7:50pm Monday 21st December 2009
By Stephen Bailey
FRED Dinenage maybe the avuncular face of regional TV news but back in the 1980s he was in prison with the Krays.
The 67-year-old was only there as a visitor – he had received a special invitation and became the official biographer of the East End gangsters.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the book’s publication Fred was filming at Bournemouth’s Waterford Lodge Hotel on Grove Road on Sunday.
A hotel function room was decorated to look like his study, and the resulting one-off documentary will be shown on the Crime Investigation Network on February 15.
Fred met the brothers when Reggie Kray, then in Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, wrote to say prisoners could sell paintings to help with a fundraising appeal featured on Coast to Coast.
Another meeting followed, and Fred went on to interview Reggie and Ronnie, then in Broadmoor prison for the criminally insane.
The book was titled Ron and Reg Kray: Our Story and went on to hit the Sunday Times bestseller lists.
Fred said he took the job on because it promised an intriguing journalistic experience, adding: “I would love to write another book but time has always been the problem.”
He said Reggie was an “interesting character” and he has been meeting some of the Kray’s old contacts for the documentary, like Freddie Foreman.
He added: “It’s hard to imagine now they were gangsters because they are old men – one of them yesterday had a walking stick. It’s very interesting to meet them.”
The relationship stayed at a professional level and Fred did not attend the funerals of Ronnie in 1995, and Reggie in 2000.
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