FAREWELL TO A WARRIOR Goodbye, Mr Chips....

"The skies, they were ashen and sober.

The leaves, they were crispéd and seer..."

(Edgar Allan Poe)

A crowd of bystanders, some respectful, others hoodlums, had gathered under a menacing grey sky, and shuffled through damp autumn leaves. They were lining the pavements of a side street, outside St Matthew's Church in Bethnal Green, where a hearse, behind six glossy-looking, black-plumed horses, waited. A service was about to take place.

The deceased was Reggie Kray.

The leaden skies and swirling leaves, conjured up the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe, even more than that of the Kray boy himself. It was a sight, which, strangely, aroused an atmosphere of morbidity and decay, combined with ennobling wellbeing.

I attended the funeral, accompanied by a woman, who, like myself, is a writer. We went to St Matthew's Church in Bethnal Green in a taxi. We stopped at The Blind Beggars pub on the way, and had a stiff drink to get us into the right mood to say "goodbye" to this multi-facetted, hero or villain, call him what you will.

Some remember him as a criminal. Although he was no saint, he had reformed and become a lovely, gentle creature who should have been freed at the expiry of his sentence.

He did me a colossal favour by ticking me off for putting Robert Maxwell stereotypes into several of my books.

"All you ever do is just go on and on and on and on about this bleeding bloke!" the salt-of-the- earth, forthright Bethnal Green fellow complained.

My friend and I enjoyed ourselves in The Blind Beggars. We took it in turns to sit on the same barstool that the sadistic Cornell was sitting on, when Ronnie plugged him. I asked my friend to make shooting gestures, holding an imaginary machine gun. I tumbled off the barstool pretending to be dead. I was staggered by the behaviour of the bar staff who appeared to have absolutely no sense of humour whatever.

Many of the visitors to Reggie's funeral, had to stand outside the church in the street. I saw sweet Mrs Campbell, the fortune teller, among the crowd. She was Violet Kray's best friend. A professional, she is. She reads my palms every few weeks or so, and has always been accurate. The poor soul was so awash with sickness, exhaustion and grief, that two burly women were obliged to support her.

The service, including the prayers, was played on a loud speaker. Some people lining the pavements, behaved in an orderly and respectful manner. I am sorry to say that many of them did not.

At least eight people had failed to turn their mobile phones off. They rang frequently and sounded like an American newspaper proprietor's offices on the eve of an execution.

A woman, tastelessly dressed in a bright purple tracksuit and training shoes, was one of these reprobate culprits. Her mobile, its ring blasting along the street, was drowning the hymns with a tinny rendering of Do you ken, John Peel?

She looked about forty, although her long hair was grey and she had two front teeth missing in her upper jaw. Her voice was loud enough to break the sound barrier. Strangely, none of the bouncers crashed up to her, making threats. They did sweet F.A. They looked old, battered and sad.

Reggie had chosen the hymn, Fight the Good Fight. I think it was his favourite. The hymn was sung robustly and was quite loud, even in the street.

Then came the outrage.

"Fight the good fight with all thy might. Christ is thy strength and Christ...."

"Do you ken John Peel with his coat so gay?...."

The woman had dropped her telephone which continued to ring repeatedly.

"Turn that f***ing bleeder, off, you slag!" bellowed a man with a Cockney accent, standing behind her.

"Language, Dave!" shouted another man, also with a Cockney accent.

The woman picked the mobile up and answered it, oblivious of the man's complaint.

Fight the good Fight, continued, but sounded no more than a series of pathetic bird-like bleats, drowned by the woman's shouts.

"I can't 'ear yer! .... Speak up! I can't f***ing 'ear yer! .... Yeah, right, mate, where the 'ell woz yer? .... I said, where woz yer? .... Yeah, I 'eard that, but woz yer wearing a condom? .... Bloody 'ell, I can't speak any louder. I'm out on the sodding Kray boy's funeral, ain't I?"

The mobile was confiscated by a woman standing next to the purple-clad trouble-maker.

This was the first thing which went wrong. The two front horses towing the hearse, outside the church, were bored. They broke away from the harness, holding the four horses behind them, and for want of better words, pissed off. A woman in riding clothes raced after them and guided them back to the hearse, holding their bridles.

An ever-present sea of policemen patrolled the street. Wherever they went, outraged members of the crowd shouted, "We don't want the likes of you, here!"

I was particularly confused by the fact that there were two hearses, one of which was horse- drawn, and the other, the one carrying Reggie, was an ordinary one. The horse-drawn hearse was driven by a Dickensian-looking postilion. Curiously, its bier compartment, with its elm-surfaced bier- rack freshly waxed and its silver bier-pins gleaming, was empty. There was no sign of Reggie.

A second serious outrage occurred. A drunkard aged about forty, ran in front of the horses and ranted at the astounded postilion. "What have you done with the stiff, Guv'nor?" he enquired, disgracefully.

An elderly-looking bouncer shuffled towards the drunk. "Please try to show some respect," he said in a frail, feeble tone.

The prize for boorish, sickening behaviour, had to go to a vicious woman, living in a house in the street, which was surrounded by a wall about four feet high. Two cameramen got up onto it. Their cameras were pointing at the moving hearse and an array of tinted limousines behind it.

The householder rushed up to the cameramen, shouting, "Get off my wall. The man was a gangster, not a bloody national hero!"

"Could you give us a minute, please. We'll get down after the hearse has gone by," said one of the worthy, courageous cameramen, with what I thought was inappropriate courtesy.

"No such luck!" said the bitch. "I want you down, now."

I was standing about a foot away from her. I heard a woman reprimanding her in a loud, deep, husky voice, "Button your lip lady or I'll have you duffed," shouted the brave woman.

She turned to the two cameramen, and said, "You're safe to take any pictures you like. This woman can't pull a fast one, because she knows, that if she pushes you off the wall and damages your cameras or breaks your legs, I shall appear as Chief Prosecution Witness."

No matter what Reggie Kray did, the Judge, Mr Justice Melford Stevenson sentenced him, and his brother, to "at least" thirty years imprisonment. Reggie should have been released far earlier than he was, because of his charitable works.

Although his funeral service was spectacular, I felt very sad for the remainder of the day. Had Reggie not killed Jack The Hat McVitie, his enemy would have been hanged, or given a life sentence, in any event. McVitie enjoyed stabbing the unfortunates he came into contact with, and wiped his carving knives on ladies' dresses.

It would be an understatement to say that he was not a very nice man.