Peaky Bloomers

Peaky Blinders is a BBC crime drama series set in Birmingham immediately after World War I. It must be good – it’s on its third series. I’ve not seen it (maybe a good box set for the winter) but Dr Henry Sanford has.

You may remember that he shared an extract from his great uncle’s memoirs here, Sudak Remembered, and now he has written pointing out a plot point that seems to be endebted to his aunt’s memoirs. He also points out that the daughter of the Prince in Peaky Blinders is referred to as a Duchess, when of course she would have been a Princess – as was Henry’s aunt. She was Princess Gayane Mikeladze and here is an extract from The Revolution, Before and After.

My father really wanted to see Churchill. He had always admired Churchill, even when in the wilderness, and used to keep copies of his speeches. At the Versailles Peace Conference, he was the only statesman who had the insight and foresight to appreciate the danger that Bolshevism posed for Europe and the world. In a speech, in Feb 1919, Churchill made an impassioned plea to the council begging the Powers to take immediate action against the Bolsheviks. If the delegates had been prepared to listen, then the history of the 20th century would have been very different. Of the British delegation, Lloyd-George and Balfour were wholly ignorant of Russian affairs and regarded the excitable Winston as totally unreasonable.
Father had been entrusted with a proposal to prise Georgia from the USSR by arranging for her to become a British Protectorate, which would give the use of the Georgian oilfields to Britain. Father used to meet Churchill, I think, in the Royal Geographical Society. The scheme appealed greatly to Churchill. Plans were being made to enroll all the Georgians that were in exile and envoys from Georgia itself reported that the whole population was only waiting for the day of liberation and would rise as one man. Later Father learned that the enterprise had been discovered and he was advised by an anonymous letter to leave London.
Father used to say, that sooner or later, Europe would become embroiled in turmoil. He would tell Mother that she must get me to England in good time, “For if Britain is in trouble, she will be saved by Churchill.” The sequel to this was many years later, when I was already on the stage, Mother used to insist on a rule that I should never receive telephone calls before or during performances. I was playing in a spy thriller in Richmond with Josephine Wilson and Dirk Bogard as the heroes and Bernard Miles and myself as the villains. A call came through from Mother, breaking her own rule. I rushed to answer it, to hear her tell me “Churchill is Prime Minister. It has just been announced on the 9 o’clock news. Now Britain has a chance to win”. When victory finally came, I had hardly the heart to rejoice as Mother had not lived to see it. 

An interesting and little known insight into the turbulent times following the Revolution for which I am grateful to Henry. He told me that he doubts that his aunt’s account was used in PBs as insufficiently dramatic and wonders, “was there another source or is it pure fantasy? Perhaps the BBC (Tristan Ferne) could tell us”.

Here is a brief biography of his remarkable aunt.

Birth: Jun. 14, 1910, Russia
Death: Mar. 29, 1994, England

Actress, Princess.
Miki Iveria
Гаянэ Ивериковна Микеладзе
June 14, 1910 in Crimea
as Princess Gayane Mikeladze.
She was the great granddaughter of the artist Ivan Aivazovsky. (правнучки И.К. Айвазовского)

Born a Georgian princess, Miki Iveria and her family were forced out of their homeland by Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. The exiles moved throughout Europe before settling in England.

Though originally known as Gayane Mikeladze, she adopted the name Miki Iveria for her stage debut in a late ’30s production of {+Tovarich}. Her subsequent career in theater encompassed several decades and dozens of supporting roles. Iveria made her screen debut in The Adventures of Tartu.