How the Kray twins helped a paralysed youngster from their prison cells
When James Fallon was hit by a speeding driver in South Africa he was left paralysed and unable to breathe or swallow unaided. Ronnie and Reggie Kray were keen to help.
A surprising friendship between the Kray twins and a paralysed schoolboy from Codsall is documented in an archive coming up for auction in Lichfield.
Drawings, letters, poems, Christmas cards and a signed copy of Reggie Kray’s Book of Slang all feature in the collection, which began when the gangsters heard of the boy’s plight.
James Fallon was born in Codsall and lived in Wilkes Road before emigrating to South Africa in the 1980s with his mother Elaine, father Roger and sister Leanne.
But in September 1988 James' life was changed forever when he was run over by a speeding driver who, unlicensed and aged 17, had taken his father's car without consent.
James suffered serious internal injuries and crushed legs as he was hurled more than 90ft along the road. He stopped breathing once at the roadside and again in hospital, while the impact detached his skull from his spine and stretched his spinal cord.
He survived thanks to a seven-hour operation carried out by top surgeons from across South Africa which received worldwide publicity. It was the first time such an operation had been performed in South Africa, and only the fourth time it had happened anywhere in the world.
However for many months James was unable to talk, swallow or breathe without the aid of a life support machine and with the Fallons facing huge medical bills, a family friend heard that the Krays wanted to get involved.
And so began an unlikely friendship between a once-healthy young boy destined to spend the rest of his life needing round-the-clock care and – 5,600 miles away – two of the UK’s most feared gangsters who by then had been behind bars for almost two decades.
Over the next 18 months, both Reggie and Ronnie Kray kept close correspondence with Jamie and his family, sending drawings, poems, cards and letters.
The twins, who were arrested in 1968 and locked up for life for murder a year later, also called in support from their legion of celebrity supporters.
This led to a fundraising gala at the Hackney Empire and a boxing night – but Jamie died aged 11 two days before the latter, in March 1990.
James had been allowed home in January, 18 months after the surgery, and his parents converted one of the rooms at their home into a private intensive care ward.
