Peaky Blinders: The Aftermath: The real story behind the next generation of British gangsters

by Carl Chinn

The third book in the series, which once again dives into Britain's murky underworld, uncovering the countries worst criminals of the mid-twentieth century

As Britain emerges into the mid-twentieth century, change is afoot. Cities are beginning to shift from smog-filled industrial hubs to more efficient metropolitan centers of commerce and, despite the country once again being blighted by war, society is beginning to shift towards a more modern, forward-thinking era. But change is not only limited to regular men and women; under the shifting tides of development, the criminal underbelly, too, is evolving, anxious for new avenues of exploitation and expansion . . .

And so, in the third installment of his series, historian Carl Chinn examines this new era in the landscape of Britain's gangs. After the violent reign of the Peaky Blinders, the intimidation of the Birmingham gang, and frequent gang wars up and down the country, from the wreckage new groups are emerging with new ways of making money and causing trouble, and, like those who came before them, they leave havoc and destruction in their wake. Peaky The Aftermath will bring this new generation of criminals into focus.

Genres: Biography, True Crime, History, Crime

336 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2022

Reviews

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a reasonable library on crime, organised crime rather than the individual evil-doer. This book fills a nice gap in the story providing a history of the transition from the race course gangs to the world of organised crime as we would come to understand it in the age of the Krays.

It is one of several books by an academic who knows something of the cultural milieu of gangland because of his own family's past involvement in the illegal betting game in Birmingham in the interwar period. One of the virtues of the book is original research and interviews.

It is, of course, a spin-off from the popular BBC TV series. I have to admit that I have not seen this series partly because I have an aversion to fictionalised history (e.g. Downton Abbey) but there is no reason to bring such prejudices to the evaluation of this book.

It can be 'bitty' (especially in the earlier period covered - the 1920s), the characters pop in and out in a somewhat haphazard way, there is probably an inadequate analytical framework and there is no index - a major fault if you are to keep track of individuals.

Still, the book is written for a mass audience. A mass audience tends to demand the piling on of incident rather than an overly academic approach. Without that mass audience, we might not have got this book and its (as yet) unread companions so I am grateful to it.

Despite the intellectual flaws caused in part by popularisation (I have no quarrel with the factual basis of the book and Chinn is adept at stripping away romantic sensationalism from the story), we can get a good understanding of the transitions within criminality over a long period.

The book concentrates on the interwar years and introduces the likes of the Krays and 'Mad' Frankie Fraser (with whom I shared a space in a small Chinese restaurant in Islington once upon a time) but also takes us back to the origins of 'thuggery' in the late mid nineteenth century.

Indeed, what strikes one is a sense of 'lineage' back in time and of competitive association and mutual awareness stretching from the 1870s through to the arrival of the Krays and beyond. This is an anarchic and complex alternative culture with its own codes and shifting allegiances.

Part of the fascination of organised crime and its development is how it 'matures' and how it parallels legitimate society so that one can see both how it can infiltrate a weak state but also how close it might be to the thugs and war bands that create new states out of old.

Chinn does not dwell on the role of the State throughout this period. Observed on his evidence, it appears to be both weaker and more sensible (about its own reach) than we might expect. The habit of leniency is embedded because 'bourgois' society is fearful of the consequences of other measures.

In a few cases, gangsters go over a red line and are hanged but it is surprising just how much obvious crime took place because the State's resources were limited and the evidential requirements too great. Mussolini did not have this problem with the Mafia.

It is an axiom that the poor prey on the poor or rather, in this case, the sociopathic elements at the very bottom of society (most people were never criminals no matter how poor) would prey on bookies, small traders and the lower middle classes in poor areas.

Of course, there is another world sitting alongside the early race track and extortion gangs, one of organised robbery and fencing which did prey on the higher levels of a highly classed society but this only becomes the subject of the book when one of its hard men arrives, Billy Hill.

The story starts (though this appears at the end of the book) with small armies of thugs, prepared to travel cross country to disrupt and extort from the liminal world of race track betting (horses and then dogs).

Chinn is very good on the evolution of these 'race gangs' from the invasions of race tracks to the carving up of territories through fear and violence with the razor blade (and other nasty instruments) taking the place of the American gangsters' gun.

The gun does emerge later but British gangsters, although many young toughs emulated the filmic gangsters on the 1930s, were simply not organised or strong enough against even a weak police to carve out the same sort of territories - and there was no trigger like prohibition for growth.

If organisation starts as simply the organsation of mass terror raids on race tracks (and the subsequent fencing), it eventually evolves into symbiotic relationship between certain gangs and the 'industry' (racetrack betting), always in a grey area of respectability.

On of the fascinating aspects of the story is the three-way negotiation between the more intelligent thugs (sociopathy and intelligence are not incompatible), the private sector and evolving and rather intelligent monitoring and management of the urge to bet by the authorities.

There might be said to be a peculiarly English adaptive approach to vice very different from the black and white approach of American culture - wait for a problem to appear, analyse the problem and resolve it through low-cost compromise. Basically, accept and manage human weakness.

With the race track betting industry increasingly legitimised (eventually to become fully legal and recognised to the point that licences were eventually given only to candidates proven to have engaged illegally!) some gangsterdom was effectively integrated into enforcement.

At the beginning inchoate roaming underclass gangs could come from anywhere and turn up anywhere (with Birmingham lads the undoubted leaders and the source of the 'peaky blinders' saga) but the human instinct to war and territorialism will always out.

We can see little difference between these inchoate gangs and the war bands of young warriors trying to plunder the Roman Empire until someone had the bright idea to pay them to defend it. If the British State had ever collapsed, gangs might have created new States.

The London-based Sabini gang and Kimber's Birmingham mob fought, the latter lost (though he was spending most of his time in London by then) and the country was carved up between the two, with the Sabinis taking their turn from the lucrative Southern race tracks.

Chinn traces how the Birmingham gangs collapsed over the interwar period for lack of sustained and organised leadership after Kimber was no longer in play so the book is largely about London as centre of a network of competing gangs out of which the Krays and Richardsons would emerge.

Although there are ethnic elements to the story, Italian, Jewish and antisemitic South London, what is striking is that (as with Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky in New York), ethnicity did not count for as much as many believe. Italian gangs were as much English as Italian, if not more, over time.

One exception was Jack Spot, friend and then rival of Billy Hill, who consciously travelled the country to help Jewish small traders and interests to fight off local extortionists and who claimed (almost certainly incorrectly) to have been instrumental in the Battle of Cable Street.

In fact, the territorialism of gangs has also been exaggerated. Yes, they often came out of particular 'hard case' localities in places like Hoxton but they often travelled across country, Birmingham boys gravitated towards London and Soho was often shared competitive territory as race tracks had been.

The transition from the pure race gangs to Jack Spot as dominant London gangster (although Chinn is careful to dismiss any idea of some 'Mr. Big' running organised crime across the capital or the country) and then to Billy Hill is fascinating.

Billy Hill was a thug but an unusually intelligent one who came not out of the violence and fisticuffs of the tracks but from the world of burglaries, requiring a much greater awareness of the need for stealth, organisation and not to embarrass the police and draw attention to one's actual work.

His technique was curious - to hide in plain sight by cultivating crime journalists and claiming leadership of the underworld in public, confident that nothing could be pinned directly on him under English legal procedures. The claim, of course, irritated Spot.

It was this conflict that helped the Krays to smell blood like the sharks that they were but there was much less of that generational slaughter normal in New York. More of the youngsters slowly grabbed rackets while the older generation either went respectable or slipped into decline.

While Spot ended up a forgotten meat packer, gangsters like Sabini and Hill came to live a comfortable and respected life, seemingly not unhappy to see younger gangsters take their place on the more obvious rackets.

This is a story of considerable violence that horrified and titillated on occasions the British public through its pre-tabloid media and crime correspondents whose role was more than ambiguous on occasions. The theatre of it all is part of the interest.

The one great lack in Chinn's book is the evolution of police corruption, always present. Somewhere in this period or soon after, police corruption became highly institutionalised and is only fully being rooted out this century. We need a history of that phenomenon - difficult to research, of course.

[George Fisk]

DNF - hooked in by title and account of peaky blinders and as many others have reviewed this is more of a historical case file of the influences of the show. Tried picking up again and found no interest

[James Tidd · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the third book in the series, Carl Chinn, the grandson and son of a bookmaker in Birmingham, takes his readers into the murky world of British gangs of the mid-twentieth century. Old rivalries seek to re-emerge whilst new, menacing bid for dominance over the country's racecourses. And, as war once again ravages the country, shady gangs are born in Soho, and the legacies of gangsters such as Darby Sabini and Billy Kimber are pushed aside.

[Rob Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third volume of this series progresses in much the same manner as the previous two; names introduced at difficult-to-keep up with pace amid accounts of various violent episodes involving shape-shifting gangs led by various over-testosterone-d thugs dragging their knuckles around our capital city. The rat-a-tat introduction of new participants is probable unavoidable, with so much to fit in, and the whole thing will possibly flow better for anyone knowing London as though it's the back of their hand.

If you liked the first two volumes then here's a third helping of the same. If The Real Story and The Legacy didn't float your boat then neither will this.

[Anna Chapman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish this book, got about 50 pages in and got bored.

Although it’s great that this book has so much info, for me there’s not enough natural pauses/breaks in reading (some sections are 30+ pages) and it felt like a spew of facts instead of an actual storyline of a non-fiction (if that makes sense?).

I’m glad others enjoyed this book but it wasn’t for me.

[Janine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. My Nanny is from Birmingham. Makes me wonder if she was related to a family mentioned in this.

[Robin Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a history book it’s fine. I was looking for the story of Peaky Blinders.