13 Facts About Carl Chinn

1.

Carl Chinn's father, Alfred, was known as "Buck" and was a notable football supporter and local activist from Sparkbrook.

2.

Carl Chinn initially followed his father and grandfather into bookmaking before entering academia, gaining his PhD in 1986.

3.

Carl Chinn held the position of Professor of Community History at the University of Birmingham until 2015 and is Emeritus Professor.

4.

Carl Chinn was Director of the Birmingham Lives multimedia archive at UoB.

5.

Carl Chinn is the author of over thirty books on the history of Birmingham and the urban working class in England.

6.

Carl Chinn presented a weekly radio programme on BBC WM from 1994 until it was axed in 2013.

7.

Carl Chinn has made three videos and provided spoken links on two CDs of songs about Birmingham.

8.

In 2000 Carl Chinn was a leading figure in the temporarily successful, but eventually doomed, campaign to save the Longbridge car factory from closure.

9.

Carl Chinn has been prominent in the campaigns to save the last back-to-back houses in Birmingham, now a National Trust museum in Inge Street; and for a memorial to the victims of the Second World War Blitz on the city, sited in Edgbaston Street in the Bull Ring.

10.

Carl Chinn stood in the 1983 general election in Birmingham Sparkbrook as an independent, campaigning for import controls to protect local industry, and more investment in council housing.

11.

Carl Chinn married Kathleen Doyle in 1978: they have a son and three daughters, one of whom, Tara, has sung professionally on stage with her father.

12.

Carl Chinn is a supporter of Aston Villa FC and has a season ticket at Villa Park.

13.

Carl Chinn is a descendant of Peaky Blinders gangster, Edward Derrick.