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The Real Peaky Blinders episode 2: As the Peaky Blinders start to evolve from a mass gang movement interested in territory and fighting into the first organised crime gangs in Britain, we follow the career of petty thief Billy Kimber. With his Birmingham gang, Billy rises to dominate the illegal money-spinning rackets around horse racing at the start of the 20th century.     World War I disrupts his quest to build an empire, but after the war Kimber moves south to take over the rackets in the lucrative southern English racecourses. This brings him into conflict with powerful London […]

The Real Peaky Blinders episode 1: Exploring the origins of the real Peaky Blinders phenomenon in Birmingham, starting with the first mention of the term in the popular press in 1890 and the street gangs that stretched as far back as the 1860s, when they were known as slogging gangs.     Through the experiences of a number of individuals, who we learn about through court and press reports, we build up a picture of the gang movement that has its roots in the working-class areas where territorial loyalty was all and gambling was a national pastime driven underground by