So how true is Peaky Blinders to the real-life criminals from whom it takes its name?
The Peaky Blinders lacked the political ambitions and vision of the fictional Tommy Shelby, for whom there is no one factual forerunner (other than, perhaps, one Thomas Gilbert AKA Kevin Mooney), and were instead largely petty criminals.
But, as Chinn concludes in The Real Peaky Blinders (2014): “The ill-fame of the Peaky Blinders and their lurid name infused as it was with violence and gangsterism ensured that they would not be forgotten.”
“One of the stories that really made me want to write Peaky Blinders is one my dad told me,” he said.