How an East End housewife transformed into one of Britain's deadliest female gangsters: New On The Case podcast on the rise and fall of The Black Widow

Linda Calvey had spent hours applying false eyelashes and ensuring her blonde locks cascaded down her back before pulling on a Mary Quant-inspired minidress with a pink bow on the front.

It was the height of the swinging sixties and London felt like the centre of the cultural universe for teenagers like Linda.

But the buzz of Carnaby Street and the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones aren't why this memory appears so vividly nearly 60 years on.

Linda still recalls walking into a house party in east London on that fateful night for one reason – she met her future husband Mickey Calvey.

As soon as she locked eyes with Calvey, a gangster from the East End who had just been released from jail, she knew he was the one, it was 'love at first sight'.

Linda ditched her secretarial job in a local office and boring nights watching the television with her parents for the intoxicating glamour of London's underworld.

Calvey, an armed robber who served an eight-year sentence, introduced his young, attractive new girlfriend to the Kray twins and they drank with celebrities 'dripping in diamonds'.

Linda quickly settled into the comfortable life of a gangster's moll, posing as the pretty thing on Mickey's arm, wearing designer clothes, sipping expensive champagne and turning a blind eye when he polished his gun at the kitchen table.

Linda met Mickey Calvey when she was just 19 years old and quickly became intoxicated by his glamourous lifestyle

Pictured: Mickey and Linda Calvey at a night club shortly before Mickey was shot dead

Linda, once considered one of Britain's most infamous female gangsters, has gone on to live a quiet life. She is a doting grandmother of eight grandchildren and an author

Listen to On The Case to hear more about how Linda Calvey became 'The Black Widow'

'He took me to all the popular clubs with all these well off people. The women were wearing fur coats and all dripping in diamonds, and the men all looked like they'd come out of a gangster film,' she tells The Crime Desk's On the Case podcast.

'And I thought this is such an amazing life, and I ended up moving in with him.'

The couple had two children and lived happily together for almost a decade in their home in the East End of London.

But while Linda enjoyed domestic bliss at home and bottles of bubbly on nights out, Calvey was paying for it all with series of high stakes bank robberies.

These robberies would eventually catch up with him, leaving his wife traumatised and embarking on a dangerous path of her own.

Calvey was gunned down by the Flying Squad, the Metropolitan Police's elite armed unit, during a heist in 1978 in a shooting that Linda was convinced was unlawful.

She was beset by grief and rage and now with no provider or partner to lean on for financial help to raise her family.

Linda decided that any sort of normal, law-abiding life was out of the question and took her first steps towards becoming one of Britain's most notorious female gangsters – nicknamed 'The Black Widow'.

The loss of Calvey might have kick-started her criminal career, but actually she had been preparing for it months earlier – inadvertently learning the tricks of the robbery trade while making her husband's crew tea and sandwiches while they plotted in her kitchen.

Pictured: Linda holding a handkerchief to her face during the funeral of her husband Mickey Calvey

Pictured: Linda at an inquest into the death of Mickey Calvey in 1979

'I gradually got into a life of crime because my mum started selling wigs and one day when I was offering round sandwiches one of the guys [in Calvey's gang], who was bald, asked if I could get him one,' she says.

'I then told my mum I had joined amateur dramatics so she didn't take any notice when I said I needed some mustaches and wigs and that's how I joined Mickey's world.'

She added:  'I started as a getaway driver and then I started to go inside with them. I was making around £20,000. It was a lot of money. But when I was doing it I changed into a completely different person.

'But then I got arrested. A policeman threw me on the floor and held a gun at my face. And when that happened, I clicked back to myself, and I thought, laid there and thought, oh my God, what have I done?'

In 1986, she was sentenced to seven years in prison for her involvement in a series of post office robberies. During sentencing the judge described the robberies as 'ruthless' with the court hearing how Linda sprayed people with ammonia, which can cause severe chemical burns.

She served half her sentence where she rubbed shoulders with some of Britain's most twisted female prisoners.

While serving time in Cookham Wood she found herself face to face clashing with Moors murderer Myra Hindley.

Pictured: Two of Britain's most twisted female prisoners, Rose West and Myra Hindley

Pictured: Moors murderer Myra Hindley in her cell at Cookham Wood in 1985

'I slapped Myra Hindley round the face the first time I saw her,' she says. 'I was working next door to the laundry room and I went inside and Myra was getting clothes out of a washing machine.

'She was singing along to the music, and I just thought, how dare you sing when you killed innocent children?

'The next second, she was standing there rubbing her face and telling me "I could get you sent back to Holloway for that". And I went, "Holloway holds no fear for me". And I walked out.'

After four years she was released and determined to never see the inside of a cell again. She set up a soft furnishings business with her sister and started to get her life back on track.

But cutting her criminal ties proved impossible because of her relationship with Ronnie Cook, an armed robber.

Like Linda, who had committed 30 armed robberies, Cook was also jailed and coming towards the end of his sentence.

On the day he was released, Linda picked him up and took him back home, where she claims to her complete surprise, they were greeted by a gunman.

In 1986, Linda was sentenced to seven years in prison for her involvement in a series of post office robberies

Pictured: A Holloway prison party (left to right) a canteen worker, drug courier Katherine Brooks, retiring catering manager Gerry Cole, Linda Calvey and Angela Dodge

'We walked into my house and the door was kicked down. A big guy with his face covered ran in,' she says. 'He had an Irish accent and screamed for us to get down.

'He fired at Ronnie once and then fired again. I was bent down in the corner.

'I ran out screaming. There was a Bobby walking along and he came over, looked in the house, and said it's a murder. Obviously, within about 10 minutes, there were so many police cars there.

'I was taken into the police station as a witness, which is what I was but two days later, the police came to my daughter's house where I was staying and said, "We're charging you with the murder of Ron Cook."

Linda has always denied involvement in Cook's murder but despite protesting her innocence, in 1991, she was found guilty of gangland murder and sentenced to 18 years.

During her trial at the Old Bailey, the jury heard that Linda paid hit man Daniel Reece £10,000 to carry out the murder because she had been having an affair.

At the last minute, he lost his nerve and Linda forced Cook to kneel in front of her before shooting him – which she still denies.

She was convicted alongside Danny Reece who she later married in prison.

As a result, Linda was likened to a black widow spider, a sophisticated predator known for outwitting and seducing their male counterparts before killing them, rumours spiralled that she was cursed as every man she had ever been with ended up dead or in prison.

Pictured: Linda Calvey on her wedding day to Danny Reece, in Durham's prison chapel in December 1995

Linda served a total of 22 years behind bars and moved to 14 different prisons during her time inside

This time round Linda was sent to tougher prisons such as Holloway and Durham with open toilets, wailing women and stained mattresses. But despite her harsher conditions, she says her reputation meant she never faced any issues from other inmates.

'I was in Durham when Rose West arrived, she was a very strange person. She looked like a sort of matron with her big glasses and a woolly jumper,' she says

'I don't know whether she was dressing like that for effect to make her look more ordinary.

'Rose West and Myra Hindley actually had an affair. One minute they were chatting, and the next minute they were like bosom buddies and going into each other's cells.

'One of the officers once commented "I wish I had a camera. I could afford to retire taking that picture of the two most notorious British women murderers".

'But it didn't last long. A few months, and then all of a sudden, they didn't speak to each other anymore.'

But despite rubbing shoulders with West and Hindley, there was one inmate that Linda deems just as dangerous – Maria Pearson, Britain's longest serving female prisoner.

'Evil psychopath' Pearson, now 70, was released in August after serving almost 40 years behind bars for stabbing love rival Janet Newton to death in 1986.

After turning down nine previous bids for freedom, the Parole Board finally backed her release at the tenth attempt – despite warnings that she could still pose a 'high risk' of causing 'serious harm'.

However Pearson has already been returned to prison, apparently after breaching a condition of her licence.

'The very fact she's been in prison so long it speaks for itself really,' says Linda.

'People avoided her, I can't explain it but people were worried about her a lot of the women used to stay away from her.'

Linda served a total of 22 years behind bars and moved to 14 different prisons during her time inside.

Linda, once considered one of Britain's most infamous female gangsters, has gone on to live a quiet life. She is a doting grandmother of eight grandchildren and an author.

Charity by Linda Calvey is available to purchase at all major retailers now.

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