00:01We're currently in the Good Intent pub in the Great Western Arcade with the lovely historian, Professor Carton.
00:08Social historian, Bob, and may I say, terrific book writer.
00:13I've got, well, we can't get them all on the table, we can't get them all in the pub,
00:17but you've got your first book here from 1988, your second book, and then we've got two books here, both
00:23from this year.
00:25Last year, both from last year.
00:26Oh, yes, yes, well.
00:27But this one is a history of the Lentis Trust. It's 500 years old, well, 501 years old now.
00:33Wow.
00:33It's Birmingham's oldest charity, and what I really found interesting about this book was it took me back,
00:41because originally I'm a late 19th, early 20th century historian, but as you get into history, you dig deeper and
00:48deeper and deeper.
00:49So this took me back to Tudor Birmingham, which was really the foundations for Birmingham's take-off in the Industrial
00:56Revolution.
00:56Right, and it brings us up to date, because it is up to date now with the Peaky Blinders.
01:01Yeah.
01:02The film has just gone live on Netflix.
01:05And let's hope with all the work that Stephen Knight has done with Digber Flock that it's a great success.
01:12It's great.
01:12Yeah, and it's bringing so much popularity and interest in Birmingham.
01:17And permanence for film and TV.
01:19Very much so.
01:20And I think what's important is that enjoy the drama, but there's also a reality.
01:24So yeah, just give us a small insight. I've read the other three.
01:28Yes.
01:28But I've not got to this one.
01:30And I've seen the film. I've just seen the film.
01:32Just seen it.
01:33Yeah.
01:33So Peaky Blinders, the real gangs and gangsters, what I wanted to do was go back to the real sluggers
01:37and Peaky Blinders.
01:39The gangs have really emerged in 1868, were put down by 1910, who inflicted a reign of terror on the
01:47backstreet good people of Birmingham.
01:50So that was just a bunch of yobbos, basically.
01:51They were backstreet thugs. They baited the police. They hated the police. Three coppers were killed. Many were maimed.
01:57Really?
01:58Yeah. They bullied the hardworking poor amongst whom they lived. They battled each other. Many of them were racist. They
02:06attacked Jews and Italians. Many of them were involved in sexual violence.
02:11They were not meant to be admired.
02:13So they're not the glamorous portrayal that we see in the drama today?
02:18No. The anti-heroes of the series, which has been phenomenal success for Birmingham, they are a dramatised version of
02:27gangsterism.
02:28The reality was they were brutal, fighting men. Many of them were petty criminals, like my great-grandfather Edward Derek,
02:36who was not only a criminal, a thief, a violent man who attacked the police and others, but brutally assaulted
02:42my great-grandmother.
02:43Well, he robbed from my grandfather, actually.
02:45He did, actually, from the butcher shop.
02:47Yes, yes.
02:48I mean, Carl, this is a fascinating sight. Thank you very much.
02:52Everybody stay calm, because this man, ladies and gentlemen, is Tommy Shelby.
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