Inside the blood-drenched world of the REAL Peaky Blinders – the violent villains whose antics make BBC show look tame
thesun.co.ukAS some of Britain’s most terrifying gangsters, the Peaky Blinders loomed large over Victorian Britain — but most of them were barely five foot tall.
As the hit BBC1 drama that tells their story returns for a sixth series later this month, a new documentary looks at the Birmingham mobsters who inspired the show.
In it we learn about pint-sized Sam Sheldon, the basis for the TV series’ lead character of Thomas Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy — who proves that size was not important when it came to terrorising the streets.
Professor Carl Chinn, whose great-grandfather was a Peaky Blinder, said: “He’s only five foot one and a quarter, but he’s not a man you want to mess with. “He was involved in riots, brutal beatings, shootings and the worst gang war in the city’s history.” Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, who comes from Birmingham, said: “I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley, that is for certain.” Sam was just one of a long line of Peaky Blinders whose size belied their love of violence, extortion, robbery and street warfare.
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