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An opportunity to step into the ultra-sinister world of the ‘real Peaky Blinders’ is presented later this month at a public lecture organised by Lancaster University.

The popular stylish and dark BBC TV series, which highlights the exploits of the charismatic Thomas Shelby and his violent Birmingham criminal gang in the aftermath of the First World War, is, the lecture will reveal, a far cry from reality.

And who better to tell the true story than a grandson of a real Peaky Blinder…

Prof Carl Chinn MBE, a social historian with a national profile and author of 35 books, takes to the stage at Lancaster Town Hall on March 20 at 6.30pm to give the 2025 Iredell Lecture.

Carl Chinn underneath the railway arches in Adderley Street where the first Peaky Blinders assaulted an innocent man because he had been drinking a ginger beer in the Rainbow pub (seen in the background on the right).

His illustrated talk will reveal how the well-dressed, captivating, and powerful dramatised gangsters are nothing like the real Peaky Blinder gangs of the 1890s and early twentieth century.

This free annual public lecture, organised by the Departments of History and Law at Lancaster University, will enable the local community to discover what life and the real Peaky Blinders were really like in post-war Birmingham.

Prof Chinn will also divulge that, along with the ‘scuttlers’ of Manchester and Salford, the Blinders were mostly unskilled men and teenagers who battled each other, baited the police, and bullied the decent poor of the back streets in a ‘reign of ruffianism’.

An off-course bookmaker until 1984, after which he was unemployed and part-time employed for several years, Prof Chinn is the son and grandson of illegal bookmakers.

With 40 years’ research on the Peaky Blinders under his belt, he has authored several books on the subject including a Sunday Times number 1 bestseller which has been translated into 15 different languages.

He was the consultant historian on BBC2’s 2022 two-part documentary, ‘The Real Peaky Blinders’, and also contributed to ‘Britain’s Biggest Dig’ on BBC2 and ‘Walking Victorian Britain’ on My5.

Previously, he was the expert on ITV’s ‘The Way We Were’ series, presented regular history slots on BBC Midlands Today, and has appeared as a historical expert on BBC1’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and ‘The One Show’ as well as on the BBC2 series ‘The Victorian Slum’.

Formerly at the University of Birmingham as professor of community history, he was awarded the MBE in 2001 for his services to local history and fundraising for local charities,

Although a free event, people need to reserve their seat for the Iredell Lecture on Lancaster University’s website at https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/events/iredell-lecture-historical-drama-and-historical-realities-the-real-peaky-blinders/

Lancaster lecture set to reveal the true story about ‘real Peaky Blinders’

Formerly at the University of Birmingham as professor of community history, he was awarded the MBE in 2001 for his services to local history and fundraising for local charities,