'I've only got one regret in my life': The Krays enforcer Freddie Foreman ... trends now

Sitting on the couch on the seventh floor of a north London assisted living facility is one of London's most notorious gangsters. On the television is a true crime documentary showing an FBI investigation, while on the walls of the flat are photographs and books – many featuring his contemporaries – most of whom are now dead.

Known amongst London's gangland fraternity as Brown Bread Fred, Freddie Foreman, the former enforcer for the Kray Twins still has some unfinished business. 

'There is one person who is still a thorn in the side. A mouthy b*******. But it's all over now. I am not going to do something silly. I don't want to give my daughter any aggravation. She's a diamond.'

He admits at the age of 92 that his legs have gone and can barely move around the flat without a stick. He is also mindful of revealing too many details of his past life because he doesn't want to return to prison.

Apart from lunch out with his daughter and her family, the only time he escapes the seventh floor of the apartment complex is to attend the funerals of former friends, accomplices and rivals. 

It was during one funeral for former Great Train Robber Tommy Wisbey, who died of a stroke in December 2016 after suffering a stroke, that Foreman squared up to the former south London crime boss Eddie Richardson. At the time of the scrap, the former gangsters had a combined age of 166. 

The promising amateur boxer of his youth looks down across the living room at the couch, a reminder of his former physique.

On the floor, acting as a doorstop is what looks astonishingly like a gold bar.

'I wish it was real,' he chuckles.

He is best known for being an enforcer for the Kray Twins after crossing the River Thames to avoid constant police attention.

'It was the worst thing that could have happened to me. I had to leave south London. I couldn't walk as too many coppers knew me... but over in the east end I was a stranger.'

Foreman grew up in wartime London. His four brothers all served during World War II. Two in the navy while the other pair were in the army, eventually joining the Special Operations Executive. 'A tasty little firm that was,' he admits.

It was on the streets of post war South London that Foreman began building his reputation. First as a boxer and subsequently as a criminal.

During that period, London was divided between various crime families and their gangs.

A side hustle involving hitting electrical stores brought him into the orbit of Charlie Kray, the Kray twins' elder brother.

Foreman had been carrying off goods such as washing machines, dryers, and refrigerators from the front of shops while the workers were being distracted by his elder brother George.

He told MailOnline: 'I put an overall on and was walking into the shop and picking up these washing machines, fridges and spin dryers and walking off with them and out the door.

'They would leave them at the entrance to the shop. My brother George would go in and keep them occupied, so they couldn't see what was going on. I'd go in and pick them up and walk off and carry them around the corner to a side street and sling them in the back of a van and off we go.

'I was selling them out of the manor over in the East End. That was when Charlie Kray came over. I had four lock-ups at Herne Hill Station and he came over and they were all full up with electrical...

'It was a good time then. I had so many customers. My mum and dad were in a block up in Putney. I said that refrigerator was too small that I got you. Give it to the old woman next door. I've a better one for you.

'I felt like a regular Robin Hood. I felt all right what I was doing. I was providing things that they couldn't afford themselves. I got six months. I was moved around a lot. I was on the Isle of Sheppey and then Wormwood Scrubs.'

At one stage he was in a prison on the morning a condemned man was led to his death.

He said: 'This particular morning they were hanging someone. It was a terrible atmosphere. Everyone had their metal plates banging them off the bars when he was being hung.

'I turned into a good boy for a while. I got married and had two boys and a daughter. I went over to the East End. That's when I got involved with the Twins.'

Initially, life was good in the East End: 'I took over Ronnie Kray's flat. He moved out and I moved into this little block of flats in Adelina Grove. I enjoyed it over there. I still carried on what I was doing. Then of course some other work come up. More profitable things. Things I cannot mention as they don't know I was involved in. But they were good.'

Remarkably, shortly after the war, Foreman was working in Smithfield market and for British Railways as 'a van boy'.

'I was collecting gold from City banks to transport it from the railway stations to the banks in the city.

'I handled a lot of f****** expensive stuff'.

Moving gold around the city prompted an idea: 'My brother Bert worked at the post office. He was a bit helpful to me, telling me when money was being transferred to a post office tucked away outside London. I would have a pop at that. I made a bit of money with him. We bought a nice house over in Clapham Common.

'We had all the nurses from the hospital at Clapham Common. Most of our clients, girls... the house was full up with nurses. That was the first investment I got involved with.

'It was a straight business. I then opened up a betting shop. You had to have a conviction for street bookmaking to get a licence. I had several of them. It was the first enterprise that I had that did any good.