30/06/2016 Newsround


30/06/2016

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Transcript


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This is the first statue in the UK dedicated to a black woman -

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it's of a nurse called Mary Seacole and was unveiled earlier today.

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This is the place in London where people

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who fought and helped in the

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For a long time, people have been arguing that

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a nurse called Mary Seacole should be remembered somewhere, too.

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Now she has been given a statue outside

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Children's author Malorie Blackman is one of the people who campaigned

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If anyone deserves a statue, it's Mary Seacole.

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She was a healer, businesswoman and traveller.

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It was really rare for a women in Victorian times.

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are not everyone is happy about it. Something I was statue should not be

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in front of a hospital because she is not a trained nurse. It also

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thinks she overshadows nightingale. Malorie Blackman thinks she is very

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important to British history. People like Mary Seacole, black Britons who

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have been written out of the history books. I think it is wonderful we

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are now beginning to realise their achievements. It also shows that

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people of colour are part and parcel of Britain's history and history

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belongs to everybody. Now there is a statue of her it is hoped that more

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people will remember the life and times of Mary Seacole.

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Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme -

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one of the deadliest battles of World War One, where more

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than a million soldiers died or were wounded.

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Many of them were young men or teenagers.

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Sidney Lewis was just 12 years old when he signed up to fight.

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His son Colin told us his father's incredible story.

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When I was a boy, my father told me that he fought in World War I as

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I regret to say that I did not believe him.

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After all, he would only have been 12-years-old at the time.

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At just 12, my dad Sidney George Lewis decide that he did want

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Like many young lads, he must've got caught up

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in the excitement and idea of the adventure.

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That is what he was like, he always wanted to be

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But you had to be 18 and grown up to be in the Army.

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He ran away from home without telling any of his family

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and when he was asked by the recruitment

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It seems incredible now that a 12-year-old could end up in the

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So there he was, sent to France to fight for his country.

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It must have been a shock for this boy from London, suddenly

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I can't imagine the sort of things he must've seen.

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The fields weren't fields any more, they had turned

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everything to mud and the sky was black with smoke.

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He must have seen a lot of men, a lot of his friends die.

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To face all of that and keep going at such a young age, he

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must have been a very brave and very tough boy.

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Back home his mum, my grandmother, was worried.

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The newspapers were full of stories about tens of thousands of men dying

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She found his birth certificate and sent it straight off

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to the Army and demanded that he be sent home straightaway safely.

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But by now Sidney was right in the middle of

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the fighting one of the deadliest battles of the Somme.

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Fighting was so fierce that all but one of the

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trees were burnt to blank stumps and blown to bits by shells

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His mum must have been very worried about him out there

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Would the message to bring him back reach his superiors

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It would have been a race against time.

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Six weeks of fighting in one of the most

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dangerous battles of the entire war and Sidney

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was pulled back from the

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That letter which grandmother sent probably saved his life.

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At the age of 12 he joined in one of the

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deadliest world wars and a year later came back alive.

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For those of you who love some bling, check out this

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It failed to sell at auction after bids

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?8 million less than what it was expected to sell for.

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The Lesedi La Rona is the size of a tennis ball -

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and is believed to be more than two and a half billion years old.

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There will be much more to mark the anniverary of that battle

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