I had heard of the race gangs growing up, but I first learned about them in detail in 1987 when I was researching a social history of illegal betting and bookmaking, which was prompted by my background. My granddad, Richard Chinn, had started up as an illegal back-street bookie in Sparkbrook, Birmingham in 1922, and my dad, Alfred ‘Buck’ Chinn, then oversaw the move into betting shops after cash betting away from the racecourse was legalised in 1961. I was born five years before, and I worked part-time in the business from the age of thirteen, throughout most of my secondary schooling and university education, taking over its running between 1978 and 1984, when we sold up. For several years afterwards, Dad remained a leading figure in the local Bookmakers’ Protection Association and, through his contacts, I was fortunate to meet men who taught me about racecourse bookmaking and its history, something with which my family had not been involved. Their contribution to my book was much valued.
A few of those bookies from London gave me first-hand information about Billy Kimber and the Birmingham Gang and Darby Sabini and the Sabini Gang, all of whom have been dramatised in the television series, Peaky Blinders. These bookmakers included Dave Langham, the son of Darby Sabini’s best friend and right-hand man George Langham; Simmy Solomon, the younger brother of Alfie Solomon; Lou Prince, who was present when the Birmingham Gang went on the rampage at Alexandra Park races in 1921; Charles Maskey, who grew up in Hoxton, the stronghold of the Titanics; Alan Smith, a well-informed London bookie; and Sam Dell, who had a deep knowledge of racecourse bookmaking in the 1920s. I am grateful to them as I am to Joe Martin, Jim Cooper, Horace Bottrell, Mr Gilliver, Hilda Burnett and Steve Nicholls, who provided me with information from a Birmingham perspective. I also appreciate the memories of the Sheffield Gang War shared with me by Frank Harris especially.
My book on illegal betting was published in 1992, and although it had a section on the Racecourse War of 1921, there was much that I was unable to include. That material has been brought into this book, along with years of research since then. I am grateful, therefore, to John Blake Publishing for giving me the opportunity to write extensively on the gangs of the 1920s, and I appreciate the input of the whole team involved in bringing out Peaky Blinders – The Legacy. In particular, however, I wish to thank Ciara Lloyd, Editorial Director, for her belief in my work and enthusiastic support, and Ellie Carr, editor, for her thoughtful, informed and careful editing. My family has played the most important role in my approach to history and I thank my late mom and dad, Sylvie and Buck, my grandparents, Lil Perry, Arthur Perry and Richard Chinn, and my great-aunt Win Martin and great-uncle George Wood for inspiring me through telling their stories of working-class life in Sparkbrook and Aston. For giving me the confidence to uphold the value of such stories, I pay tribute to Dorothy Thompson, an influential and pioneering historian who supervised my doctoral thesis. Finally, I thank my wife, Kay, whose stories of growing up in Finglas West, Dublin, keep me grounded and without whose backing I could never have become a historian.