Britain's Overlooked Hero: From the Trenches to the Blitz

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2021

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Serving on the front lines of the First World War, the homefront of the Second World War and as a community leader throughout his life, George Arthur Roberts was a truly inspirational figure. Yet, his amazing story is little known. After the outbreak of the First World War broke out he travelled from Trinidad to the UK and eventually joined the Middlesex Regiment. He saw considerable action at the Battle of Loos, the Dardanelles campaign and the Somme where his wounds forced him out of the war. A man of considerable bravery and a keen cricketer George was known for picking up and throwing enemy grenades back into their trenches. Too old to fight in the Second World War he became a firefighter serving in Southwark, London. In 1944 he was awarded the British Empire Medal for his work in the fire service and the community. That community work was equally impressive as whilst in the fire service he founded the Discussion and Education groups of the fire service. He was also one of the founder members of the League of Coloured Peoples, an influential civil rights organisation that looked after Britain's black community.

To say that he is an inspirational figure is an understatement and joining dan to talk about his extraordinary life Dan is joined by his great-granddaughter, Samantha Harding. She and Dan discuss the events of George's life, Samantha's own story of discovery as she uncovered his life and the vital legacy that figures such as George can have today.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Dan Snow's History Yet. Today we've got the story of a forgotten
0:04.9	British hero George Arthur Roberts was born in Trinidad, he moved to the UK and signed
0:10.3	up to fight in the First World War. A keen Cricketer became famous in the trenches for his ability
0:15.9	to pick up grenades known as bombs at the time and hurl them back towards enemy lines,
0:21.3	keeping his mates safe and inflicting casualties on the Germans. He was featured in newspaper
0:26.2	articles and became something of a celebrity soldier. He fought in the middle sex
0:31.0	regiment the battle of Loose in the Dardanelles, Glippi campaign and at the Somme. He was wounded
0:36.6	twice and then settled in London following the war. He became a founder member of the League
0:41.2	of Colored People's and influential civil rights organisation and during the Second World War
0:45.9	he wanted to serve again but he wasn't able to, he was too old so he became a fireman and
0:50.8	he was stird abrated for saving countless lives, pulling people out of the rubble of Suthuk
0:55.5	during the blitz from 1940 onwards. He was decorated for his bravery as given the British
1:00.8	Empire Medal for General Jute's at New Cross Fire Station. It's very exciting to me to
1:07.7	be part of resurrecting this hero from Marford Cotton Pass and here to do it with me is his
1:13.6	great granddaughter Dr Sam Harding, she's a pediatric ophthalmologist and she is very proud
1:19.6	of her great-grandfather and has done a huge amount of work reconstructing his story. If
1:24.4	you want to listen to other episodes of this podcast without the ads, I can see why
1:27.6	they use one. If you want to listen to them without the ads, you want to listen to my
1:30.8	mammoth Trafalgar monologue yesterday that I put out on the anniversary of the Battle
1:35.5	of Trafalgar, please do that. You can head over to historyhit.tv, historyhit.tv. It's
1:41.3	like Netflix or history, we've got 100 documentaries on there, we've got the new Trafalgar
1:43.9	documentary on there that everyone's watching. We have got the story of the Haitian revolution
	...

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