writing these episodes, far too many to list here, but details of which you'll be able to find on my website, thecrazeweb.com. As I mentioned in episode one, I've spent around two years researching for this podcast, and during this time I've recorded my thoughts along with details of interviews and events that have happened along the way. In this episode I will be sharing some of the interview that I did with Maureen Flanagan Cox, who prefers to be known as Flan, as she shares her recollections of the funerals of Ronnie, Charlie and Reggie, which she helped to organise. I will also share some of my research recordings, starting with this one from the 15th of July, 2024. So I joined this amazing Facebook group called Kray's Crime Lords of London, which I thoroughly recommend you join. And someone told me that I should speak to Maureen Flanagan Cock. She's apparently the oracle on the twins. She was a hairdresser to the twins' mother. Anyway, today it's the 15th of July 2024. I've been on the group just about two weeks, I think, and I've just I sent Maureen a couple of messages, but she's not responded, so I've just tried to put a comment out on there to see if I can get in touch with her, which would be amazing. And later on that day. Well, it's still the 15th of July 2024, and so the post worked. Maureen gave me her telephone number and I sent her a text message to just explain who I was and why I wanted to speak to her, and we've actually just spoken on the phone. So amazing lady, she's invited me to go for a coffee sometime and hopefully we can have a chat and she can tell me, you know, a bit about her life and the things that she knows about the craze as well. But I've been researching her absolutely fascinating lady. Obviously, I've got her book and um I'll be reading her book before we meet, but hopefully in the next couple of months I'll get to chance to meet Maureen or Flan as she prefers to be called, so it's very exciting. But um yeah, we'll just see where this journey is going to take me. It took a little while to manage to actually arrange that meeting, which was down to me. So it's been a little while because I switched my phone from one provider to another and it all went a bit peak tongue as they say. And uh so unfortunately I lost contact with Maureen for a few weeks, but it's now the end of August 2024. Unfortunately she had a charity event at the end of June at the Blind Beggar pub which I would love to have been at but missed it by a few weeks, but you know, maybe it wasn't meant to be. Anyway, um I will be meeting up with Maureen very, very soon. Now we're back in touch. I think she maybe thought I was just ignoring her, but unfortunately, you know, technology is great when it works, but you know, I had some issues with my phone and I just I couldn't get my messages for a while. It's all sorted out now. So um yeah, anyway, hopefully I'm gonna meet her soon. Watch this space. And then finally, on the first of October 2024, I made it to Maureen's. Okay, it's the first of October 2024, and I'm on my way up to London to meet with Maureen Flanagan Cox, otherwise known as Flan. Um first interview really for this podcast, and yeah, I'm pretty nervous, I don't really know what to expect. She sounds like a lovely lady on the phone, but you know, it's the first time of doing this, we'll see how it goes. So I arrived at Maureen's flat in Hackney, East London, and she greeted me at the door. She might be in her eighties, but she is beautiful, with blonde hair and a stunning smile. The first thing she said to me was, Do you know what day it is today? And I said, Of course. It's the first of October, the anniversary of Reggie Kray's death, which seemed like a fitting date to be meeting. She invited me in and I walked through her small hallway filled with photos of her in her modelling days, to her lounge complete with leopard print sofa. She made me a drink and we sat down to chat, and seven hours later when my mics had long run out, we finished. I recorded my thoughts when I left. Okay, I've just come out of Maureen's, I've been in there about seven and a half hours. We've recorded for nearly six hours, the mics ran out, and we carried on chatting. Absolutely amazing. What a day. I I don't really know what to say other than I'm completely exhausted. I now have to drive back home, which is now telling me I need to drive through central London and over Tower Bridge. Not ideal in the size of car I've got, but there you go. Absolutely amazing day. Couldn't have wished for more, and I learnt so much. Absolutely brilliant. And as I was on my way home, in fact, I was crossing Tower Bridge. Maureen messaged me. So funny, Maureen just messaged me to ask me if she'd bored me because I was there so long, and apparently her son couldn't believe that I'd want to be there that long. But I assured her absolutely I could have sat there all week listening to her. I had an absolutely amazing day. I'm really tired, but I should be home about ten o'clock this evening, I think. So not bad. Brilliant day. So what did we talk about? Well, Maureen has an absolutely amazing life, which you can read about in her book One of the Family. But I will also be doing some episodes with her at a later date to share more of the interview that we did. For now, this is what she told me about the logistics of Ronnie's funeral.

Flan 6:19

I did Ronnie's, but I'm used to it. You'll meet these two people outside the florist in Roman Road, yeah, Carol McQueen's, yeah, yeah. And take them in for and um that they got a lot of money. They want uh three or four wreaths, they're doing them for three or four people, and uh you'll make a um concession like that. I said, What's happening to your wreath, um Reggie? He said, Oh, they're doing all my wreaths, three wreaths for me, they're doing for nothing. I said, Well, I hope they're doing mine for nothing. Oh, we said I've already spoken to them because you want the harp, don't you? The Irish harp, I always have it at every funeral, standing up one with the middle string broken, and they do it lovely because it's got to be green to start off with, haven't it? So they do green olive leaves. Oh, they do it beautiful, and she was very clever. I said, What have you got? Oh, I've got a boxing ring. Does he know how much this is gonna cost? He's not paying for it. A boxing ring is gonna go on the top of the cart, and um, it's gonna have one boxing glove standing up, and one boxing glove laying down, and the boxing gloves are gonna be red. Oh, yeah, they would be, yeah. And the strings of the boxing ring and the four are gonna be white, and the green. I said, Yeah, and then two weeks later he rang her up. Carol, Reg here. This is all from Parkhurst, he's ringing. Right, you're doing me boxing ring. Yes, oh, it's gonna look magnificent. They've never seen anything like that in this end. She was in the middle, row and row. Well, I've decided um I want flowers, and I want it to say to the other half of me. You've got to figure out how many letters. Each letter's 40 pounds. Yeah, a letter to the other half of me. That's on the side of the um coach. Yeah, she's had to say yes. Um, I'll send you a few, Bob. But then again, he's already thinking I won't. But then again, I have sent you at least 50 people. Oh, I know the people that come in here and been asking for things, and one's wanted a dog because he had um a dog when this man knew him. Oh, yeah, he had an Alsatian called Rex. Oh, you're gonna make a dog. Well, that's gonna cost a lot of money, but these people didn't care. Then you had old boxers coming in with a glove and uh program with Ron Kray and their name, because they were boxers. Say his name was Charlie Smith, whatever. Charlie Smith won with program. She said, Oh, don't worry, Red. She said, Um, I'm not charging you, Charlie, um, and Flanagan. Flanagan's having a harp. I can do a harp, I know how to do a harp. He said, Oh, yeah, because she's doing such a lot for us, and she's got to um do the hardest job of all, really. Dave Courtney has got 150 men outside the church. Um, he's been asked by me to uh him to supply 150 men, so it's up the path of the church, 12 men each side, up St. Matthew's Row, and starting along Beth McGreen, so that it comes out in in safety. Don't forget this is the coach and horses. They've got to go all the way to Chinkford if you'd have seen the horses. Charlie Kray looked sideways to me, said, Flan, remember I'm saying this to you today because I know you've got authority. When it's my turn, please, please, please, don't let me have coach and horses. Look at the horses. And the horses had all that white stuff hanging out of their mouth. You know, we had to go uh round the bow flyover. The 26 cars could go up the bow flyover and down, and then we had to wait. The the carriage the the horsing carriage had gone on, you know, with Reggie's um van. He was in a police navy blue van with two guards. That stuff, and then we start, and then you had to come down the flyover and follow all the way to Chinkford, and there was people all along the route. They all knew that it was coming. We got to Warthamstow Dog Track. People don't believe what I say. We got to Warthamstow Dog Track, and I'm in the third car. I went, Oh my god, look, Walthamstow dog track. It had Warthamstow dog track, lights lit up. This is daytime, so there's no there's no dog racing till eight o'clock at night. It was lit up, and there were four workers on the roof. They were doing something, or maybe they had to do the lights, and they had hard hats on. And we we were stopped. I said, Look, look, look at the top of the wolf. The auntie leaned forward, oh my god. They all took their hats off like that and bowed down. And they were four old workers, could have been your dad or your uncle, just four workers, but out of respect, they took their hats off and bowed down. And Wolfhamstone dog track was lit up, and we come past Wolfhamstone, coming on, coming on, we've not got a Chingford yet. There was women, women along, like pushing people to be in the front because there's got to be it was three deep all the way. Now you get to Chingford Mount. Oh, those horses have got to go. I wasn't in the car with Charlie Kray, you know, but that's what he said to me at the grave. And he sent for two buckets of water for the from the grave men. He said, Where's the water? He said, Oh, he said, go and get two buckets of water and throw them over those horses. And they were all they were hanging, they're all at white, oh hanging out of them. He said, Flynn, don't let me go in horse and carriage. Don't let Reggie. If Reggie outlasts me, don't let Reggie put me in horse and carriage. And he didn't. He must have told him, Reggie, please, don't don't put me in in horse and carriage. And um when we got in, pulling in to the um, what do you call it, into the gates of the cemetery. They're they're along an edge, they're on an edge, because he bought the plot, Reggie, when Francis died. So that's how long that had been there. And then, of course, mummy and daddy went. And then um Ronnie, Gary, Charlie, Reg. So they're all there, they're all in that plot. So uh that was a task I have to do. And Dave Courtney says on a Netflix podcast, you call them, or interview, he said, Oh, that day. He said, Um, he just rang me, Reggie from Parkhurst, and said, How many men can you get together for an afternoon? Um, I want them in Bethlehem Green at one o'clock, they go all the way to Chingford Mount. They see nothing happens at the grave. People do terrible things at graves, and there's we've got a lot of enemies. I want them to stand around me and surround me and Charlie and look after us on that day. He said, um 150. He said that'll do. There's no payment, they do it, and they can always say afterwards, I was security at the cray funeral. He said, they'll be there. And they were there. And he says on the thing, it was an easy job for me. I just rang every bouncer in in all the clubs in London. You want to do Ronnie Kray's funeral? No money, you must be in black. You can wear a suit, you can wear an overcoat, you know. It was a lovely, fun enough, a Wednesday, but it was sunny, and it was March, 29th of March, he was buried. That's my sister's birthday, so I can't forget that. And it was sunny. He said, You want to wear an overcoat or a uh a long leather coat like you do? You can. Don't come in any other colour. No, it's all right, Roger. Yeah, they're all happy to do it because it's an afternoon, they're not working until they do their bouncing night that night, and um, and then you've got all the people to to seat. He said, Uh, what about the inside of the church? Um, Dave Courtney said to him, he said, Well, I've asked Flanagan to do the seating. He said, Because you know how bossy she is, and nobody is gonna sit where she doesn't want them to sit. I have given her the list. So Dave Courtney starts laughing, and he said, Yeah, but you want a bit of security. He said, I'll talk to her. So I go to Parkhurst, and I'm sitting in front of him, and he says, Right, um, what we're gonna do, uh, because it's a church, um, we'll have one man on the doors, two big glass doors behind the wooden doors, so you can see who you're letting in. Right. So we have one man there, he said, I know the man I'm putting there, very lovely man. But I'm gonna have six men down there, and six man down there. I said, No, you're not Reg. Steve Tully, being my witness, and he's alive in Pembersy Bay. He wrote a book. He was come out on the visit with Reg because he was very upset now about Ronnie, so they were keeping their eye on him. And he went to me, when I went, No, we're not. And he went, What do you mean? You have security in the church, you know, people be sitting everywhere and running down the front to shake my hand. I said, No, they won't. He said, What do you mean? I said, I'll have your man at the door because I know him. Six foot six, lovely man, overcoat. I said, Two glass doors in St. Matthew's. He went, Yeah. I said, Yeah, let them in twelve at a time. I look through the glass doors and I go like that. He'll open the glass doors, let twelve in. I've got them on my list. I know where they're gonna be. Close glass doors when they're seated. Another twelve. He went. There's three hundred people gonna be in the church. They're gonna be standing three deep at the back and down the sides after you've seated the people. I said, I know, I've done it before. You've done a uh uh you haven't had three hundred people and another thousand outside. He said, Who's gonna put them in the cars? I said, Me. He said, Flynn, please. Six there and six there, and he's look at Steve Tanny. He said to Steve Talley, tell her, will you tell her? So he looked at Reggie Kray, and he he's lovely, Steve Talley. He's not certainly not frightened of Reggie Kray. He looked at him and he went, let her do it as she wants to. And I'm so happy that you've picked a woman. Because if you'd have put picked an usher from the sem the you know, the funeral parlour, they don't know. They don't know Lenny McLean, they don't know Roy Shaw. You can't sit Lenny McLean where he don't want to sit. I can. He went, well, what are you gonna do then if Lenny McLean walks down the aisle and sits in the first row? I said, he won't sit in the first row. Because I'm gonna be standing at the third row. You're gonna be in the first row, Reg, because you're gonna arrive with your handcuffed, your left hand, to your guard. So you're gonna sit on the end, your guard there, and two people from Scotland Yard, you tell me, a man and a woman directly behind you. Yes? He said, Yeah. And alongside your guard, that is uh the funeral, the people who carry the coffin have to put the coffin down, everybody's seated, they have to put the coffin down, they have to go and sit there. Oh, yeah. Oh, there's six of them, aren't there? So the six of them, that's the first row. Over on the right side, right, will be sitting on the end, the same as you, Charlie, your brother, right? Diana, her two children, not Charlie Craig's children, her two children, right? And your two aunties, or an auntie and an uncle. So nobody's sitting in the first and second row. What are you talking about? I'm standing in the third row here. As he sat down, he's come straight down, Lenny McLean, with his big bouncy man, another man on the what's it called? Hippodrome at Leicester Square. They were bouncers at the time. Champion bare knuckle dark, nobody won, Lenny McLean. He's come straight down. Hello, Flynn. All right, darling. Big camel overcoat, sat down on the aisle, third row.

Speaker 3 19:03

I thought testing time.

Flan 19:07

I went Lenny, he said, yes. I said, I've got to move you from there, darling.

Speaker 3 19:14

No, I'm all right, Flynn. No, I'm all right, Flan, I'm all right here. And Eddie's all right in your head.

Flan 19:21

I've got a special place for you from Reggie. Why, are you expecting trouble? Is he expecting trouble? Nobody'll get to him in that right two rows in front of me, nobody gets to him. He's got a special place for you.

Speaker 3 19:37

Stand up, please. All right.

Flan 19:41

Stood up like a lamb, like a a five-year-old. A five-year-old would have been more disobedient. Walking back to row seven, this is where you're gonna be sitting. Okay, Flan. All right, darling, you're doing a marvelous job. Ponked yourself down, wonderful. Right. Two minutes later, he walks Roy Shaw on his own. Yeah, they want to kill each other, don't they? They fought each other three times. They want to kill each other, they don't talk. There's no way you can sit Roy Shaw on that side. So you've got to sit him on this side, but there's no way you can let Roy Shaw sit in row three, four, five sit in front of Lenny McLean because you think, what's she done that for? Reggie Kray's told him to sit there. Why's Reggie Kray? Give him a better seat than me. So now I've got to sit him in row seven on the other side. He went, McLean's here. I said, Yes, I said, behaving yourself right, like you will be. He said, All right, darling. Give your hand a little rub. Good girl, good girl. Pip down there. Now it was all right for the coffin because Freddie Foreman and um Nash brother and Charlie Craig were carrying coffin. So I had when they put the coffin down, Charlie go and sit in his first seat next to his Diana, because he can see it's empty and he's been told. And I had the row behind them, you see, for certain people, certain villains that wouldn't upset Lenny McLean and what'd you call it? What's his name? Roy. So now I've got to contend now. In walks my boyfriend with who he's picked up from South London, because he's a South London man, he's picked up Frankie Fraser. So I know that the two behind Reggie, man and woman, right? You can see it when it comes the um on your phone. You can see my um boyfriend with the grey hair and the lovely navy blue overcoat with Frankie Fraser. I sat them directly behind Scotland Yard. Well, if only those two people would turn round and Seeing mad Frankie Fraser sitting behind them, which they well knew, but that's row three. But that wouldn't upset Lenny McLean and Roy Shaw, right? Because they know that he's been told to sit there by Reggie or Flanagan would never have sat in there. She'd have sat in back, like she did us. And that's how I filled up, filled up, filled up till every oh my god. Then you've got Tony Lambriano and Chris Lambriano walking and you can't sing them at the back. I went, We're all right, Flat. We just stand at the back. No, you won't. I walked up the aisle with my little book. And you won't be standing at the back. Chris Lambriano said, No, it's all right. We get out quicker. I said, No, you've got to sit where Reggie wants you. I took them straight down and sat and banged behind Frankie Fraser in row four. That was seeing that wouldn't upset. Roy, and and then because Chris Lambriano and Tony Lambriano were members of the firm. They went away and did their time with them and never opened their mouth, you know, and was loyal. So you it it was a playing game.

Wendy Cee 23:16

And Maureen helped at Charlie's funeral too.

Flan 23:19

April Charlie Kray died, so I had to do all the seating because I got all the instructions from Reggie Kray.

Wendy Cee 23:25

We also spoke about Reggie being sick. Didn't do him any good in the end.

Flan 23:30

They were wicked in the end. Two years they were treating him for that can well, it wasn't cancer. Well it was cancer, but they said it wasn't. They said it was um an ulcer. And they were giving him every night milk of magnesia. You can give that to a child. That coats, what they said was the ulcer. Drink plenty of milk, Reg. Plenty of milk. He said, Oh, like tea, like tea and beer. No, you've got to drink plenty of milk. We're supplying the milk. They give him a pint of milk. And in the end, the wife, Roberta, who'd married him, um, wrote to the home office, she wrote to everybody. She was good that way, she was good for him, and said, She insists as a wife, he has um a very thorough x-ray. They took him out to a hospital, give him an x-ray, and that came back. Oh, Reg, you got pancreatic cancer. Two years ago, who knows what would have happened, Wendy? He could have gone in hospital and had that removed. Yeah. As people do, people live with that. Um, and then that got worse and worse and worse, and then that was given sympathetic release, wasn't it? Um two weeks in the hospital and two weeks in the hotel in Norwich. Died there.

Wendy Cee 24:50

When did he die? Pardon? What date did he die? On the um Today.

Flan 24:56

First, isn't it? Yeah, I keep forgetting it's the first. This is how quick it's going.

Wendy Cee 25:08

And finally in this episode, Maureen talks about Reggie's funeral.

Flan 25:12

But it didn't work with Reggie because by that time he was married to Roberta, and Roberta didn't want any villains carrying her husband. Oh, he's gone away from all that flanagan, she said to me. I was living in Islington at the time, I wasn't here yet. Um he'd come away from all that flat. Um I said, Well, who is carrying in them? I said, because certain people, such as Freddie Foreman and Alex Steen, the boxing promoter, you know, the one with the wears of dark glasses, um, they're going to be very upset. Well, I'm sure you'll seat them somewhere appropriate, she said in a school teacher voice. She's phoning me up. I said, Well, um, what about the Nash family? No, no, she said, they did come and visit him when he was in the hospital at the end. And Frank Frankie Fraser never carries a coffin because he's too small. You've got to have sort of certain height then. Um, I said, Well, Frank don't really um carry coffins, but I'm just saying he did visit him. She he did visit, and Reggie was very pleased to see Frank. Um, but he wasn't into all that flannigan anymore. I said, All these people came to visit. And no, they didn't really. Um, so there's the solicitor gonna carry the coffin, Goldstein, Goldberg, whatever his name was, Gold something. And um, two young friends of ours, I thought, yeah, I'll bear. Two young friends that have had plenty of money off of him. Um, and um a cousin of mine that um came to visit him. I went, well, um Roberta, I know you're the widow and you're the next of kin. But what do I do about the church? Because you saw what I did at Charlie Craig's funeral, yes, she said, and you're marvelous. She said, So what I intend to do, I'm having the left hand side of the church. Oh, I see, right? And you have got the right hand side of the church. So everybody that was in that funeral past row, I think she seated people up to about row seven. She had friends and family and visitors that she liked. After about row seven or nine, whatever, I could see people on the left and I had all the right. Can you imagine? When Kate Kray, Kate Kray come walking down with the black, the black veil overall. I thought, nobody talks to her. Nobody talks to her, nobody, Reggie Kray wouldn't even want to hear. Oh, what am I gonna do? So I said, um, Roberta, I want to say something. I said, because Kate is coming to the funeral, she's already up from Kent and staying with people. That's all right. She was married to Ronnie. She said um years earlier she would have been my sister-in-law. I thought shut up, you. I thought you only had four years with him um before he died. And he was in prison all that time, and two weeks in hospital and two weeks in the hotel. But you are entitled to his money. You got a bit of jewelry. And that's about all you did get. And that's it. And since then you've wrote I think she's on her seventh book. She doesn't write about the craze, it's fiction, isn't it?

Wendy Cee 28:41

Yeah, I've seen.

Flan 28:42

She writes like thrillers, but about East End gangsters, and this one's got a brother, and this one's called uh oh, anyway. Um, I have got, I think, two books of her there. Um, not that she sent me, I I've got them from other people, given them to me, but um Kate, I loved Kate, and Kate was very good for Ronnie Kray. And um, she came walking down with her first husband. Yeah, she made him drive her up from Kent and they stayed with somebody and then she but she had a hat on, you know, like a real widow, so she was the widow, and it had the black veil over. I wanted to say, Kate, put that veil back, it's too much. You're not the widow. You was Ronnie's, but you're not Reggie's. But she came marching down and I went, Hello, darling. She said, It's all right, Flan. She said, I'll sit where I said, No, you won't sit where you want to. I've got this side of the thing, and you was a Mrs. Kray. You still are known as Kate Kray, and you're still keeping the name alive. I sat her in the second row. Of my side.

Speaker 1 29:48

Come with her first husband.

unknown 29:52

Oh.

Flan 29:54

Because a minute, she was married at 16. Her mother made her get married. She wasn't pregnant, but her mother made her get married. Like a Marilyn Monroe thing, it was. Then she married a second husband, and then she married um, Ronnie. In in uh Broadmark.

Wendy Cee 30:11

Thank you for listening to The Krays Web. This was episode 18, the end with Flan. Next week, in episode 19, I have a bonus episode for you with ex-detective Paul Stickler. Finally, I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has helped me to put this podcast together. Please check out the show notes and my website for more information on the books and reference material that I used for my research. Until next time, stay safe.