Mad Frank's Underworld History of Britain

Mad Frank's Underworld History of Britain
Author: Frank Fraser
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2012-12-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0753546280

Sites of gruesome murders, stories of killings, frauds, jewel thefts and treachery are all part of Mad Frankie Fraser's grand tour of Britain's criminal underworld. As one of the most notorious gangsters of the 20th Century, he is perfectly placed to give us the lowdown on crimes from up and down the country, plus his take on crimes he was personally involved in and cases as yet unsolved. Written with crime author James Morton, this is the definitive guide to Britain's many lives of crime.

London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971

London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971
Author: Felix Fuhg
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2021-05-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030689689

This book examines the emergence of modern working-class youth culture through the perspective of an urban history of post-war Britain, with a particular focus on the influence of young people and their culture on Britain’s self-image as a country emerging from the constraints of its post-Victorian, imperial past. Each section of the book – Society, City, Pop, and Space – considers in detail the ways in which working-class youth culture corresponded with a fast-changing metropolitan and urban society in the years following the decline of the British Empire. Was teenage culture rooted in the urban experience and the transformation of working-class neighbourhoods? Did youth subcultures emerge simply as a reaction to Britain's changing racial demographic? To what extent did leisure venues and institutions function as laboratories for a developing British pop culture, which ultimately helped Britain re-establish its prominence on the world stage? These questions and more are answered in this book.

Gay Century

Gay Century
Author: Peter Scott-Presland
Publisher: eBook Partnership
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2021-10-01
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1839783826

'A Gay Century: Vol 1' is a canter through 60 years of gay history in ten serious or comic playlets.Wilde's deathbed encounter with Queen Victoria; the theft of the Irish crown jewels by a sadomasochistic cabal in Dublin Castle; Compton Mackenzie demanding of the Home Secretary that his own lesbian novel be prosecuted like 'The Well of Loneliness', because he needs the money; matinee idol Ivor Novello sharing a cell in Wandsworth with teenage psycho 'Mad' Frankie Fraser; the Jeremy Thorpe/Norman Scott affair seen through the eyes of the dogs involved, etc. etc. A sideways look at our queer past offers vivid vignettes which may or may not be true - and if they're not, they ought to be.

The Working Class and Twenty-First-Century British Fiction

The Working Class and Twenty-First-Century British Fiction
Author: Phil O'Brien
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2019-12-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000763285

The Working Class and Twenty-First-Century British Fiction looks at how the twenty-first-century British novel has explored contemporary working-class life. Studying the works of David Peace, Gordon Burn, Anthony Cartwright, Ross Raisin, Jenni Fagan, and Sunjeev Sahota, the book shows how they have mapped the shift from deindustrialisation through to stigmatization of individuals and communities who have experienced profound levels of destabilization and unemployment. O'Brien argues that these novels offer ways of understanding fundamental aspects of contemporary capitalism for the working class in modern Britain, including, class struggle, inequality, trauma, social abjection, racism, and stigmatization, exclusively looking at British working-class literature of the twenty-first century.

Mad Frank

Mad Frank
Author: Frankie Fraser
Publisher: Virago Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 1995-02-16
Genre: Criminals
ISBN: 9780751511376

MAD FRANK is Frankie Fraser's own extraordinary story - the truth about the legendary villain who for fifty years was a key figure in Britain's underworld. A peer of the Krays and the Richardsons, arguably as influential and certainly as dangerous, Fraser has served over 40 years in prisons and mental institutions for his various crimes. MAD FRANK - A man who has been at the cutting edge of crime in this country, and who took the time to sharpen it while he was there.

Mad Frank and Sons

Mad Frank and Sons
Author: David Fraser
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2017
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1509807950

Drawing on exclusive final interviews with Frank, and with unprecedented access to his closest relatives, Mad Frank and Sons follows his rise from a small kid stealing to put food on the table to a feared and respected West End crime lord and head of a legendary gangland family. It includes the story of Frank's beloved sister, Eva, who was a top-class West End shoplifter, and his sons David and Patrick, who reveal in shocking detail the full extent of the family's network and the influences that shaped them. With sawn-off shotguns as toys, the Kray twins as family friends and a mother who urged them as teenagers to 'get out of bed and rob a bleedin' bank', it is little wonder that the Fraser boys were heavily involved in organized crime by the time they were in their twenties. Packed with new information, and featuring some of the most famous names in the London underworld, this is a fascinating slice of gangland history seen through the eyes of Frank Fraser and his two renegade sons.

Gangs of London

Gangs of London
Author: Brian Mcdonald
Publisher: Milo Books Ltd
Total Pages: 383
Release:
Genre:
ISBN:

'Lifts the lid on London gangs of the last two centuries' THE WEEKLY NEWS 'Lays bare the truth behind the capital's underworld far before the Krays and the Richardsons became well known' THE WHARF 'Incredible real-life tales' SOUTHWARK NEWS Long before the Kray twins, London was plagued by gang warfare as vicious as anything that was to come. From the 19th century onwards, violent mobs fought pitched battles for territory and local pride. The Bethnal Green Boys hunted Hackney's Broadway Boys, Clerkenwell took on Somers Town, the Red Hands prowled Deptford and the Silver Hatchets terrorised Islington, while the police and judiciary seemed powerless to stop them. The first-ever history of these intriguing street mobs traces them from Jonathan Wild, the archetype for Dickens' Fagin, to sprawling super-gangs like the Titanic and the Elephant Boys. It tells the bloody story of the racecourse wars, when Darby Sabini and Billy Kimber slugged it out for control of gambling pitches, and of such big hitters as George Sage, the guv'nor of Camden Town, Dodger Mullins and the McDonald brothers. Eventually these local 'firms' spawned notorious gangsters such as Jack Spot, Billy Hill and Johnny Carter, who carved out organised crime rackets across the capital. Gangs of London is a riveting journey through the dark underbelly of one of the world's great cities.

The Last Gangster

The Last Gangster
Author: Charlie Richardson
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2014-01-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1448151287

Charlie Richardson, one of Britain's most notorious gangland bosses, sheds light on his extraordinary life story completed just weeks before his death in September 2012. Notorious Charlie Richardson was the most feared gangster in 1960s London. Boss of the Richardson Gang and rival of the Krays, to cross him would result in brutal repercussions. Famously arrested on the day England won the World Cup in 1966, his trial heard he allegedly used iron bars, bolt cutters and electric shocks on his enemies. The Last Gangster is Richardson’s frank account of his largely untold life story, finished just before his death in September 2012. He shares the truth behind the rumours and tells of his feuds with the Krays for supremacy, undercover missions involving politicians, many lost years banged up in prison and reveals shocking secrets about royalty, phone hacking, bent coppers and the infamous black box. Straight up, shocking and downright gripping, this is the ultimate exposé on this legendary gangster and his extraordinary life.

The Krays and Me - Blood, Honour and Respect. Doing Porridge with The Krays

The Krays and Me - Blood, Honour and Respect. Doing Porridge with The Krays
Author: Charles Bronson
Publisher: Kings Road Publishing
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2007-04-30
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 178219245X

Two names reigned supreme in London's underworld in the sixties - Ronnie and Reggie Kray; and it wasn't until 1969 that the twins went down at Brixton Prison for murder. I was only seventeen, on remand up in Risley, Warrington, for nicking a furniture lorry. Most of the lads in there had newspaper photos of the Krays stuck up on their cell walls. They were the cream of the criminal crop, and that's why I took such an interest in 'em. Once I was put away, it wasn't long before I got to meet them, and over the next 29 years I got closer to the Krays than any self-proclaimed henchman, any autograph hunter. As their trusted friend they let me in on it all - no holds barred behind bars! Since Ronnie and Reggie died, all I've heard is a load of bollocks! 'Reggie shot my cat; Ronnie stabbed my uncle Bert 75 times; Reggie ran over my hamster; I'm Ronnie's son, I'm Reggie's daughter.' Gutless maggots spreading rumours with their sham stories for sale. The shameless rats. Well now the twins are gone and I can talk. And let me tell you, I've got a lot to say and all the time in the world to say it. No bollocks. No silly stories. Just the facts about the time I spent doing porridge with the Krays.