Hello, and welcome to Legacy, where you're joining us for the second part of our series on St. George. Afro, you've had a chance to think about St. George, his martyrdom, and his role in English life. Are you buzzed for seeing how he goes global? I honestly haven't had a chance not to think about St. George's flag, Peter, because it's everywhere right now. As I speak, it's plastered all over the place.

It's definitely in my part of London, from what I see in the press, all over England.

And I think we should talk about that and why that's happening, but also why it's not confined

to England, because in this episode, we're going to look at the fact that St George has gone

global.

What is interesting, affords, that normally at this time of year, we're recording in 2025 that if there's a football tournament, you start to see these flags. This year, there aren't any big sports tournaments or not football ones anyway. And so it's a slightly odd because I see those flags and I absolutely associated with the idea that I should stop by the supermarket on the way home and pick up a six pack of beer because there's about

to be a match either tonight or tomorrow night.

So I feel slightly sort of recognising that there's something that I should be celebrating,

not quite working out why or what, and then realizing that there's more going on behind the scenes.

Well, even the idea that the St. George's flag is synonymous with celebration, I would say,

is a controversial one because while it certainly has been, and people of all backgrounds

have rallied behind it when England has, in a rare, incidents, been killing it on the football pitch,

I think there are many people,

especially British people of minoritized backgrounds who've never felt truly comfortable around the St George's flag, who've always felt that it's been used slightly in a hostile way to exclude

them or to make them feel alienated. And last episode,

we talked about really the life of a man who became beatified and synonymous with martyrdom

and then with pride in Englishness. But this episode, I think we should dig down into why

it's become a complicated legacy and why people, and I include myself in this, feel disturbed

when we see St. George's flags plastering our local high street. So we've got a lot to talk about

Peter and I'm looking forward to discussing it with you.

I'm Peter Frankopern.

I'm Afwa Hirsch.

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