Page 20 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

language, after which he was imprisoned for twelve months in October 1898
for breaking into a counting house.

Now a serial offender, in 1899 Edward assaulted a police constable; in 1900
he was arrested for drunkenness; and in October 1901 at Stafford, and under
the alias of Fredrick Pitt, he was sent away for three years for bodily harm.
Finally in October 1906, he was sentenced to two months’ hard labour for
stealing a basket carriage from a widow.

Information courtesy of Chinn, Carl. The Real Peaky Blinders: Billy Kimber, the Birmingham
Gang and the Racecourse Wars of the 1920s (Kindle Locations 324-327). Brewin Books Ltd.
Kindle Edition.

“We become what we think about most of the time” (Earl Nightingale and James Allen)
With my earliest thoughts so coloured by crime and cop programs, and years
devouring thousands of pages from publications on the subject, I was
destined to become either an arch criminal or a law enforcement official.

The die was cast. (The die is one of a pair of dice. The cast means thrown. This phrase [in
Latin] was said by Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon with his legions, starting a civil
war.)

Family Life

I was the youngest of four lads to working class parents, born in 1960, when
we lived in Grange Road, Small Heath, Birmingham. These were rough inner-
city streets, dominated by the ‘Peaky Blinders’ - an urban street gang that
operated from the end of the 19th century until and after the First World War.
They were brummie gangsters, whose violent escapades serialised fictionally
on TV.

My dad, James, “Jim or Jimmy”, was born at 104 Camden Street Hockley
on 9th June 1924. Jimmy Bennett was what many would call a ‘lovable
rogue’. Not the tallest of men at 5’4”, he walked with a cheerful swagger,
hands buried in his pockets and flat cap on his head.

Mom and dad were beer drinkers. He loved his pints of Ansells Mild and mom
would always match him with two halves, never allowing him to drink her
under the table, which I doubt he could. They had both been smokers all
their lives and Dad, through all the years I remember, had either a Woodbine,
Park Drive or No 6 fags (if cash was tight) on the go. I used to find myself often
questioning that however bad it got for them money-wise, they always found
spare cash for booze and cigarettes. Page20