1
00:00:04,807 --> 00:00:06,479
(SEAGULLS CAWING)

2
00:00:11,927 --> 00:00:15,966
JEREMY PAXMAN: The British Empire
lasted over 300 years.

3
00:00:20,927 --> 00:00:24,522
It made Britain the most powerful nation
in history.

4
00:00:24,607 --> 00:00:28,361
It also shaped a fundamental part
of the British character.

5
00:00:37,447 --> 00:00:41,838
The empire offered the inhabitants
of a grey, damp island

6
00:00:41,927 --> 00:00:45,761
in the North Atlantic,
the prospect of limitless adventure.

7
00:00:45,847 --> 00:00:49,965
You might discover a diamond field
and become unimaginably rich

8
00:00:50,047 --> 00:00:53,198
or you might perish in a malarial swamp.

9
00:00:54,047 --> 00:00:59,201
Either way, the thing to do was to
''play up, play up, and play the game.''

10
00:01:02,287 --> 00:01:06,644
Wherever the flag was planted
went a passion for sport.

11
00:01:07,647 --> 00:01:09,444
And the spirit of fair play.

12
00:01:10,447 --> 00:01:11,516
Yes, yes, yes, yes!

13
00:01:11,607 --> 00:01:15,236
PAXMAN: But sport was about
more than just good clean fun...

14
00:01:15,327 --> 00:01:16,476
Hey!

15
00:01:16,567 --> 00:01:19,127
...it was an entire way
of looking at the world.

16
00:01:20,647 --> 00:01:23,605
And it was one of the foundations
of the empire.

17
00:01:25,167 --> 00:01:30,082
In its wide-open spaces, a particular
kind of British hero was born,

18
00:01:32,647 --> 00:01:35,719
exploring the unknown places
of the Earth,

19
00:01:36,887 --> 00:01:39,162
hungry for glory and adventure,

20
00:01:40,327 --> 00:01:44,764
courageous, intrepid and ruthless.

21
00:01:47,407 --> 00:01:49,159
For the builders of empire,

22
00:01:49,247 --> 00:01:53,206
it was how you played the game
that mattered more than victory,

23
00:01:54,527 --> 00:01:56,324
mattered more than life itself.

24
00:02:35,807 --> 00:02:37,126
(BIRDS SQUAWKING)

25
00:02:51,567 --> 00:02:52,556
(MONKEY GRUNTING)

26
00:02:52,647 --> 00:02:54,797
To Britons in the mid-1 9th century,

27
00:02:54,887 --> 00:02:58,084
the heart of Africa was as mysterious
and unexplored

28
00:02:58,167 --> 00:02:59,998
as the dark side of the moon.

29
00:03:06,127 --> 00:03:07,480
(SCREECHING)

30
00:03:13,207 --> 00:03:16,404
It proved a magnet
for Victorian adventurers.

31
00:03:17,487 --> 00:03:20,559
They were drawn by an obsession
to get there first,

32
00:03:21,247 --> 00:03:24,557
and to put new names to new places.

33
00:03:29,127 --> 00:03:33,757
On the 1 7th of June, 1 857,
two Englishmen arrived in East Africa.

34
00:03:35,687 --> 00:03:40,044
Their names were Richard Burton
and John Hanning Speke.

35
00:03:42,007 --> 00:03:46,125
They dreamed of finding
what had eluded explorers for millennia.

36
00:03:47,767 --> 00:03:51,442
''Where did the most famous river
in civilisation begin?

37
00:03:51,967 --> 00:03:54,435
''What was the source of the Nile?''

38
00:04:02,407 --> 00:04:03,999
(ANIMALS CHIRRUPING)

39
00:04:04,647 --> 00:04:07,719
The two men could hardly
have been more different.

40
00:04:08,007 --> 00:04:12,603
Burton was 36 and already famous
as a charismatic adventurer,

41
00:04:12,687 --> 00:04:16,157
a man who'd smuggled himself into Mecca
disguised as an Arab,

42
00:04:16,247 --> 00:04:20,365
a man known for liking to charm snakes
and wrestling alligators,

43
00:04:20,447 --> 00:04:24,599
a man who would eventually learn
to speak 29 languages.

44
00:04:24,967 --> 00:04:27,481
He had a slightly sinister expression
to his face,

45
00:04:27,567 --> 00:04:29,717
which wasn't helped
by a scar on each cheek,

46
00:04:29,807 --> 00:04:32,719
where a javelin had pierced
right through his face.

47
00:04:33,167 --> 00:04:35,442
But it was the eyes
that everyone remembered.

48
00:04:35,527 --> 00:04:40,317
One poet described them as having a look
of unspeakable horror.

49
00:04:45,007 --> 00:04:47,601
His companion was his complete opposite.

50
00:04:50,727 --> 00:04:56,120
John Hanning Speke was clean-living
with a taste for tweed suits.

51
00:04:56,527 --> 00:04:58,916
But he shared with Burton,
the cast of mind

52
00:04:59,007 --> 00:05:01,726
that made the early pioneers of empire -

53
00:05:02,207 --> 00:05:06,280
an obsessive,
often foolhardy determination.

54
00:05:06,847 --> 00:05:08,200
(BIRDS CHIRPING)

55
00:05:15,967 --> 00:05:20,438
The pair came to loathe each other
and would become bitter rivals.

56
00:05:21,967 --> 00:05:25,198
Together,
they travelled over 1,500 miles

57
00:05:25,287 --> 00:05:28,006
through swamp, desert and jungle.

58
00:05:29,367 --> 00:05:32,165
For two years,
they journeyed into the interior,

59
00:05:32,567 --> 00:05:36,446
battling dysentery,
fever and wild animals,

60
00:05:37,527 --> 00:05:39,643
scorched by the tropical sun.

61
00:05:49,167 --> 00:05:52,682
You get a sense of how heroic
this expedition was

62
00:05:52,767 --> 00:05:55,361
when you look at this 1 9th-century map
of Africa.

63
00:05:55,727 --> 00:05:58,195
They had landed on the east coast
and various places around here,

64
00:05:58,287 --> 00:06:00,596
Madagascar, Zanzibar,
Mozambique and so on.

65
00:06:00,687 --> 00:06:01,676
They are known.

66
00:06:01,967 --> 00:06:05,164
But inside Africa,
the whole heart of Africa,

67
00:06:05,247 --> 00:06:08,239
is just marked ''Unknown Parts''.

68
00:06:08,327 --> 00:06:11,364
Thousands upon thousands
of square miles.

69
00:06:11,727 --> 00:06:15,037
But somewhere in there
was the source of the Nile.

70
00:06:25,327 --> 00:06:29,559
When Burton went down with malaria,
Speke pressed on alone.

71
00:06:41,047 --> 00:06:44,881
And on the morning
of August the 3rd, 1 858,

72
00:06:44,967 --> 00:06:46,844
a year after they had set out,

73
00:06:47,087 --> 00:06:51,239
John Hanning Speke looked out
on a vast expanse of water,

74
00:06:51,327 --> 00:06:54,683
which he immediately, of course,
named Lake Victoria,

75
00:06:55,367 --> 00:06:57,562
and which he believed to
be the source of the Nile.

76
00:07:17,607 --> 00:07:20,997
''I no longer felt any doubt, ''he wrote,

77
00:07:21,087 --> 00:07:24,284
''that the lake at my feet
gave birth to that river,

78
00:07:24,367 --> 00:07:27,962
''whose source has been the object
of so many explorers. ''

79
00:07:31,807 --> 00:07:36,198
It was no more than a hunch, though,
as it later turned out, he was right.

80
00:07:41,287 --> 00:07:44,563
Despite the fact his evidence
was really pretty thin,

81
00:07:44,647 --> 00:07:46,683
Speke hastened back to camp

82
00:07:46,767 --> 00:07:49,486
and six weeks later
was reunited with Burton.

83
00:07:50,207 --> 00:07:53,199
''I've found the source of the Nile,''
he told him.

84
00:07:53,567 --> 00:07:56,525
To which Burton replied,
''Oh, no, you haven't.''

85
00:07:57,607 --> 00:08:01,885
The two men agreed it would just be
safest not to talk about it any more.

86
00:08:01,967 --> 00:08:03,923
And for the remainder of their time
in the jungle,

87
00:08:04,007 --> 00:08:08,398
they maintained a frosty,
English silence on the subject.

88
00:08:20,527 --> 00:08:23,519
Victorian explorers
like Speke and Burton

89
00:08:23,607 --> 00:08:25,757
were the pathfinders of empire,

90
00:08:25,847 --> 00:08:29,965
fanatical not for power,
but for knowledge and excitement.

91
00:08:31,327 --> 00:08:35,400
And they helped to create the image
of the classic British hero.

92
00:08:42,567 --> 00:08:46,242
Their accounts of their travels
inspired tales of adventure

93
00:08:46,327 --> 00:08:49,478
for a British public
hungry for excitement.

94
00:09:00,727 --> 00:09:02,160
(PEOPLE SHOUTING)

95
00:09:05,887 --> 00:09:09,436
King Solomon's Mines
was published in 1 885

96
00:09:09,527 --> 00:09:11,518
and was a huge bestseller.

97
00:09:12,807 --> 00:09:17,358
Filmed many times since, it tells
the story of three British adventurers

98
00:09:17,447 --> 00:09:19,517
who play the game to the hilt.

99
00:09:21,887 --> 00:09:25,960
Together, they cross Africa
in search of the lost diamond mines

100
00:09:26,047 --> 00:09:27,685
of an ancient civilisation.

101
00:09:27,887 --> 00:09:29,240
King Solomon's mine.

102
00:09:38,367 --> 00:09:40,927
PAXMAN: Its author, Henry Rider Haggard,

103
00:09:41,007 --> 00:09:42,326
was an old colonial.

104
00:09:43,607 --> 00:09:46,405
He'd spent seven years
in southern Africa.

105
00:09:51,807 --> 00:09:55,243
The British public devoured
his thrilling tale

106
00:09:55,327 --> 00:09:56,999
of danger and exploration.

107
00:09:59,007 --> 00:10:03,239
It came complete with a map
of his hero's journey into the unknown.

108
00:10:06,447 --> 00:10:09,484
It's written in blood,
a very good start,

109
00:10:09,887 --> 00:10:13,596
on a strip of fabric
torn from a dying man's shirt.

110
00:10:14,167 --> 00:10:18,399
And it shows the routes you have to
take across the Kalekawe River,

111
00:10:18,487 --> 00:10:20,443
avoiding the bad water

112
00:10:20,927 --> 00:10:24,806
between a couple of mountains
called Sheba's Breasts,

113
00:10:25,087 --> 00:10:28,716
to the idols guarding the cave
where the treasure is.

114
00:10:43,527 --> 00:10:46,280
In this quiet country house in Norfolk,

115
00:10:46,367 --> 00:10:51,487
Rider Haggard produced rip-roaring yarns
for generations of schoolboys

116
00:10:51,567 --> 00:10:54,445
to read under the bedclothes,
as well they might.

117
00:10:58,487 --> 00:11:02,685
His massively popular tale, She,
comes with a powerful dash

118
00:11:02,767 --> 00:11:04,598
of Victorian male fantasy.

119
00:11:09,167 --> 00:11:11,965
She, or ''She who must be obeyed':

120
00:11:12,047 --> 00:11:14,766
is an African goddess,
white as it happens,

121
00:11:14,847 --> 00:11:17,202
made immortal by killing her lovers.

122
00:11:22,327 --> 00:11:27,355
The narrator is at last allowed a peep
at her extravagant charms.

123
00:11:30,727 --> 00:11:35,243
''For a moment, she stood still,
her hands raised high above her head

124
00:11:35,327 --> 00:11:36,919
''and as she did so,

125
00:11:37,007 --> 00:11:41,478
''the white robe slipped from her,
down to her golden girdle,

126
00:11:41,567 --> 00:11:44,684
''bearing the blinding loveliness
of her form.''

127
00:11:47,087 --> 00:11:50,716
This is enough to burst the buttons
on your Victorian waistcoat,

128
00:11:50,807 --> 00:11:54,641
but what it does point up
is the way in which the empire

129
00:11:54,727 --> 00:11:58,515
opened up the possibility
of all sorts of intoxications

130
00:11:58,607 --> 00:12:01,599
that were quite unknown
in respectable old England.

131
00:12:05,687 --> 00:12:10,238
For Rider Haggard's heroes,
the empire was a vast playground

132
00:12:10,327 --> 00:12:12,682
for a particular kind of British male.

133
00:12:17,527 --> 00:12:22,476
He's a fellow with a stiff upper lip,
athletic and unpretentious.

134
00:12:25,367 --> 00:12:28,484
He is fair, he is honest,
and he's steady.

135
00:12:28,567 --> 00:12:31,684
He's an amateur and you can find him
all over the empire

136
00:12:31,767 --> 00:12:35,316
from Khartoum to Calcutta to Cape Town.

137
00:12:35,567 --> 00:12:39,003
If you needed three words to sum him up,

138
00:12:39,087 --> 00:12:40,566
''A decent chap.''

139
00:12:51,727 --> 00:12:54,195
The decent chap was a contradiction.

140
00:12:54,727 --> 00:12:56,365
Sturdy and self-reliant,

141
00:12:56,447 --> 00:12:59,757
yet ready to obey orders
without hesitation.

142
00:13:03,207 --> 00:13:08,201
He was nurtured in a place far removed
from the heat and dust of the colonies,

143
00:13:09,407 --> 00:13:11,159
The English public school.

144
00:13:14,327 --> 00:13:15,555
(BELL TOLLING)

145
00:13:31,807 --> 00:13:35,720
The public school's heyday
was the height of the Victorian era.

146
00:13:37,127 --> 00:13:39,277
Schools like this took boys

147
00:13:39,367 --> 00:13:42,882
and turned them
into the governing class of empire,

148
00:13:43,647 --> 00:13:46,764
the future prefects
of the colonial world.

149
00:13:48,847 --> 00:13:51,315
They couldn't expect an easy ride.

150
00:13:55,367 --> 00:13:59,440
Life in a Victorian public school
was specifically designed

151
00:13:59,527 --> 00:14:02,803
to work against the comforts
of family life.

152
00:14:03,207 --> 00:14:06,438
''The chief thing to be desired'',
said one headmaster,

153
00:14:06,527 --> 00:14:10,918
''is to remove the child
from the noxious influence of home.''

154
00:14:15,087 --> 00:14:18,045
There was a good reason
for this strict regime.

155
00:14:18,767 --> 00:14:21,918
''It was to make the boys
Christian gentlemen,

156
00:14:22,007 --> 00:14:23,679
''manly and enlightened,

157
00:14:23,767 --> 00:14:28,363
''finer specimens of human nature
than any other country could furnish. ''

158
00:14:29,047 --> 00:14:33,006
The words of Rugby's celebrated
headmaster, Thomas Arnold.

159
00:14:46,487 --> 00:14:50,560
This is the room known as Upper Bench,
where Dr Arnold taught

160
00:14:50,647 --> 00:14:53,878
some of the sons of the wealthier
Victorian middle class.

161
00:14:54,287 --> 00:14:57,165
But from what they were taught,
you would never guess

162
00:14:57,247 --> 00:15:02,162
that Victorian scientists, engineers,
architects and explorers

163
00:15:02,487 --> 00:15:05,081
were about to forge the modern world.

164
00:15:14,847 --> 00:15:18,476
It was rather the ancient Romans
who provided the model.

165
00:15:19,967 --> 00:15:24,836
Victorian headmasters and politicians
didn't look forward but back

166
00:15:26,087 --> 00:15:29,602
to the classical world,
in which civilisation was spread

167
00:15:29,687 --> 00:15:31,564
at the point of the sword.

168
00:15:37,207 --> 00:15:40,324
This is a timetable from 1 899

169
00:15:40,407 --> 00:15:43,399
and it shows that
if you were a 1 6-year-old

170
00:15:43,487 --> 00:15:46,843
in the upper middle part of the school,
this will be what you'd study.

171
00:15:47,367 --> 00:15:51,076
Divinity, Classics, Classics, Classics,
Classics, Classics,

172
00:15:51,327 --> 00:15:55,798
Maths, Natural Science, Classics, Maths,
Classics, Classics, Classics, Classics,

173
00:15:55,887 --> 00:16:00,119
Classics, French, History, French,
Maths, Classics, Classics, Classics,

174
00:16:00,527 --> 00:16:02,483
Maths, Classics.

175
00:16:03,047 --> 00:16:07,245
Small wonder, that is, one visitor
to another public school remarked,

176
00:16:07,407 --> 00:16:11,446
not one boy in ten
could tell him where Birmingham was.

177
00:16:15,967 --> 00:16:17,446
But a public school education

178
00:16:17,527 --> 00:16:20,564
wasn't really about learning
where Birmingham was.

179
00:16:20,847 --> 00:16:22,360
(ORGAN PLAYING)

180
00:16:22,447 --> 00:16:25,280
# Who would true valour see

181
00:16:25,367 --> 00:16:29,963
# Let him come hither

182
00:16:30,047 --> 00:16:34,165
# One here will constant be

183
00:16:34,407 --> 00:16:38,366
# Come wind, come weather... #

184
00:16:38,447 --> 00:16:41,519
PAXMAN: A particular idea
of Christian values,

185
00:16:41,607 --> 00:16:44,565
discipline,
respect for rules and ritual,

186
00:16:44,647 --> 00:16:47,400
these made up the public school's
true mission,

187
00:16:47,487 --> 00:16:49,205
the moulding of character.

188
00:16:49,607 --> 00:16:59,403
# His first avowed intent
to be a pilgrim #

189
00:17:04,927 --> 00:17:07,282
PAXMAN: But there was something else
fostered here

190
00:17:07,367 --> 00:17:11,485
that would prove an even more powerful
builder of empire.

191
00:17:13,407 --> 00:17:16,558
The British public school
practised two religions -

192
00:17:17,487 --> 00:17:20,399
Christianity and sport.

193
00:17:21,727 --> 00:17:23,001
No!

194
00:17:29,287 --> 00:17:32,120
According to one Victorian headmaster,

195
00:17:32,207 --> 00:17:36,325
sport was the rock
on which Britain's greatness was built.

196
00:17:41,087 --> 00:17:43,282
BOY: Well played, son!

197
00:17:43,367 --> 00:17:48,236
''Englishmen,'' he said, ''are not superior
to Frenchmen or Germans

198
00:17:48,327 --> 00:17:52,400
''in brains or industry or the science
or applications of war.

199
00:17:52,767 --> 00:17:55,759
''In the history of the British Empire,
it is written that

200
00:17:55,847 --> 00:17:59,601
''England owes her sovereignty
to her sports.''

201
00:18:05,807 --> 00:18:10,562
The values of organised games were said
to express the values of empire.

202
00:18:12,007 --> 00:18:13,406
Physical courage,

203
00:18:16,607 --> 00:18:17,835
team spirit,

204
00:18:20,287 --> 00:18:22,164
and, er, having a go.

205
00:18:23,127 --> 00:18:24,640
(BOYS CHEERING)

206
00:18:26,207 --> 00:18:28,038
And it was the game of cricket

207
00:18:28,127 --> 00:18:32,803
which gave rise to one of the most
famous of all famous empire poems.

208
00:18:33,767 --> 00:18:36,600
''There's a breathless hush
in the Close to-night

209
00:18:36,687 --> 00:18:39,201
''Ten to make and the match to win

210
00:18:39,527 --> 00:18:42,360
''A bumping pitch and a blinding light

211
00:18:42,447 --> 00:18:44,756
''An hour to play and the last man in

212
00:18:46,967 --> 00:18:50,084
''And it's not for the sake
of a ribboned coat

213
00:18:50,167 --> 00:18:53,079
''Or the selfish hope of a season's fame

214
00:18:53,687 --> 00:18:57,316
''But his Captain's hand
on his shoulder smote:

215
00:18:57,727 --> 00:19:01,276
'''Play up! Play up! And play the game!'''

216
00:19:02,967 --> 00:19:04,878
Oh! Beautiful shot!

217
00:19:11,767 --> 00:19:15,316
PAXMAN: In the poem,
the scene shifts from the cricket field

218
00:19:15,407 --> 00:19:18,160
to a bloody battle
in the African desert.

219
00:19:20,607 --> 00:19:22,837
The schoolboy is now a soldier,

220
00:19:22,927 --> 00:19:26,761
his comrades in arms
dead or dying all around him.

221
00:19:29,647 --> 00:19:34,846
But then his spirits soar
as he hears his captain's voice calling,

222
00:19:35,527 --> 00:19:38,803
''Play up! Play up! And play the game!''

223
00:19:42,527 --> 00:19:46,361
It's majestic and it's idiotic
at the same time,

224
00:19:46,447 --> 00:19:48,915
to our eyes at least,
because war isn't a game.

225
00:19:49,767 --> 00:19:53,282
And yet the fact that the poem
could be written in that way

226
00:19:53,367 --> 00:19:55,642
tells us something rather profound

227
00:19:55,727 --> 00:19:58,525
about the way that the British
viewed their empire.

228
00:20:03,927 --> 00:20:06,316
The battle which had inspired the poem

229
00:20:06,407 --> 00:20:11,003
was fought by British troops
in the biggest country in Africa, Sudan.

230
00:20:12,287 --> 00:20:15,438
In such remote outposts,
the heroes of empire

231
00:20:15,527 --> 00:20:17,961
achieved sometimes mythical status.

232
00:20:18,687 --> 00:20:20,405
(SCREECHING)

233
00:20:44,207 --> 00:20:48,883
In 1 884, the empire found a hero
who played the game

234
00:20:48,967 --> 00:20:51,879
with a passion that bordered on madness.

235
00:20:53,047 --> 00:20:56,119
He was a soldier
who showed that heroic failure

236
00:20:56,207 --> 00:20:59,244
could be even more inspiring
than victory.

237
00:21:05,607 --> 00:21:07,802
Charles Gordon was a maverick,

238
00:21:07,887 --> 00:21:11,004
a general who disobeyed orders
and wrote his own.

239
00:21:13,287 --> 00:21:17,439
He became an imperial martyr
in one of the strangest episodes

240
00:21:17,527 --> 00:21:19,563
in the history of empire,

241
00:21:19,967 --> 00:21:21,798
the Siege of Khartoum.

242
00:21:24,247 --> 00:21:28,081
The capital was surrounded
by thousands of Islamic warriors,

243
00:21:28,167 --> 00:21:32,160
followers of a religious leader,
sworn to end British rule.

244
00:21:33,207 --> 00:21:36,995
He called himself ''the Mahdi':
''the Expected One''.

245
00:21:40,807 --> 00:21:44,117
The man sent from Britain
to stop the Mahdi,

246
00:21:44,207 --> 00:21:46,596
roared on by the London newspapers,

247
00:21:46,687 --> 00:21:50,202
was already a legendary soldier
and a fervent Christian.

248
00:21:59,647 --> 00:22:03,435
General Charles George Gordon
was an extraordinary man.

249
00:22:05,727 --> 00:22:08,605
He was thin, he was 5 1, he was unmarried

250
00:22:08,687 --> 00:22:11,645
and he had blue eyes
with a faraway look in them.

251
00:22:13,247 --> 00:22:15,807
Other places,
they'd just have called him a crank,

252
00:22:16,047 --> 00:22:19,244
but as it was, the British public,
whipped up by the press,

253
00:22:19,327 --> 00:22:22,046
came to share
his unshakable self-belief.

254
00:22:22,487 --> 00:22:25,684
General Gordon could save Khartoum.

255
00:22:26,327 --> 00:22:28,238
(PEOPLE SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)

256
00:22:29,767 --> 00:22:31,962
Gordon's orders weren't to fight,

257
00:22:32,047 --> 00:22:34,720
but to evacuate the British force there.

258
00:22:37,327 --> 00:22:40,922
But Gordon himself had something
rather more heroic in mind.

259
00:22:44,567 --> 00:22:48,276
From the governor's palace, he announced
he'd hold out against the Mahdi

260
00:22:48,367 --> 00:22:50,597
until reinforcements were sent.

261
00:22:53,647 --> 00:22:55,797
The siege of the city began.

262
00:22:58,487 --> 00:23:01,797
The British government,
furious with Gordon's disobedience,

263
00:23:01,887 --> 00:23:03,161
refused to act.

264
00:23:04,287 --> 00:23:07,757
The press were outraged
at this treatment of their hero.

265
00:23:09,287 --> 00:23:12,802
''Gordon had been deserted!'' they cried.
''He must be rescued. ''

266
00:23:20,007 --> 00:23:21,838
General Gordon was a hero,

267
00:23:21,927 --> 00:23:24,839
not just because he was
a remarkable human being,

268
00:23:24,927 --> 00:23:28,636
but because he seemed to
express Britain's moral purpose.

269
00:23:28,967 --> 00:23:30,878
The newspapers twigged that

270
00:23:30,967 --> 00:23:33,765
in a way that the prime minister
William Gladstone didn't.

271
00:23:38,567 --> 00:23:40,956
Gladstone didn't want a war,

272
00:23:41,047 --> 00:23:44,403
but the press and public opinion
forced his hand.

273
00:23:46,567 --> 00:23:49,445
The army hastily assembled
a relief force,

274
00:23:50,047 --> 00:23:51,958
but by now it was too late.

275
00:23:53,167 --> 00:23:54,759
After ten months under siege,

276
00:23:54,847 --> 00:23:58,317
every scrap of food in Khartoum
had been eaten.

277
00:23:58,687 --> 00:24:02,805
The dead lay in the streets,
the Mahdi's men were at the gates.

278
00:24:03,127 --> 00:24:05,687
The water level of the Nile,
protecting the city,

279
00:24:05,767 --> 00:24:07,803
dropped further every day.

280
00:24:10,567 --> 00:24:11,556
(MATCH STRIKING)

281
00:24:16,607 --> 00:24:18,598
Holed up in the governor's palace,

282
00:24:18,687 --> 00:24:21,679
Gordon was relishing
the part he'd given himself

283
00:24:21,767 --> 00:24:23,598
in this imperial tragedy.

284
00:24:25,727 --> 00:24:27,604
He lit candles in his rooms,

285
00:24:27,687 --> 00:24:31,965
almost offering himself as a target
to the Mahdi snipers.

286
00:24:33,327 --> 00:24:35,477
A companion begged him to stop.

287
00:24:40,127 --> 00:24:42,083
''When God was portioning out fear

288
00:24:42,167 --> 00:24:44,158
''to the people of the world,''
he told him,

289
00:24:44,247 --> 00:24:49,446
''at last it came to my turn
and there was no fear left to give me.

290
00:24:49,727 --> 00:24:53,845
''Go tell all the people of Khartoum
that Gordon fears nothing.

291
00:24:54,327 --> 00:24:57,524
''Because God has created him
without fear.''

292
00:25:01,007 --> 00:25:02,520
(PEOPLE CLAMOURING)

293
00:25:04,087 --> 00:25:07,636
When the attack came,
it was unbelievably savage.

294
00:25:09,807 --> 00:25:13,800
The siege had lasted 3 1 7 days.

295
00:25:14,887 --> 00:25:17,401
It ended in a bloodbath.

296
00:25:19,727 --> 00:25:21,604
Gordon was killed in the battle.

297
00:25:22,487 --> 00:25:26,366
The Mahdi's followers brought him
Gordon's head as a trophy.

298
00:25:26,447 --> 00:25:28,517
The General's body was never found.

299
00:25:31,527 --> 00:25:35,600
Khartoum and the Sudan
belonged to the Mahdi.

300
00:25:53,127 --> 00:25:54,401
(BIRDS CHIRPING)

301
00:25:59,887 --> 00:26:03,277
The Mahdi's great-grandson
still lives in the city.

302
00:26:03,527 --> 00:26:06,280
Ah! Good morning, good morning,
good morning.

303
00:26:08,447 --> 00:26:10,005
Good morning, Imam. Good morning.

304
00:26:10,087 --> 00:26:11,406
-Welcome to Sudan.
-Thank you for having us.

305
00:26:11,487 --> 00:26:12,476
And you are most welcome.

306
00:26:13,967 --> 00:26:16,242
What sort of a man
was your great-grandfather?

307
00:26:18,167 --> 00:26:20,965
The Mahdi was a world-denying figure.

308
00:26:22,127 --> 00:26:24,163
Although he wanted to change the world,

309
00:26:24,567 --> 00:26:27,479
he really wanted to change it
in favour of the next world.

310
00:26:28,487 --> 00:26:31,399
So, actually, he was world-denying.

311
00:26:31,847 --> 00:26:35,362
Almost the aspirations of a mystic.

312
00:26:35,887 --> 00:26:39,084
Whatever kingdom he had in mind
is a kingdom in heaven, not here.

313
00:26:39,167 --> 00:26:40,646
When you think about it,

314
00:26:40,727 --> 00:26:43,116
they're really pretty similar
individuals, aren't they?

315
00:26:43,207 --> 00:26:46,085
I mean, they're both religious,
they were both ascetic men.

316
00:26:46,167 --> 00:26:47,202
Yes, yes.

317
00:26:47,287 --> 00:26:50,404
Gordon, too, was a man who mortified
the flesh and denied the world.

318
00:26:50,487 --> 00:26:51,602
Indeed.

319
00:26:52,247 --> 00:26:55,239
And he was a great hero in Britain
in the way that the Mahdi

320
00:26:55,327 --> 00:26:57,602
was a popular hero here.

321
00:26:57,687 --> 00:27:00,121
That's why there is this tragedy,

322
00:27:00,407 --> 00:27:03,638
that there was this conflict
between people,

323
00:27:04,327 --> 00:27:09,003
who, in a world differently organised,
could have been very close friends.

324
00:27:09,087 --> 00:27:11,078
What do you feel about General Gordon?

325
00:27:11,207 --> 00:27:15,519
He had no business combating people
who were asserting themselves.

326
00:27:15,607 --> 00:27:17,962
The whole basis is that power corrupts.

327
00:27:18,207 --> 00:27:22,598
And if you have power,
it's very difficult for you

328
00:27:23,407 --> 00:27:25,921
to accept other human beings
as your equal.

329
00:27:26,647 --> 00:27:32,563
(CHUCKLES) Because you feel that
the very powerful situation

330
00:27:33,367 --> 00:27:35,722
makes you some kind of God.

331
00:27:36,407 --> 00:27:37,999
Then you make the rules.

332
00:27:38,447 --> 00:27:41,883
Then you make the... Everything.
You decide everything.

333
00:27:42,367 --> 00:27:45,723
And this, of course,
is a great human failing.

334
00:28:00,487 --> 00:28:06,039
If General Gordon had only done
as he was told and evacuated Khartoum,

335
00:28:06,127 --> 00:28:10,803
he'd never have become the imperial
hero he immediately turned into,

336
00:28:10,887 --> 00:28:13,003
even though he would have
saved thousands of lives,

337
00:28:13,087 --> 00:28:14,566
his own included.

338
00:28:14,647 --> 00:28:16,842
The people of Britain didn't much care

339
00:28:16,927 --> 00:28:19,839
whether or not Sudan
was in the British Empire,

340
00:28:19,927 --> 00:28:24,000
but this wasn't about a place,
it was about an idea.

341
00:28:27,887 --> 00:28:30,606
That idea was summed up
in the famous painting

342
00:28:30,687 --> 00:28:34,362
Gordon's Last Stand by George W.Joy.

343
00:28:36,527 --> 00:28:40,998
Gordon waits at the top of the steps,
careless in the face of death.

344
00:28:41,527 --> 00:28:44,041
He makes no attempt to defend himself.

345
00:28:44,967 --> 00:28:50,485
His pistol hangs loosely in his hand,
his sword remains sheathed.

346
00:28:52,327 --> 00:28:54,602
He looks his killers in the eye.

347
00:28:55,407 --> 00:28:57,079
''Do what you have to do. ''

348
00:29:00,007 --> 00:29:03,158
This wasn't the death
of an imperial conqueror,

349
00:29:03,247 --> 00:29:04,919
this was a martyrdom,

350
00:29:05,007 --> 00:29:09,717
sanctifying the empire with heroism
and personal sacrifice.

351
00:29:18,287 --> 00:29:19,436
(CATTLE MOOING)

352
00:29:24,927 --> 00:29:29,159
The memory of Gordon's solitary end
refused to fade.

353
00:29:29,807 --> 00:29:32,002
Even after the death of the Mahdi,

354
00:29:32,087 --> 00:29:37,320
the British public and the British press
continued to thirst for revenge.

355
00:29:38,487 --> 00:29:42,799
The task fell to a man of a very
different kind from Charles Gordon.

356
00:29:46,447 --> 00:29:48,244
Even by his own men,

357
00:29:48,367 --> 00:29:50,722
Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener

358
00:29:50,807 --> 00:29:54,277
was often described
as a man with no soul.

359
00:29:55,287 --> 00:29:59,405
The Daily Mail dubbed him
''the Machine of the Sudan''.

360
00:30:15,367 --> 00:30:18,245
On the 1 st of January 1 89 7,

361
00:30:18,327 --> 00:30:22,525
a meticulously organised force
left Egypt for Khartoum,

362
00:30:22,687 --> 00:30:25,326
over 600 miles to the south.

363
00:30:36,247 --> 00:30:39,683
The British force advanced steadily
across the desert,

364
00:30:39,767 --> 00:30:41,359
laying a railway line behind it

365
00:30:41,447 --> 00:30:45,326
at the amazing rate
of a mile and a half a day.

366
00:30:45,767 --> 00:30:49,965
On the train which followed
came guns and troops and supplies.

367
00:30:50,287 --> 00:30:53,279
And three gunboats
which had been built on the Thames,

368
00:30:53,367 --> 00:30:55,835
disassembled and shipped up here

369
00:30:55,927 --> 00:30:58,919
to be put back together
on the banks of the Nile.

370
00:30:59,007 --> 00:31:01,282
It was a relentless progress.

371
00:31:11,367 --> 00:31:13,756
This was a new kind of warfare,

372
00:31:13,847 --> 00:31:16,998
the moment the empire entered
the Machine Age.

373
00:31:25,447 --> 00:31:29,281
Waiting in Khartoum were
the Sudanese warriors, the dervishes,

374
00:31:29,367 --> 00:31:33,997
sometimes known as ''whirling dervishes''
after their ecstatic religious dance.

375
00:31:36,247 --> 00:31:38,317
(ALL CHANTING)

376
00:31:46,727 --> 00:31:50,037
Dervishes still gather
on holy days in Khartoum

377
00:31:50,127 --> 00:31:53,164
to pray, celebrate and dance.

378
00:32:02,367 --> 00:32:05,598
The great poet of empire,
Rudyard Kipling, wrote about them

379
00:32:05,687 --> 00:32:09,157
in the imagined words
of an ordinary British soldier,

380
00:32:09,247 --> 00:32:13,035
who recognised
that in some strange, foreign way

381
00:32:13,127 --> 00:32:17,962
the dervishes, too, ''played up,
played up and played the game.''

382
00:32:22,447 --> 00:32:27,362
Kipling's soldier raises
an imaginary glass to his fearless foe.

383
00:32:29,447 --> 00:32:33,122
''So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy
at your 'ome in the Soudan

384
00:32:33,407 --> 00:32:37,844
''You're a pore benighted 'eathen
but a first-class fightin' man''

385
00:32:41,967 --> 00:32:44,003
(CHANTING CONTINUES)

386
00:32:47,207 --> 00:32:50,916
The dervishes might play the game
in the old-fashioned way,

387
00:32:51,647 --> 00:32:53,842
but the empire had moved on.

388
00:32:55,407 --> 00:33:00,401
Kitchener would rely on rather more
than fighting spirit to win in battle.

389
00:33:05,647 --> 00:33:08,366
The British like to think
of their military history

390
00:33:08,447 --> 00:33:11,803
in events like the Spanish Armada
or the Battle of Britain,

391
00:33:11,887 --> 00:33:14,276
when, outnumbered and outgunned,

392
00:33:14,367 --> 00:33:17,359
Britain survive by virtue of guts
and ingenuity.

393
00:33:18,047 --> 00:33:21,039
But the truth is that
in most of Britain's empire wars,

394
00:33:21,127 --> 00:33:24,642
Britain's inventiveness
in science and industry

395
00:33:24,727 --> 00:33:27,525
had simply given it much
better ways of killing people.

396
00:33:34,407 --> 00:33:38,036
On Kitchener's desert train
had come machine guns

397
00:33:38,127 --> 00:33:40,721
and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

398
00:33:43,007 --> 00:33:44,918
At Omdurman near Khartoum,

399
00:33:45,007 --> 00:33:48,044
the stage was set
for one of the bloodiest battles

400
00:33:48,127 --> 00:33:49,526
in the history of empire.

401
00:33:56,007 --> 00:33:59,079
The British forces were drawn up
down by the Nile over there

402
00:33:59,167 --> 00:34:01,806
and the Mahdi's men
held the high ground.

403
00:34:02,327 --> 00:34:04,636
Winston Churchill was
a young officer with Kitchener

404
00:34:04,727 --> 00:34:09,596
and he described coming out one morning
and seeing the entire hillside moving.

405
00:34:10,007 --> 00:34:12,601
Thousands upon thousands of dervishes

406
00:34:12,687 --> 00:34:16,839
advancing on a front
he reckoned was four miles wide

407
00:34:16,927 --> 00:34:18,599
under innumerable banners,

408
00:34:18,967 --> 00:34:22,164
and with the sun glinting on
the tips of their spears.

409
00:34:29,647 --> 00:34:32,366
Spears against machine guns.

410
00:34:33,407 --> 00:34:35,921
The result was never in doubt.

411
00:34:42,607 --> 00:34:44,962
Kitchener was watching
the battle from horseback.

412
00:34:45,167 --> 00:34:49,001
At about 1 1 :30,
so five hours after the fighting began,

413
00:34:49,327 --> 00:34:51,124
he put his binoculars away

414
00:34:51,207 --> 00:34:55,644
and remarked that the enemies seemed
to have been given ''a good dusting''.

415
00:34:56,207 --> 00:34:57,481
They then broke for lunch.

416
00:35:04,047 --> 00:35:08,245
The casualties were
about 1 0,000 Sudanese dead

417
00:35:08,847 --> 00:35:10,405
to 48 British.

418
00:35:20,567 --> 00:35:23,957
The body of General Gordon's foe,
the Mahdi,

419
00:35:24,047 --> 00:35:26,959
was dug up and thrown into the Nile.

420
00:35:34,807 --> 00:35:39,562
Kitchener was presented with
the Mahdi's skull as a trophy of war.

421
00:35:40,007 --> 00:35:43,716
The story went that he planned
to use it as an inkstand.

422
00:35:48,487 --> 00:35:50,842
Queen Victoria was not amused.

423
00:35:51,207 --> 00:35:54,916
Ornamental skulls weren't
her idea of fair play,

424
00:35:55,007 --> 00:35:59,603
even if Kitchener had added
a million square miles to her empire.

425
00:36:01,927 --> 00:36:04,282
Where Gordon had failed,

426
00:36:04,647 --> 00:36:07,445
Kitchener had succeeded spectacularly.

427
00:36:07,927 --> 00:36:11,203
But it wasn't Kitchener,
the Machine of the Sudan,

428
00:36:11,287 --> 00:36:13,676
who became the empire's romantic hero.

429
00:36:13,767 --> 00:36:17,077
That role belonged
to Charles George Gordon.

430
00:36:17,167 --> 00:36:21,479
Idealistic,
reckless and slightly deranged.

431
00:36:21,567 --> 00:36:23,762
And, now, very dead.

432
00:36:24,207 --> 00:36:27,040
That was how the empire
really liked their heroes.

433
00:36:33,727 --> 00:36:37,720
Heroic disaster always
seemed to stir British hearts

434
00:36:37,807 --> 00:36:39,286
quite as much as victory.

435
00:36:41,367 --> 00:36:43,927
Whether it was the explorer
Captain Cook,

436
00:36:44,007 --> 00:36:47,443
killed by Hawaiian islanders in 1 779.

437
00:36:51,327 --> 00:36:53,841
Or Sir John Franklin, frozen to death

438
00:36:53,927 --> 00:36:57,078
trying to find the Northwest Passage
through the Arctic.

439
00:37:02,127 --> 00:37:05,517
Or the Charge of the Light Brigade,
riding fearlessly

440
00:37:05,607 --> 00:37:08,997
and pointlessly into enemy cannon fire
in the Crimea.

441
00:37:14,567 --> 00:37:18,879
They all played up,
played up and played the game.

442
00:37:28,447 --> 00:37:31,996
Tales of heroism provided
spectacular stories

443
00:37:32,087 --> 00:37:36,444
for the citizens of what was soon
calling itself ''the Mother Country''.

444
00:37:38,207 --> 00:37:41,722
Publishers were churning them out
well into the 20th century.

445
00:37:45,607 --> 00:37:47,677
ASHLEY JACKSON: One of the main outlets
for this kind of material

446
00:37:47,767 --> 00:37:49,962
would have been the market
of Sunday school prizes.

447
00:37:50,647 --> 00:37:55,846
Um, giving things as gifts
to good spellers in class.

448
00:37:56,527 --> 00:37:58,518
PAXMAN: (READING)
''The Romance of Colonization. ''

449
00:37:58,607 --> 00:38:00,086
JACKSON: Wouldn't be a title of a book
you'd see today.

450
00:38:00,167 --> 00:38:03,682
PAXMAN: I don't think you would
see that very often, no.

451
00:38:03,767 --> 00:38:05,439
Whoa, there are loads of them.

452
00:38:05,847 --> 00:38:08,281
JACKSON: I think it very much reflects
the way that people

453
00:38:08,367 --> 00:38:11,245
saw the world and, you know,
one of the major elements is, of course,

454
00:38:11,327 --> 00:38:12,919
Britishness, patriotism,

455
00:38:13,287 --> 00:38:14,640
excitement in the empire.

456
00:38:14,727 --> 00:38:16,160
I think that
the striking thing is certainly

457
00:38:16,247 --> 00:38:17,999
the message of the text, which is,

458
00:38:18,087 --> 00:38:21,045
this is all about bringing civilisation
to benighted parts of the world.

459
00:38:21,127 --> 00:38:24,563
But, then, just the glorious
and alluring images.

460
00:38:24,647 --> 00:38:26,558
Society was awash with this kind of

461
00:38:26,647 --> 00:38:29,207
comic or cigarette card collection,
annuals.

462
00:38:29,287 --> 00:38:30,356
PAXMAN: A lot of people would find

463
00:38:30,447 --> 00:38:32,119
all this stuff unspeakable now,
wouldn't they?

464
00:38:32,207 --> 00:38:34,323
Ghastly racist propaganda.

465
00:38:34,407 --> 00:38:38,002
JACKSON: I think it tells us a lot
about the world view of the time.

466
00:38:38,087 --> 00:38:41,124
It's also interesting in magazines like
Chums, there were so many of these...

467
00:38:41,207 --> 00:38:42,686
PAXMAN: Chums! What a great name.

468
00:38:42,767 --> 00:38:44,837
-JACKSON: Dozens and dozens...
-At the mercy of the witch doctors.

469
00:38:44,927 --> 00:38:47,646
JACKSON: This one, of course,
is full of militaristic

470
00:38:47,727 --> 00:38:50,036
heroism of the British Armed Forces.

471
00:38:50,127 --> 00:38:53,437
And, of course, the standard themes
about English history.

472
00:38:53,687 --> 00:38:55,564
And the wider world in the empire.

473
00:38:56,487 --> 00:38:58,000
PAXMAN: ''A fight with the Zulus.''

474
00:38:58,567 --> 00:39:01,559
Um, here, for example,
there are copies of The Wide World,

475
00:39:01,647 --> 00:39:04,366
which, to all intents
and purposes, are very much

476
00:39:04,567 --> 00:39:06,239
the same stuff yet again.

477
00:39:06,327 --> 00:39:07,965
When you start looking in the magazine

478
00:39:08,047 --> 00:39:10,925
and you get adverts
for Canadian Club Whisky

479
00:39:11,007 --> 00:39:13,601
-or Burlington belt trusses or...
-(CHUCKLING)

480
00:39:14,447 --> 00:39:17,200
...briar pipes that you realise
the target audience.

481
00:39:17,287 --> 00:39:19,039
Chap who needs a truss is going to be

482
00:39:19,127 --> 00:39:21,357
damn-all use
in some of these situations!

483
00:39:21,447 --> 00:39:22,596
(BOTH LAUGHING)

484
00:39:26,167 --> 00:39:30,638
PAXMAN: Such tales might satisfy
the armchair imperialist at home.

485
00:39:31,447 --> 00:39:32,926
But out in the colonies,

486
00:39:33,007 --> 00:39:37,000
playing the game was something
to be done more energetically.

487
00:39:44,127 --> 00:39:48,325
For the British, sport was part of
the civilising mission of empire...

488
00:39:48,847 --> 00:39:50,121
(SHOUTING)

489
00:39:50,207 --> 00:39:53,279
...the gift of the Mother Country
to her colonies,

490
00:39:55,287 --> 00:39:57,642
whether it involved chasing a ball,

491
00:39:59,407 --> 00:40:01,523
smashing it with a racquet,

492
00:40:01,607 --> 00:40:03,802
or whacking it with a club.

493
00:40:09,287 --> 00:40:11,084
The sporting gospel was carried

494
00:40:11,167 --> 00:40:14,079
to the farthest flung corners
of the empire.

495
00:40:43,447 --> 00:40:46,484
(ORIENTAL MUSIC PLAYING)

496
00:40:51,607 --> 00:40:55,646
Hong Kong's life as a British colony
began in the 1 840s

497
00:40:55,727 --> 00:40:58,400
as a trading post for nearby China.

498
00:41:00,367 --> 00:41:02,323
Even here, there was always a place

499
00:41:02,407 --> 00:41:06,525
for one of the emire's great
obsessions, horseracing.

500
00:41:13,247 --> 00:41:17,206
They used to say that when the French
took a colony, they built a restaurant.

501
00:41:17,567 --> 00:41:20,445
When the Germans took one,
they built a road.

502
00:41:20,527 --> 00:41:24,076
When the British pitched up,
they built a racecourse.

503
00:41:33,207 --> 00:41:35,960
Happy Valley Racecourse
in the heart of Hong Kong

504
00:41:36,047 --> 00:41:38,083
is a legacy of the days of empire.

505
00:41:42,087 --> 00:41:46,365
Over 20,000 people come here
every Wednesday night.

506
00:41:57,047 --> 00:42:01,279
It was the British who developed
the razzmatazz of the modern turf.

507
00:42:05,607 --> 00:42:08,997
Today's inhabitants
are such enthusiastic gamblers

508
00:42:09,287 --> 00:42:12,245
that bookies here take
as much money in one night

509
00:42:12,487 --> 00:42:14,364
as in the whole of Ascot Week.

510
00:42:18,567 --> 00:42:21,604
I am going with Number 7,
Something Special, in the next one.

511
00:42:21,687 --> 00:42:23,325
Let's find out what the minimum bet is.

512
00:42:23,727 --> 00:42:26,116
Can I have $1 0?
It's about a pound, I think.

513
00:42:26,207 --> 00:42:29,597
$1 0 on Something Special, Number 7,
in the 8:1 0.

514
00:42:31,367 --> 00:42:35,918
-$1 0 on Number 7, right?
-Number 7, Something Special.

515
00:42:55,647 --> 00:42:57,285
(BELL RINGING)

516
00:43:25,527 --> 00:43:26,562
Hey!

517
00:43:30,327 --> 00:43:32,045
Whoo!

518
00:43:32,127 --> 00:43:35,164
I can't believe it! That is amazing!

519
00:43:35,847 --> 00:43:38,839
I won! I won! It's amazing!

520
00:43:39,487 --> 00:43:41,682
I won! First time!

521
00:43:43,287 --> 00:43:47,678
$36, which is about...
just over three quid.

522
00:43:47,927 --> 00:43:51,158
(CHUCKLES) We're not even gonna
get a round of drinks out of it!

523
00:44:06,687 --> 00:44:09,326
Wherever in the empire sport was played,

524
00:44:09,407 --> 00:44:14,276
it was supposed to bind subject peoples
to their colonial masters.

525
00:44:15,007 --> 00:44:17,043
But the spirit of fair play

526
00:44:17,127 --> 00:44:21,359
and the interests of empire
would eventually clash head-on.

527
00:44:29,047 --> 00:44:30,844
(REGGAE MUSIC PLAYING)

528
00:44:47,447 --> 00:44:52,805
The West Indian island of Jamaica
had been a British colony since 1 655.

529
00:44:57,727 --> 00:44:58,955
Yes, yes, yes, yes!

530
00:45:01,407 --> 00:45:05,241
The British introduced cricket
to Jamaica in the 1 830s.

531
00:45:05,447 --> 00:45:06,516
Ooh!

532
00:45:06,607 --> 00:45:09,838
It soon seemed to enter
the bloodstream of the island.

533
00:45:12,567 --> 00:45:15,127
He's got a good eye,
that boy in the yellow shirt, hasn't he?

534
00:45:17,767 --> 00:45:19,359
(CHILDREN SCREAMING)

535
00:45:19,847 --> 00:45:21,599
-How old are you?
-Ten.

536
00:45:21,687 --> 00:45:24,360
Ten? You play much cricket?

537
00:45:24,887 --> 00:45:26,525
Who's the best cricketer here?

538
00:45:27,647 --> 00:45:29,046
-You are!
-No, him!

539
00:45:29,127 --> 00:45:31,083
Who's the best?
You're the best cricketer, are you?

540
00:45:31,167 --> 00:45:32,885
-Me.
-You're the best one.

541
00:45:32,967 --> 00:45:35,083
-And him.
-And me.

542
00:45:35,287 --> 00:45:36,686
You're the two champs.

543
00:45:36,767 --> 00:45:37,836
(SHOUTS)

544
00:45:45,327 --> 00:45:46,965
PAXMAN: But there was a problem here.

545
00:45:47,247 --> 00:45:50,717
How could a game,
which prided itself on fairness

546
00:45:50,807 --> 00:45:55,323
work in an empire divided
between rulers and ruled,

547
00:45:55,767 --> 00:45:58,122
and, therefore, very obviously unfair?

548
00:46:06,767 --> 00:46:10,646
Cricket in the West Indies
would become not a unifying force,

549
00:46:10,967 --> 00:46:12,685
but a symbol of oppression.

550
00:46:17,207 --> 00:46:20,597
In 1 9th-century Jamaica,
whites owned the land,

551
00:46:21,047 --> 00:46:22,446
blacks worked on it.

552
00:46:25,047 --> 00:46:28,244
While cricket was supposed
to be good for subject races,

553
00:46:28,327 --> 00:46:32,240
at that time, black and white
rarely played together.

554
00:46:41,407 --> 00:46:44,160
It's a practice day at Sabina Park,

555
00:46:44,247 --> 00:46:46,636
the home
of Jamaica's Kingston Cricket Club.

556
00:46:56,087 --> 00:47:01,559
When it was formed in 1 863, it was
a place for white men to play the game.

557
00:47:02,287 --> 00:47:05,996
Even when black and white began
to play on the same side,

558
00:47:06,087 --> 00:47:08,806
racial tensions in the game remained.

559
00:47:10,327 --> 00:47:12,283
(CROWD CHEERING)

560
00:47:13,207 --> 00:47:17,325
No black player was ever selected
to captain the national team.

561
00:47:18,927 --> 00:47:23,842
Whites were chosen to bat, while blacks
were relegated to bowling or fielding.

562
00:47:27,727 --> 00:47:29,604
(PLAYERS SHOUTING)

563
00:47:30,447 --> 00:47:32,597
It wasn't quite the done thing

564
00:47:32,687 --> 00:47:35,201
for white men to do a lot of running
around in the tropics.

565
00:47:35,527 --> 00:47:39,122
And besides which, there was
a distinction between brawn bowling -

566
00:47:39,207 --> 00:47:41,243
and brains - batting.

567
00:47:41,887 --> 00:47:43,206
Batting was for white men.

568
00:47:44,287 --> 00:47:46,847
(CROWD CHEERING)

569
00:47:47,727 --> 00:47:49,718
Change had to come.

570
00:47:54,687 --> 00:47:57,326
It arrived in
the person of Frank Worrell,

571
00:47:57,407 --> 00:48:00,922
who, in 1 960,
became the first black player

572
00:48:01,007 --> 00:48:04,317
to captain the West Indies team
for an entire series.

573
00:48:05,487 --> 00:48:07,239
When Worrell brought his team
to England,

574
00:48:07,327 --> 00:48:09,841
they showed they could play the game

575
00:48:09,927 --> 00:48:11,838
rather better than their hosts.

576
00:48:12,407 --> 00:48:13,601
(CROWD CHEERING)

577
00:48:13,687 --> 00:48:16,281
COMMENTATOR: The Oval will have
never have known a scene like this.

578
00:48:16,687 --> 00:48:18,996
Victory in the series
by three matches to one

579
00:48:19,127 --> 00:48:22,199
confirmed the West Indies as
the most powerful side in the world.

580
00:48:27,487 --> 00:48:30,479
MAURICE FOSTER: It was generally felt
that here is the right person at last

581
00:48:30,567 --> 00:48:32,125
to lead a West Indies team.

582
00:48:32,887 --> 00:48:35,606
Because I think before
there wasn't that unity

583
00:48:36,167 --> 00:48:39,637
based on who was appointed captain,
who was appointed vice-captain.

584
00:48:40,247 --> 00:48:44,035
Now, it was just felt that the players
have a captain they can fight for.

585
00:48:44,247 --> 00:48:47,319
So I think it was greeted with cheers
throughout the entire Caribbean.

586
00:48:47,407 --> 00:48:51,241
And I think many people are saying,
''At last we have the right man to lead. ''

587
00:48:51,327 --> 00:48:52,396
It was like a Mandela moment.

588
00:48:52,487 --> 00:48:54,523
It certainly was.
That's why I said that. (LAUGHING)

589
00:48:54,607 --> 00:48:58,077
-PAXMAN: Free at last, free at last.
-Free at last, at last, at last!

590
00:49:01,127 --> 00:49:05,996
Students now become the teachers.
England taught the West Indies cricket.

591
00:49:06,567 --> 00:49:09,001
And it was a grand opportunity
for the students, now,

592
00:49:09,367 --> 00:49:10,846
to reverse that process.

593
00:49:11,207 --> 00:49:14,005
And in the mind of many
of the West Indian players, this was,

594
00:49:14,327 --> 00:49:17,603
you know, the turning point,
I think, for everyone.

595
00:49:17,767 --> 00:49:20,361
Sort of like sweet revenge.

596
00:49:21,007 --> 00:49:23,043
(CROWD CHEERING)

597
00:49:25,767 --> 00:49:29,316
PAXMAN: In the end,
the British idea of fair play

598
00:49:29,407 --> 00:49:32,638
undermined the very notion
of empire itself.

599
00:49:33,807 --> 00:49:37,516
If a black cricket captain,
why not a black prime minister?

600
00:49:38,807 --> 00:49:41,037
In 1 962,Jamaica became

601
00:49:41,127 --> 00:49:44,642
the first Caribbean island
to gain independence.

602
00:49:45,567 --> 00:49:48,604
And through the 1 960s
all over the empire,

603
00:49:48,687 --> 00:49:50,757
from the West Indies to Fiji,

604
00:49:51,207 --> 00:49:53,323
the Union Jack came down.

605
00:50:02,407 --> 00:50:03,965
As the empire crumbled,

606
00:50:04,047 --> 00:50:07,756
so did reverence for the things
and attitudes it held dear.

607
00:50:08,207 --> 00:50:10,960
(THE LOCO-MOTION PLAYING)

608
00:50:16,327 --> 00:50:17,760
The uniforms,

609
00:50:19,887 --> 00:50:21,161
the flag,

610
00:50:24,807 --> 00:50:26,445
the moustaches...

611
00:50:28,127 --> 00:50:30,880
This wasn't playing the game,
this was having a laugh.

612
00:50:37,167 --> 00:50:39,203
A laugh at military valour.

613
00:50:40,447 --> 00:50:42,244
At sporting prowess.

614
00:50:43,967 --> 00:50:47,084
At the thrill of adventure
and exploration.

615
00:50:49,367 --> 00:50:50,880
The empire was gone.

616
00:50:50,967 --> 00:50:55,518
The only way to cope with its loss
was to see its absurdity.

617
00:50:56,647 --> 00:50:58,956
Well, ladies, shall we retire?

618
00:50:59,767 --> 00:51:02,042
We'll be in to spank you later,

619
00:51:02,727 --> 00:51:05,082
you firm-buttocked young Amazons, you.

620
00:51:11,767 --> 00:51:13,485
I'm terribly sorry.

621
00:51:14,207 --> 00:51:15,322
I don't know what came over me.

622
00:51:16,407 --> 00:51:17,522
All right, Morrison,

623
00:51:18,167 --> 00:51:20,237
-I think you know what to do.
-(LAUGHING)

624
00:51:21,487 --> 00:51:22,602
MORRISON: Yes, of course, sir.

625
00:51:25,727 --> 00:51:27,365
I apologise to you all.

626
00:51:28,567 --> 00:51:29,636
(DOOR OPENING)

627
00:51:33,047 --> 00:51:34,082
(GUNSHOT)

628
00:51:34,167 --> 00:51:36,317
(BOTH LAUGHING)

629
00:51:37,207 --> 00:51:40,836
(SIGHS) Pity, really, he seemed
a nice enough young man.

630
00:51:41,047 --> 00:51:45,279
Now, why are these... Why is it funny?

631
00:51:45,367 --> 00:51:48,518
Because I think it's such an absurd
thing that they're doing.

632
00:51:48,607 --> 00:51:51,599
And yet they all take it
absolutely seriously.

633
00:51:51,687 --> 00:51:54,963
And that's what the empire was
all about, really, wasn't it?

634
00:51:55,047 --> 00:51:57,686
Doing very, very strange things
absolutely seriously.

635
00:51:57,767 --> 00:52:00,076
Clive, what are you doing?

636
00:52:00,447 --> 00:52:02,039
I say, Cooper, what's going on?

637
00:52:02,127 --> 00:52:04,846
Oh, er, it's nothing really, sir.

638
00:52:05,167 --> 00:52:06,964
He was just explaining...

639
00:52:07,047 --> 00:52:10,483
I was passing
the port from left to right.

640
00:52:10,807 --> 00:52:13,037
PALIN: This whole thin veneer
of control,

641
00:52:13,447 --> 00:52:15,324
of which passing the port is one,

642
00:52:15,567 --> 00:52:17,523
being gallant about ladies is the other.

643
00:52:17,607 --> 00:52:21,486
You know, if that starts to crack,
the whole thing just collapses.

644
00:52:21,567 --> 00:52:24,240
And I think it's just
because of the formality of it.

645
00:52:24,327 --> 00:52:26,079
And, of course, the fact
they go and shoot themselves,

646
00:52:26,167 --> 00:52:29,603
which is the kind of ultimate logical
end to letting down the empire.

647
00:52:29,687 --> 00:52:30,961
(GUNSHOT)

648
00:52:31,047 --> 00:52:32,685
(THUD)

649
00:52:32,767 --> 00:52:35,235
Where did the idea
of Ripping Yarns come from?

650
00:52:35,327 --> 00:52:39,400
Well, really from all those books.
It was a literary idea.

651
00:52:39,487 --> 00:52:43,036
It was all those books that were
written sort of in the '20s and '30s.

652
00:52:43,687 --> 00:52:46,599
And maybe before the war, even,
which I vaguely knew about,

653
00:52:46,687 --> 00:52:50,600
which are all stories of pluck,
heroism, courage, duty.

654
00:52:50,687 --> 00:52:52,120
So why did you find it funny?

655
00:52:52,207 --> 00:52:54,323
Was it just because you were young
and truculent?

656
00:52:54,407 --> 00:52:56,875
When I started to think about this,
with a sort of

657
00:52:57,047 --> 00:52:59,880
clear light of the '60s upon us all.

658
00:52:59,967 --> 00:53:04,040
I mean, suddenly we were free
to talk about anything we wanted to.

659
00:53:04,127 --> 00:53:07,756
Um, I suddenly thought that,
yes, it was, it was really absurd.

660
00:53:07,847 --> 00:53:09,565
-And it was a rich vein.
-(LAUGHS)

661
00:53:09,647 --> 00:53:13,242
And a lot of people,
kind of, obviously shared that,

662
00:53:13,327 --> 00:53:15,795
that literary upbringing
and understood quite...

663
00:53:15,887 --> 00:53:18,117
Understood what we were on about.

664
00:53:18,207 --> 00:53:19,959
What's funny is being funny

665
00:53:20,047 --> 00:53:22,800
in a place where
you're not supposed to be funny.

666
00:53:24,407 --> 00:53:25,726
(GUNSHOT)

667
00:53:25,967 --> 00:53:27,002
(THUD)

668
00:53:28,647 --> 00:53:32,276
PAXMAN: So is all that's left
of empire just a bit of a joke?

669
00:53:32,367 --> 00:53:33,436
Not entirely.

670
00:53:33,527 --> 00:53:35,404
Hello, you boy in the corner there.

671
00:53:35,807 --> 00:53:37,525
You ought to be a Boy Scout.

672
00:53:37,887 --> 00:53:39,081
You're a fine-looking fellow,

673
00:53:39,167 --> 00:53:41,727
and I know you'd make
a jolly good backwoodsman,

674
00:53:41,807 --> 00:53:44,037
by the look of you.
You're ugly enough, anyway.

675
00:53:46,367 --> 00:53:50,326
PAXMAN: Robert Baden-Powell
founded the Boy Scouts in 1 907.

676
00:53:52,727 --> 00:53:54,843
This die-hard imperialist

677
00:53:54,927 --> 00:53:58,806
wanted to enlist ordinary British boys
to the service of the empire,

678
00:53:58,887 --> 00:54:01,765
not just the officer class
of the great public schools.

679
00:54:06,807 --> 00:54:10,925
He gave them military-style uniforms
and funny rituals,

680
00:54:11,047 --> 00:54:15,484
so these boys, too, could play up,
play up and play the game.

681
00:54:15,567 --> 00:54:17,364
(CHEERING)

682
00:54:23,367 --> 00:54:24,561
Ah, good.

683
00:54:26,607 --> 00:54:29,121
Today the Scouts are going
as strong as ever.

684
00:54:29,207 --> 00:54:30,322
Hey!

685
00:54:31,367 --> 00:54:33,722
Here at an annual camp in Norfolk,

686
00:54:33,807 --> 00:54:38,244
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
learn about living in the wild...

687
00:54:38,927 --> 00:54:39,996
Oh, good.

688
00:54:41,327 --> 00:54:42,680
...staying healthy,

689
00:54:46,247 --> 00:54:47,919
and becoming more confident.

690
00:54:49,047 --> 00:54:50,116
(SCREAMING)

691
00:54:51,487 --> 00:54:52,715
MAN: Okay, wait, next time...

692
00:54:53,527 --> 00:54:57,202
Baden-Powell had toyed with the idea
of calling his organisation,

693
00:54:57,447 --> 00:54:59,278
''Young Knights of the Empire''.

694
00:54:59,647 --> 00:55:03,117
But by the time I joined it,
it had nothing to do with empire.

695
00:55:03,407 --> 00:55:06,046
What it fed on and continues to feed on

696
00:55:06,567 --> 00:55:09,206
is young people's appetite
for adventure,

697
00:55:09,967 --> 00:55:12,686
for sleeping out,
for cooking under the stars,

698
00:55:12,967 --> 00:55:16,721
for cleaning your teeth
with a twig in a stream.

699
00:55:22,607 --> 00:55:24,643
Can I join your breakfast?

700
00:55:24,727 --> 00:55:26,604
-Yes.
-Sit down.

701
00:55:26,967 --> 00:55:28,116
PAXMAN: Good!

702
00:55:28,207 --> 00:55:31,005
What do you learn in Scouts that
you wouldn't learn somewhere else?

703
00:55:31,087 --> 00:55:33,442
BOY: It's just like some things
you learn in school,

704
00:55:33,527 --> 00:55:35,165
like English and Maths, but, like,

705
00:55:35,487 --> 00:55:37,842
you don't learn that in Scouts.

706
00:55:37,927 --> 00:55:40,487
It's like other things,
like adventure and...

707
00:55:40,567 --> 00:55:43,525
A lot of other things that
just might come in handy in life.

708
00:55:43,607 --> 00:55:46,644
-Do you still do knots?
-Yeah, we do knots.

709
00:55:47,167 --> 00:55:48,759
-Yeah.
-PAXMAN: Who's got a bit of a rope?

710
00:55:50,247 --> 00:55:52,158
You can all demonstrate your knots.

711
00:55:53,487 --> 00:55:56,160
-BOY: Put your hand in there.
-Okay, go on.

712
00:55:58,007 --> 00:55:59,599
That's it.

713
00:55:59,687 --> 00:56:00,756
Very good!

714
00:56:01,927 --> 00:56:03,997
Get me out. (CHUCKLING)

715
00:56:05,447 --> 00:56:07,597
And do they still have that,
you know this...

716
00:56:07,687 --> 00:56:11,475
What was it called?
The Scout Oath or the Scout Promise?

717
00:56:11,607 --> 00:56:13,598
-BOYS: Promise. Yeah.
-And how does it go?

718
00:56:13,687 --> 00:56:16,724
''I promise to do my best,
to do my duty to God and to the Queen,

719
00:56:16,807 --> 00:56:19,765
''to help other people
and to keep Scout Law.''

720
00:56:19,967 --> 00:56:21,764
Do you have a good deed every day?

721
00:56:22,687 --> 00:56:25,838
No? Aren't you supposed to help
little old ladies across the road?

722
00:56:25,927 --> 00:56:27,280
No, they can do it themselves.

723
00:56:27,367 --> 00:56:29,323
(LAUGHING)

724
00:56:38,567 --> 00:56:43,925
PAXMAN: The Scout movement now
numbers over 4 1 million boys and girls

725
00:56:44,007 --> 00:56:45,122
from North America,

726
00:56:46,087 --> 00:56:47,156
to Europe,

727
00:56:47,607 --> 00:56:48,756
to Africa.

728
00:56:56,167 --> 00:56:59,079
The Scouts were set up
to protect the empire

729
00:56:59,167 --> 00:57:03,365
from the fleshy corruption which
Baden-Powell saw threatening it.

730
00:57:03,447 --> 00:57:06,245
But they've turned into
something entirely different.

731
00:57:06,647 --> 00:57:09,445
International and inclusive,

732
00:57:09,527 --> 00:57:11,324
while still fostering the same spirits

733
00:57:11,407 --> 00:57:14,604
of self-reliance
and public spiritedness.

734
00:57:15,207 --> 00:57:17,084
And here's to 'em, I say.