The Real Peaky Blinders

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At the turn of the 20th century, Birmingham in England was an industrial powerhouse, celebrated for its innovation, enterprise, and civic pride. But beneath that reputation lay another story, one of brutal gang warfare.

It was home to the infamous Peaky Blinders. Thanks to the global success of the Peaky Blinders TV show and now the movie, the term has become synonymous with style, swagger, cinematic gangster glamour. But how much of that is actually true?

From the rise of the so-called slogging gangs in the 1860s,

“the violent race course wars of the 1920s,”

this episode uncovered a well-fireless glamorous,

far more revealing than the fiction. It's a story, not just about crime, but about poverty, policing, social change, and industrial Britain. For this, I am joined by the one and only. The legend that is the story North of Kalchin,

specialist in the social history of Birmingham, his book, Peaky Blinders, The Real Gangs and Gangsters is out now, and he appears in Robin Beck's new documentary, Peaky Blinders The Real Story, which is available to buy and rent on digital platforms now.

Carl has taken me on a tour through the streets of historic Birmingham a few years ago. You can check that documentary out on the history at TV channel. But now, Carl is back, and we're going to explore together who the Peaky Blinders really were, where they came from,

and how the myth has diverged from the historical record. This is the true story behind the Peaky Blinders. Let's get into it. Carl, good to see you. Thank you, Dad, pretty valuable.

Great to have you back on the part of your work. Thank you. Thank you.

Tell me about, tell about this amazing, dynamic, crazy city

that was Birmingham in the 19th century, and a height of that industrial revolution. Birmingham at the height of the industrial revolution down was the city of a thousand trades. It's a title we grew up with, we were so proud of.

You name it, Birmingham made it. Lots of small metal goods, buttons, you know, guns, obviously, jewelry. But there was a brass trade was very important in Birmingham. So brass bedsteads, brass fittings for all over the home.

And towards the end of the 19th century, those older trades were slowly declining, but new trades were coming in. So from the country, tubes. Yes, I mean, you can use a tube making machine

to move into making bicycles. Nice.

“So that's why like firms like the Birmingham small arms”

moved into adventure to motorbikes. That's crazy, isn't it? And so you've got this developing new industries at the end of the 19th century. You've got lots of skilled workers

and semi skilled workers who do in well. And better quality tunnel back houses are being built for them. So those are houses that in a long terrace and to take up as little space as possible,

they tunnel back. So you've got a bedroom and a room downstairs. You've got another bedroom on that level and you've got the back room. Then you've got the backyard and the house tunnels

back into the backyard. So that's where you get lots of terrace in, like in Sparkill, born, broken places like that. But what is overlooked too often is that 200,000 brom is nearly half the population

lived in a ring of poverty. In badly built, Jerry built, decaying, in sanitary, back to back houses. And it's in those districts down, the districts of the poor who are already suffering.

Hard ships, ill health, early deaths, bad pay, irregular work, it's in those districts that the reign of the Peaky Blinders impacted most negatively. And just on those communities,

so any shift in economic fortunes, they're feeling the fallout straight out of that. You said irregular work. When times are good, they've got work. Yeah, so very similar to what you find

in much of the old East End of London, South London, in the docks of Liverpool. You've got lots of irregular work. So yeah, things are going well, there's lots of laborers. They're on skill, but when things,

there's a bit of a recession or a downturn in trade. You can't get work in a factory or on the building sites. Then what we also forget, just like in the East End of London, Manchester, you've got lots of street traders.

because what you're going to sell

“when you're pushing a banner around the streets”

when it's pouring around. So what we see in the older parts of Birmingham, I won't use the phrase in the city, 'cause that's much more a modern phrase. Let's call it a central areas, the central neighborhoods.

What you see is lots of unskilled men and their families, lots of women having to work. There is factory work in Birmingham for women. That's better than low paid work in going out charring, cleaning,

or taking in washing for the better off. So what you're finding in the factories in Birmingham and the small workshops is a single women or young married women with no kids or one or two kids are going to work in the factories,

'cause relatively it's better paid. Not as well paid as the men, but it's better paid than going out charring,

taking in washing, or what used to do as well,

a lot of the poor women in Birmingham, they would card buttons. So the old days, buttons would be put onto a card to be sold in a little shop.

“And if I wanted to time, they'd press them into the cards.”

Yes, they would get them into the card or hocks and eyes. So there's a lot of poverty. There's irregular work, there's bad housing. There's youngsters are working from the, in the 1860s, 70s and into really the early 80s,

from the ages of 6, 7 and 18 workshops and factories. It starts to change in the 80s, but what you've also got when school and becomes compulsory is that youngsters, or regulators, we would say, Birmingham, not go to school.

My granddad for example, my granddad chim board in 1892 would sell newspapers, go around the streets, plug your newspapers to make it hatefully. And with that hately, he and the other poor kids

would go to an 18 house in the boring, and they would have a hately dip. They'd have the meat sides of beef over the gas, heated, going round and round on a spit, and they would have a hately dip.

A hately thick piece of bread dipped in the fat. That was their taste. - Well, they must have dreamt about selling those papers. - It was, it was hard days and not just in Birmingham, and this is the lived experience of the urban poor,

of Sheffield, of Leeds, of Glasgow, of Dublin, of Birmingham, elsewhere.

“- And why do we hear about kind of lawless behavior in Birmingham?”

The riots, the 60s, and is it just that, is it just that concentration of poverty, or what the politics do? - So what we've got is the situation where the poor are, nobody cares about them done.

The elite of Birmingham, Birmingham's praise as the best government's city in the world. - Yes. - And the shame of it. - It wasn't for the poor.

- Oh, but it wasn't. - Because he decided his crowning glory was corporation streets. He would build this Parisian style boulevard that would sweep through a sway, the badly built housing.

And have at least shopping road that would reflect Birmingham's status as a metropolis of the Midlands, but 5,000 poor people lost their homes done for that, for that status symbol.

And they were pushed into the surrounding neighborhoods. So the land was like that, that's a higher demand. The rents go up. - It's something for us. - So get to see the worst they have to take in largest.

Tiny, two bedroom houses, probably only as big as this room that we're sitting in now. And then TV spreads are the communicable diseases. So when we see Birmingham as a rioter city,

it wasn't necessarily rioters, it was violence. It was one of the most violent cities in Great Britain, however the war riots. And the rise of the back street gangs can be seen tied in to political rioting.

In the late 80s, 60s, I've got the gang starting in 1868. Last of the earliest references I've got to the bar street gang, the park street gang, which went on for a generation or more.

There's three factors at work here, Dan.

First of all, the middle class

who were still living in some numbers around the old parts of Birmingham, around the boring, a poor impression on the place to put down the gatherings of young men on a Sunday. - Right, they got a day off.

- They're day off. They're gathering on great waste ground. They're playing rough sports. They're swearing and they're gambling. Pitch and toss, they're throwing coins at a mark.

Pitching them, whoever gets some nearest tosses them up. They don't like this to be looked glass. - So one bit of relief they're getting all weak these lads. - That's all it's he's dead. - And the middle class doesn't have the sign in there.

- Because they're swearing, they're abusing the Lord's Day. - Drinking alcohol. - So they put pressure on the place for a crusade against Pitch and toss. That leads to reaction.

Now, that reaction is young men, teenage lads, and young men gathering in gangs, street gangs. At the same time as his crusade, there's a viable Protestant preacher who had been a Catholic or William Murphy,

So called prayer place. Basically all he did was say,

“"Vile filthy things about the Pope and Nodans."”

So had antagonized the local Irish.

He always set up his tabernacle

and he travels around the country. He sets his opposite ex to an Irish district. Park street where selfages now overlooks was the site of a terrible ethnic riot. And on the first day, the Irish attack is tabernacle.

He hired gangs to protect him. There were too many Irish. The next day, a hugely English mob attack the Irish. So 1867, this happens, the crusade against Pitch and toss. Happen at the same time.

There's a Pitch and toss sight in Park Street. And they form an Irish Catholic gang for the two reasons. One, the attack of the police, on the Missouri's Catholics.

At the same time, better off working class men get the vote, don't they? The late 1860s. Now the working class matter. So they want that vote.

And what I found is,

“immediately in the late 1860s and then forth,”

the Libros and Conservatives in Birmingham are hiring gangs to disrupt each other's meetings. Really? The worst one down was in 1884. Birmingham, you know, was dominated by Chamberlain in the Liberals.

Yes. Lord Randolph Churchill, Ringo Bell, Winston's dad, comes to Birmingham standing as a Conservative. He's bearded in the lion and he's then, Chamberlain. And he has a big meeting of what is now Villa Park,

which was called the Lovergrounds. He hired, well, the local Conservatives hire gangs to protect them really. But the Liberals march through the streets, with drums and music playing.

And they go in the pubs and they get the gang leaders. There's a massive riot. The Ashton riot of 1884. It's so bad that they smash up the meeting. It's so bad that Churchill in Parliament

and it's recording Hansard names the Lent Street gang,

“the Harding Street gang and the Bar Street gang.”

Chamberlain's opposed pay people to say, "No, we weren't paid by the Liberals. We were unsyvolved, get thrown out of Parliament. He gets allowed. There's a vote against Churchill, but it gets defeated.

A few months later, after he's covered, they were paying these people. The Liberals were paying these people to accelerate Chamberlain in his men. So you've got these three factors coming together.

In the late 1860s, the politicians using gangs, Murphy and his riot enabling the gangs as another spark and the crusade against each other. And those early gangs, the Park Street gang, the Milk Street gang, well, I took you for a walk.

Yes. The Bar Street gang, Barford Street gang, they're all within a few hundred yards of each other. They fight each other and they fight each other until the early 20th century.

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Where do we get the name Peaky Blinders for? So originally, they just caught street ruffians. And then from 1872, the term "Slogger", a slogger is somebody who belongs to a slugden gang. It's somebody who's usually stick to slug to hit

with the fears below. From 1890, a new term comes in. Now, it's called Peaky Blinders. It's not one gang as we see in the series then. In one district, with one family at the heart of it,

Peaky Blinders is the generic term for the back street thugs of Birmingham. Belonging to numerous slugging gangs. So in Manchester and south of the called Scotland, they belong to Scotland gangs.

In London, in Clark and Well, King's Cross, in the East Ending Bethanyle Green, and Spitfields, and White Joupling, South London, around the elephants, they're known as street ruffians. And until 1898, an a really violent,

bank holiday Monday in August, and a new term comes into the English language. Who ligands have a beginning in London, who? Yeah, but it's the same kind of phenomenon. Birmingham's who ligands of the Peaky Blinders comes sluggers, Manchester's other Scotland's.

In Liverpool, they're the corner boys. It's the same phenomenon. So you've got these numerous back street gangs.

And at first, they have no fashion.

called a death. It's a silk-type scarf, Dan.

“There's wrap around the neck, and if it's not,”

if it's called a choker. In Manchester, the Scotland's where, Wallen, Moffless. In Birmingham, it's silk, she has.

But then in 1819, I've found the very first reference

to this new fashion. January 1890, new fashion comes in for the sluggers. They're wearing bell-button trousers, tight to the knee, and wide around the button, 22 inches.

They've still got the death. But they're now wearing a hat called a Billy Cock. It's the work of man's bowler. And they have a skinned haircut. Except, they've got a quiff.

I've got photos of these from the West Midlands Police Museum. And they've got this quiff. They like to show off the quiff. So they wet the brim of the Billy Cock. Hold it over a fire, and turn the front into like a funnel.

And they wear it over the right. They pull it over one eye. So what's the brim doing to that eye? It's hiding. It's hiding, it's blind in it.

That was blind. That's nice.

“So then, when the flat cap comes in, they do the same.”

So the term peaky blinder, Dan, is a term about a fashion. It's nothing to do with the belief that disposable safety razor blades were stitched into the peak of a flat cap. They're not, they're not blind.

Now, actually, I managed to have a flat cap with me here. And may I ask you to put it on? It's probably a little bit small, because it fits my head. Lovely. So now, me and you are going to have in the Birmingham language,

a bus stop, a fight. All right. You're going to take your flat cap off now. And slash me. What have you done to your fingers?

I've just cut my fingers.

That's what I've always wondered.

Yeah. They'll fill the back, it's floppy in it. So let me give you a chance. We're going to have a bus stop. And I'm going to go down.

I'm going to slush you in a minute, but just wait a bit. By the time I've folded, what have you done to me? I've beat you up. You put me under. So why it's not feasible.

So it never happened. I've gotten through hundreds of court cases, newspaper articles, and back in the early 80s, Dan, when I first wrote about the real peak of blinders. So this is a 40 year research that I've been on.

When I first wrote about them, I interviewed all men that knew people, they told me exactly the thing that they would pull that peak of the cap of one eye. So it didn't happen.

It's not feasible.

And the first hats they were were not flat caps.

They were Billy Cox. And finally, disposable safety razor blades were not pated by King Gillette until the early 20s. Oh, right. They were not sold in any great numbers in England

to the First World War. And during the First World War, the British armies were issued with cutthroat razors. And they were too expensive, the disposable. They were 37 shillings and the six months

for five best sheffields still. A poor man in Birmingham in the East Ends would be lucky to earn 17 shillings as six months away. So it's not come from that. It's a myth that grew up from the late 30s

in newspapers from outside Birmingham. And you think of the name, Dan. It's infused with dread and violent peak blinders. I'd heard about it growing up. And the story I was told was they slashed the forehead

hence blood when in the eyes. In the series, it says slashed the eyes. But there's a problem there, the bridge of the nose. And it's just a myth. So why were they called it?

They were called it because they pulled the peak over the eye. And then one eyes name blind. Yes, it's covered. It's blinded. OK, and that was the fashion.

And peak, but I was just a fashion statement. But that doesn't neglect the fact that they were brutal men. Well, I was going to say, you're not going to now tell me that they were just gathering for prayer meetings.

They weren't gathering for, but in fact, they hated the salvation army and attacked the salvation army women in particular. The sluggers, like the Scotlanders of Manchester and Seoul for the cornerboys of Liverpool,

what became known as the Huligons of London, they prayed upon the poor amongst whom they lived. That's their worst trait for me. They baited the place. We can talk about that three policemen were killed,

numerous policemen were mainly going to leave the force. They battled each other viciously and there were killings and maimings of gang members by all the gangs.

“But the worst thing they did down was they bullied the hard work”

in decent poor amongst whom they lived. And it was known as the rain of the ruffians, the rain of the peaky blinders. Well, whatever they're beginning, they go into what we might call organized crime.

No, they don't, and that's again a misconception. These are backstreet gangs. Their aim is violence. And I'm not going to excuse them, but we need to understand them.

What led these men to become so violent?

“We're living there living in a very hard world,”

badly built housing, in sanctuary conditions. They have no parks or recreation grounds, there's no gardens. The streets is their playground. And the street belongs to them. It's the only thing that they own.

And the other, the reason they can own the streets is because of these, they're harder than the next street. So that's why the street gangs emerge. Some of the gang members are just hard men who work hard and don't commit crime.

Many of them are not, though. They are petty thieves. We say petty thieves. It's not petty for the people around the receiving end. But in terms of the English law, it's better. They're violent, they're abusive, they're racist.

And some of them are sexual predators. And horrible, horrible, sexually assaulted men. So what we've got is the development of these gangs. Yes, they might go into a pub. And they'll order around the drinks.

And they refuse to pay.

“And if the gaffer, the public and ask them for money,”

they'll smash the pub up. Into the 1880s and early 1890s, 90s for an assault on a copper, a bad assault on a policeman. They could get foreign 40 shillings. It's a lot of money when you're only earning half that or less than half that.

So what they do, they have a whip round. But who's paying for the whip round? The little shopkeepers, the publicans, the beer housekeepers. So that's seen as petty crime. It's not for them who are suffering.

By the age, you've always told them by the 1890s,

Birmingham, it's like Gotham City, about that. There's a new, there's a new cop in town. Yeah, you're right. 1899, no cop comes in, Charles Horton, Raffter. He's a Protestant from Belfast,

but a light major camel in the series. He's not sectarian. He comes to Birmingham with a reference from an Irish Catholic, Natalie's MP. Oh, it's interesting.

He's in the Royal Irish Conservatory, Dan. But he's seen as someone who's fair to both sides in the disturbances that are happening. He comes to Birmingham and he's remitts is to put down the peaky blinders.

And he realises that the Birmingham police are battling demand. So he sets on a very fast recruitment campaign of young fit men who have to be five foot nine and a half and very soon five foot 10. They have physical training instruction. One of their instructors was a man called Sergeant Dautie.

I bet he's son, I knew he's son, stand. I was used to drink with him in the George and Sparb, Brooke in the United States. He gave me a photo. He's that in his PT kit with the coppers.

He has later realised this is a man that's training the police to fight the peaky blinders. Very rapid recruitment campaign. Now, once that's done, he sends them out into the streets to at a time.

The peaky blinders are overwhelmingly small bromies. Five foot four, like my great-grandfather Edward Derrick was a peaky blinder. Five foot one, like Samuel Sheldon and many others. They take the fight to the streets and rafted out the storywence in the Birmingham police

for years after he died in the mid-30s. rafted out three things of his men. Can you read? Can you write? And can you write?

And they had to fight. And again, what's happened down over the last few years, rare memoirs have come to my attention by coppers who were retiring in the 20th century as a battle on the streets. It doesn't end immediately.

There's still some vicious attacks. There's a killing of a member of the Somahil gang by one of the Camden Street gang, the killing of PC Gunter, the main in a PC Blinco. But by 1905, the Birmingham newspapers are same, the Army days of the PC Blinders are over.

By 1910, they're rights about the PC Blinders in the past 10s. In 1915, the second year of the First World War, the Birmingham Mail rights. What's happened to the PC Blinders? Well, the police are pleased, they've gone.

Where are they? Oh, there either work in an earning good money

“in the munitions factories or fighting at a front, and that's what happened to them.”

There were no PC Blinders in 1920s, Birmingham, because they either got killed in the First World War, maimed in the First World War, or they were aging. And so, if you're a skilled industrial worker, you've done well. Yeah, you have.

So don't forget, these men are all laborers. Overwhelming, I've got a couple of were in skilled trades. And they're only good money in the munitions.

The problem is after the First World War, there's no work for them.

But the PC Blinders then are gone. Then it's still nasty men, there's little gangs in Birmingham,

There'd be devil-dumb-blighted the lives of the poor

“from the late 1860s to just before the First World War.”

Okay, but so that the police seem to retake in the streets Birmingham, but all of this violence, all this activity, does spark something more organized crimes? Yeah, it leads to semi-organized crime. In that gang called the Birmingham gang emerges

from some of the worst peaky blinders, and they go racing then. Okay, so they go national, yes. So what's happening from the late, probably from the 1870s, but certainly by the 1880s and 90s, according to a London newspaper, senior peaker blinders, they said in 1898,

go racing in the flat racing season.

Now the flats are always more popular than the jumps.

What are people carrying at a race course then? Oh, they're drinking up, they're carrying their winnings, or what they want to-- They're stuck to it. So this is like bees to honeypot.

Small gangs from Birmingham, six, seven, eight,

“are traveling across the Midlands of the North,”

how are they able to do so? The extension of the railway system. And they're going to the race courses. They take over, they dominate the rackets in the Midlands of the North. They're a gang from Sheffield and Leeds, but even in Yorkshire,

they have to pay tribute to the Birmingham gang. Really? That must have been a must have tough for the Yorkshire, I mean, yeah, I mean, the Sheffield gang, the Goat, the Mooney's, the Garvines, originally the Mooney's, was the West Bar gang, the Garvine gang, was the Park gang.

They are not in control. So what happens is you've got all these little gangs, and they start pick bucketing. There's very few coppers there, and the coppers are there are there are two scared of the gangs.

There's hardly any stewarding. So they pick bucketing, but then they start to intimidate bookmakers and extort money from them.

“You want to stand there, that's a good pitch, a fiveer.”

Oh, you've got a store, we've got a store, two and six Pennsylvania race, six races, 15 Chileans, 75 pens. You write the labels of the horses and the bet, the prices of the horses on a blackboard, two and six pens for a sticky chalk, each race, another 15 Chinese, that's 30

Bob, at the end of each race, you've got to get rid of those previous runners. So you get a sponge, that has to be dipped in a bucket of water, two and six pens for the sponge, each race, two and six pens for the bucket of water, each race.

It mounts up, mount up a lot. So by the early 20th century, as the gangs have been put down in Birmingham, some of them have moved really away from the back streets, and they are brought together into a formidable fighting force by a man called Billy Kimber.

Don't know if it rings a bell from a series one. The cut me gangster running the race course you get to killed. It was a big burly bromey from Somaline. His family's descendants, his Birmingham descendants, are regularly in contact with me, and I've been for many years.

He brings them together into this fearsome fighting force, not fully organized, because he's got his own leader. But he has got brains as well as brawn. He's a fearsome fighter, but he's got a bit in his noodle.

And what he does before the First World War,

he abandoned his Birmingham wife, Mord, to live and die in poverty, and she's buried in a poor Prince grave. And his granddaughters, and his great granddaughters in Birmingham, still hating for doing that. He piles up in London with George Sage of the Camden townmob,

north London, but this is where he's dead cute. He also piles up with him at Donald's, from the Elephant Voice, south London. After the First World War, the Birmingham gang, because there's hardly any racing in the First World War,

because it's seen as on patriotic. The Birmingham gang reassert the control of the race courses, the Midlands of the North. But then they'd drawn down south to pile up the Camden townmob, and the Elephant Boys, and in 1920, they take control,

but they're racist, they're horrible. And they extort extra money from the Jewish bookbakers. One of whom was a character called Alfie Solomon. In the series, Alfie Solomon's play by some hardening. I met the younger brother of the Real Alfie Solomon in 1987,

Simian Solomon, in a very tough pub in north London. And he looked at me as we were having a chat, and he went, "It's packed." He went, "It's all your lots of folds." I said, "Oh, he said, "You luck from up north."

Now, I'm a Midlander. Actually, I'm a West Midlander. I don't like being called a Northern or a Southerner, but I was in a tough pub. I took it that day."

And he told me about what started the race course war of 1921.

The First Gang gang war between two organised gangs

The Birmingham Gang and the Sabines. And he said, "What happened, Carl?"

“He said, "My brother Alfie was betting on the name Sidney Lewis,”

which Simian also bet he'd under, because as he said, because of racism,

we would never regard it better if we stood

with our Jewish names." And what are your mobies said? Came along and beat him up badly. I found, he told me about the beating and since then, I found a rare account in a book by a Jewish guy

who was a boxing referee who was there that day. Wow, it's a corroboration. And that's a great thrill down, because I believe in the spoken word, but as you know, there's a snobbery in academia towards the spoken word.

So finally, the corroboration. And then I found an ex-copter who corroborated as well. Well, it really meant was. So Alfie's Solomon, as opposed to Alfie's Solomon's in the series, was not an Orthodox cooking Jewish guy

from a Yiddish background in the East End. He was from North London. Well, cover garden. He was from cover garden. He's data to the little business.

They grew up with the servants. And he's standing on his stall. And a man called Tommy Armstrong,

“one of the most violent, vicious, brutal, nasty Birmingham gang members,”

came past him, and he once had 40 pound on the horse and 11 to four. So if he puts 40 pound down, he gets 110 back. But he once had done the nod. I'm not paying. I want it on credit.

Now, if he loses, he's going to bung the 40 quid. But if it wins, and it won. And he come back and he shouted, I want me winnings. And Alfie's Solomon's shouted, I said, no bet, no bet. He took his field glasses off, smashed him into the face of Alfie Solomon,

according to the guy who's accounts are read. The former referee, the Jewish guy, he said, he fell to the floor, his face of bloody mess. And Armstrong then smashed his boots into his face. Armstrong then went on to beat up so badly

and in offensive Jewish bookmaker that the poor guy died a few weeks later. Armstrong was had up for manslaughter. Nobody turned up to as a witness.

“The poor bookies widow stood up in cords and said,”

you're Anna to the judge. No man will turn up here to speak against him as so scared of him. That started the race course wall. Alfie Solomon was not a gangster to then.

He'd served underbrewly in the first wall wall.

But he Kimber didn't. He did a runny deserted. He went to while and were racing continued. So did a lot of the other organise gang members. Alfie Solomon turns to Edward Emanuel.

He is the big Jewish gang leader in the East End white chapel, spittle fields. And he's going with a top bookie called Walter Berry's Foot. They're running spieglers illegal gambling clubs. And they're also on the race course.

But they can't take over the race course. Because of the Birmingham gang and their London allies. So Edward Emanuel spots an opportunity now. And what he does, he knows he's got a gang of East End Jewish soft nuts.

But they're not enough. So he piles up with an op-and-combing anglo-e-tally a gangster. Derby Sabine. And Sabine, they've got a gang from Clark and Bullock King's cross, made up of anglo-e-tally and slightly himself.

But also men of Solia inrecheritage. And they set this gang up. And there's some vicious fighting throughout the spring and early summer of 21.

But ultimately, the Birmingham gang and their London allies are defeated,

because Edward Emanuel's got a brand-new brand in the Kimber. He starts to book, make his protection association. I was a bookie, Dan. My dad was present to the Birmingham Book Max Protection Association. And organisation, which I didn't realise, was set up by, against the.

And what they do, they get the support of the Jochie Club who were really worried sick about attendance levels, because of all these headlines about gang wars. So they get their support. The Metropolitan Police, like the ID as well. So what do they do, Dan?

They hire the Sabine as a stewards at the Berger gang. So that's the very first organisation gang war in Britain. And it's because Billy Kimber, who was a peaky blinder, and his main fighting men had all been peaky blinders. Now, you mentioned that your great granddad was a peaky blinder.

But when you were growing up, there was still a memory. Well, it was it talked about, as you say, that, blighting that community. Yeah, my great granddad Edward Derek, I knew about him growing up. I know that he was a thief. I know that he was violent and an abusive husband.

They told me that he'd come out and mock you drunk, and if my great-great-grandmother

“ate a herding coming, she would rush with my grandmother, maizey,”

next door to Granny Carey's. And he wouldn't go into Granny Carey's because she got five big sons. Or else, if she wasn't in Granny Carey, she'd run an ID in the brew house. That was the common or wash house. But too often he got home.

And I later found a report again that all 11's been substantiated, verified by the written word, a legal document, a stake in the used to come home, beat her up, threaten to kill her, puncture about the place, and threaten to set fire to the house with her and the door to in. So I knew all that growing up.

Then, more of many years ago, Dave Cross, who was the late Dave Cross, who was the policeman in charge of the Westbidden's police museum, said Carla found a photo of your granny-grandfather, Derek. He said he was a right blighter. And he was a peaky blinder. I've looked at it now in the evidence.

He got the late of fashion in a photo of the peaky, which was longer here, part of it in the middle, but he still got the death. Then I find that his older brother, John, my great great uncle, was one of the main leaders of the notorious spark-rock-slugging gang. So, I've got that's a new about it growing up,

and I've done a lot more research into it. And I have to tell you, Dan, I'm not proud to be this great-grandson. Of a real peaky blinder or the great-great nephew of a leading figure in a slugging gang, but I'm very proud to be the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson, a back-street Birmingham Women,

as we would stay in Birmingham, my generation, proud to be the son, great-grandson, and grandson, a back-street Bromitian wenches. Well, Carl, I'm sure they'd be equally proud of you, equally proud of you, all the work you've done. We'll tell you what's the latest book called?

The latest book is called Peaky Blinders, The Real Gangs and Gangsters, and I'm on a documentary on Amazon that is looking at the real peaky blinders. Brilliant, good timing. Thanks very much for coming on. Thank you for having me, Dan's a great pleasure.

Well, here's thank you to Carlton for bringing us the real story behind the peaky blinders. A world far removed from the slow-motion swagger of the TV show in the movie,

“but I think it could agree, far more interesting for being real,”

because those real gangs of Birmingham, we're not criminal masterminds, pulling political strings, they were young men, they were street fighters, they were petty thieves, and race course racketeers. They were shaped by poverty and brutality, youth culture, boredom, official neglect, and that the hard edge of industrial life.

Now, before you guys got something exciting, I'm just going to tell you about. Over the past few months, loads of you have got in touch saying that you love it when history at host get together, you've got Kate and Matt and Eleanor and Crystal, because Kate Lister's got the betwix, the Sheets podcast, Eleanor and Matt, gone medieval, and see him mady after dark, Tristan with the angst.

Basically, you've been asking for an Avengers assembling of the history hit universe.

And we've listened, if you're a subscriber to this podcast, if you're one of the wonderful people, who get our bonus content, you're about to get some brand new episodes, taking you behind the scenes in history at Towers, it's where we host all and get together, we're going to have a few drinks, we're going to eat some snacks, and we're going to talk about the stuff that normally happens after the microphones go off.

So, if you're already a subscriber and thank you very much, if you are, please keep an eye out for that. Thank you. In 1095, the Pope absolutely freaked out. He issued a call to arms, which set Europe on a collision course in the Holy Land. In our many series running through April, we chart the epic sweep of the Crusades from the astonishing capture of Jerusalem to the better failures of later expeditions. We'll hear about the mysterious religious orders,

the night's Templar, and the Nazari is my elis, and we'll relive the climactic siege of acre, the epic battle that finally ended the Crusader presence in the Holy Land. All these episodes coming in April, so follow Dan Snow's history here or smash that subscribe button if you're watching on YouTube and you won't miss a single one.

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