Kate Beal Blyth

And that certain fee isn't necessarily cash.

It could simply be, okay, if you give me enough bread this month, your bakery will always be looked after and no other gang is going to break into it.

No one's going to try and rip you off your hours.

And essentially it's protecting businesses within your patch and ensuring nothing happens to them in return for a fee.

There is a folklore which is they were loved and feared by the East End community and loved because they didn't hurt their own and they protected the women and the children and there was a certain code of conduct.

However, at the end of the day, they were brutal thugs who beat people up for money.

I'm not convinced that the code of conduct that everyone so glowingly talks about of never hurting women and children is true.

They didn't hurt a certain type of women, but equally they did hurt a lot of other women.

And there were prostitutes and other people who worked more closely in the scene who did come to harm, who didn't have the protection of the craze as such.

So I would suggest that there was more fear in the community than love.

The West End historically has been a place of money and pride for the gangs of London.

And so from the 20s, 30s, 40s, there was a gang called the Sabini Gang who ran it, and then a chap called Billy Hill.

And Billy Hill is this kind of iconic figure of the early 20th century in gangland culture.

And he ran a lot of the clubs up west.

And Billy Hill, I think, would have been known to the Kray twins.

They would have heard about the club scene up west.

They would have heard about the value and the money that can be made within the nightclub industry.

So from an early age, they'll have seen it as a pot of gold.

So it only does naturally then progress that once they've had the snooker clubs and they do the protection racket, they'll start doing the nightclub and then they'll work their way up west.

So Frances, by all accounts, and I do think this is true, was a sweet young girl who didn't quite know what she was getting herself into.