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The Peaky Blinders! They existed. Who were they?

At the turn of the 20th century, Birmingham in England was an industrial powerhouse,

celebrated for its innovation and enterprise and civic pride. But beneath that reputation lay another

story, one of brutal gang warfare. It was home to the infamous Peeky Blinders. Thanks to the

global success of the Peeky 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 to the violent racecourse wars of the 1920s,

this episode uncovers a world far less glamorous, far more revealing than the fiction.

It's a story not just about crime, but about poverty, policing, social change in Industrial Britain.

For this, I am joined by the one and only, the legend that is,

the historian author Carl Chin, specialist in the social history of Birmingham.

His book, Peaky Blinders, The Real Gangs and Gangsters, is out now.

And he appears in Robin Bexter's new documentary,

Peaky Blinders The Real Story, which is available to buy and rent on digital platforms now.

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