GANGLAND killer Reggie Kray once laid on two special East End-style parties at a Gedling pub, for Notts pensioners and children.

Kray, jailed in the 1960s for the murder of Jack 'The Hat' McVitie – who himself regularly visited Nottingham as a national serviceman in the early 1950s – paid for the event as a 'thank you' to city people.

"I have a lot of friends there," he told the Evening Post from Maidstone jail in January, 1997. "I have friends there from the time I was in prison, and also people who write to me."

Kray, one of the notorious twins who were jailed for life in 1968, added: "I love kids so I like doing things like this and it's always good to do things for pensioners."

He organised and paid for two parties at the Phoenix pub over Christmas and said: "We just had to get some jellied eels and pie and mash – so we got some driven up from London.

Kray was also jailed for being an accessory to the murder of underworld hard-man George Cornell, killed by his twin brother Ronnie. Reggie Kray died in October, 2000.