Billy Connolly Who Do You Think You Are?

'At the beginning of my career I wanted to live in a big house

'and I didn't have the money.'

Seeing a child at every window, waving.

That was one of my dreams.

But this is kind of...

It's been brilliant.

Wa-a-a-ah!

For over 40 years, Billy Connolly has been the wild man of comedy.

I don't think I'm old. I don't feel old.

But I've noticed certain distinctive changes coming over me recently.

I tend to make a noise when I bend down.

I don't know how long I've been doing this,

but I caught myself the other day going,

"A-a-agh, Jesus...!"

LAUGHTER

And his award winning performances on the big screen

have made him an international star.

Oh, good girl!

Born in 1942,

Billy has five children

and two grandchildren.

I'm 71,

so I'm a lot closer to death than I am to birth!

'So I'd like to know where I come from.

'I'd like my children to know.

'I know so pitifully little.'

Well done.

The best-case scenario,

it would be to find someone I'm descended from

who impressed me by their wildness.

Psh-h-h!

Whose behaviour I thoroughly approved of!

Just someone I can say,

"That's the one. That's where my DNA came from."

These are my sister and I.

I like that picture. It's so Glasgow.

It's a real tenement picture.

I'm very proud of it.

And I'm proud of that place, Anderston.

"Ah, Billy, you're an Anderston boy," they say.

It's a great area, you know, it's one of the oldest areas in Glasgow.

And it's traditionally kind of poor and working class.

You can see by my wee face how happy I was there.

Well, this is my parents' wedding.

Well, my mother, I remember very, very little about her.

She left when I was four.

But I remember her being around, laughing and stuff.

And people think I should be angry because she left,

and I'm not in the least bit.

She was 19 and she met a guy who...

And she fell in love with him,

and I didn't see her again till I was in my 20s.

I don't blame her at all, not for a second.

Now, this picture is one of my favourite people in the world.

This is my granny, Florence McGowan,

and she was my mother's mother.

And I was deeply fond of her,

because when my mother was gone, she stepped right into the place.

And when she visited us it was like the sun coming over the mountain.

She was just... she was always a joy to see.

She always had chocolate and stuff like that.

I would like to find more about the background of

that whole side of my family,

my mother's side of the family.

I think they were Irish immigrants,

but I know so very, very little.

Billy is starting his search on his maternal side

by using his grandmother Florence's birth certificate.

So that's Flora that you've talked about.

Yes, that's her. My granny.

Born in 1902.

Patrick McGowan's her father.

That must be Mary McGowan nee Doyle,

my granny's mother.

Go.

Florence McGowan.

By searching census records,

Billy can find out where Florence's parents were from.

Do the search.

Cara is much more literate on the computator than I am.

-Oh, look, there we go.

-Ooh.

Well, it's the actual census.

-I could have done this.

-I know.

-Does that say McGowan?

-It does.

-Florence...

-Age eight. Oh, look!

What does that say?

Daft Street! CARA LAUGHS

She lives in 40 Daft Street.

Just off Crazy Avenue!

-Or is it Oak Street?

-Mm-hm.

-That's the parents.

-Yep.

Patrick McGowan was her father. Mary McGowan, mother.

Birthplace, Lanark, both of them.

-So they're both from Lanark. East of Glasgow.

-Yeah.

I thought they were Irish immigrants.

Well, maybe their parents were, I don't know.

Well, why don't we go to the 1901, that's the last census before that?

OK.

Patrick McGowan, Mary...

Mary...

-What does that say?

-Ireland.

Why would it suddenly say Ireland?

Why on earth doesn't that match?

Why would they say Ireland in one place

and Lanarkshire in another?

-Quite baffling really, isn't it?

-Mm-hm.

Billy's always believed that his mother's side of the family

was from Ireland.

But the records for his great-grandmother,

Mary Doyle, show conflicting information.

Was she from Ireland or Scotland?

Mary lived in Glasgow, Billy's home town.

So he's come here to find out more.

I need a wee picture with you, sir, please.

-Thank you.

-Gotcha.

Great to see you back in Glasgow, Billy. What do you think tonight?

-Can Celtic do it against Barcelona?

-Oh, they're going to hammer them!

All the best. Billy Connolly live here.

Ahh!

There's the big man. How you doing, sir?

-No bother at all.

-How's tricks?

It's not like this all the time.

He said waving to passers-by!

I don't mind being noticed at all.

It's a lot better than being booed, I can assure you.

I've experienced both.

Well, Kirsty, my granny's mother, Mary Doyle,

why would it say she came from Glasgow,

when she comes from Ireland?

She couldn't have been born in both places.

Could you help me with this?

I have searched the records in Scotland and in Ireland

and also in England, and I couldn't find a record of Mary Doyle's birth.

But I was able to find a document that I think will help

-to explain things a little.

-Yeah.

This is actually a record of Mary's baptism.

-See here is...

-Bangalore?

-That's right, yes.

-God!

BILLY LAUGHS

-In India?

-That's right, yeah.

BILLY LAUGHS

This is... How did she...?

From Ireland to Bangalore!

My God! I'm completely flummoxed.

BILLY LAUGHS Bangalore!

So Daniel and Margaret are the parents.

Doyle.

What's this? "Rank of father. Gunner."

-Oh, her father was in the Army!

-That's right, yeah.

"Gunner. Royal Horse Artillery."

That just takes my breath away. He wasn't half in the Army,

the Royal Horse Artillery, that's quite fancy.

My God!

That's the last thing on earth I expected.

Cos I was always led to believe they were Irish immigrants.

I always imagined they were poor Irish immigrants.

I didn't realise they'd be gunners in the Royal Horse Artillery

in Bangalore.

Well, we do know that in 1872, a year after Mary Doyle was born,

her father was stationed at Hill Station

in Wellington in south India.

So perhaps find out a little bit more.

Is there a Wellington in India?

There is, yes.

Well, I think we should get there post haste.

I'm absolutely amazed.

The Royal Horse Artillery.

It's the last thing on earth I expected.

Cos they're quite an outfit, you know?

They're the ones you see at Earls Court doing...

They do, er, swinging on ropes, putting guns together

and attaching it all back to the horse,

it's all tassels and braid and...

Well, I'm really curious because the Horse Artillery would have status,

and being in India they would have had status as colonialists.

So I want to know about Daniel's very British life

in the middle of India.

Following in the footsteps of his great-great-grandfather,

Daniel Doyle,

Billy is travelling 6,000 miles to Wellington in southern India.

It's a small garrison town high up in the Nilgiris hills.

I've been to India several times. I like the people.

It's a lovely feeling being back in India again.

Oh, there's a monkey. There's monkeys all over the place.

Monkeys give me the willies!

This is extraordinary tea country.

Just lush and green.

Kind of Scottish, really.

People drive here like nowhere else on earth.

This is a great example of the driving!

They'll do a blind corner without even thinking about it.

Overtake. Beep-beep!

The horn saves you from everything.

HORN BEEPS

I've never seen a crash here,

although I've seen some hairy driving.

I'm thinking about my granny's grandfather,

Daniel Doyle.

For Daniel to come here and live,

it must have been like coming to the dark side of the moon.

It must have been completely foreign to him.

We can but wonder.

When Daniel Doyle came to India in the mid-19th century,

vast areas of the subcontinent were governed on behalf of the

British Crown by the East India Company.

For over 200 years the company had been making treaties

to gain land and power from its Indian rulers,

and had profited from trade and taxation.

To maintain control over these lucrative territories,

the Crown used the British Army as well as private armies

created by the East India Company.

SOLDIERS AND OFFICERS YELL

Across the country, the company had a quarter of a million

Indian soldiers serving alongside British troops.

Left, right, left! Left, right...!

Billy has come to the barracks where Daniel Doyle was first stationed

with the British Army in the 1850s.

I've gone quite tingly.

Daniel Doyle, it's kind of weird walking in his footsteps.

There's a definite spookiness.

Not sort of, "Whoo-oo-oo, ghostie," just,

you feel like they're invisible,

just standing taking note of you.

But it's a beautiful barracks as barracks go,

cos normally I'm used to the British idea of barracks

which is grey,

that sort of Aldershot beigey grey.

Sounds like a soul singer, doesn't it, Beigey Grey!

But it's really quite colourful.

DISTANT SHOUTING OF COMMANDS

I like that.

The British usually accompany that order with a little scream.

They go, "Du-uh, ha!"

BILLY CHUCKLES

To find out about Daniel's life as a soldier,

Billy is meeting historian Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones.

Yes, you see, canons here. I think...

They've come to the Wellington Gymkhana Club.

Popular with the military,

it dates back to the days of the British Empire.

I have his military record here.

Oh, great!

Hollywood.

-Ireland.

-Oh, yeah.

So there's the Irish connection.

He's a labourer from the County of Wicklow.

Was this when he joined?

Yes, that's right. In September 1856.

"Daniel Doyle, aged 18 years.

"Complexion sallow.

"Eyes blue. Hair brown."

And you can see, he was quite a tall lad, actually.

-Yeah, 5'11½", must have been a tall guy.

-Yes.

And he went into the 3rd Battalion 60th Rifles,

and this got him out to India.

For Daniel it was a chance for adventure in an exotic country.

-Attractive possibilities.

-Very attractive, yes.

-Mm.

And we've got a couple of pictures of what it actually looked like.

Oh, it looks the same as I was there this morning.

-It's good, isn't it?

-Oh, it's fantastic.

Daniel might have thought he was coming out to fight

and life would be very lively and everything.

He came out at an interesting time in the middle of

the Great Rebellion, the Great Uprising of 1857.

-That was going on in the north of India.

-Yes.

But because he was in the south he didn't see any fighting.

In 1857, the tide was turning against the British

in the north of the country.

There was growing resentment among the Indian soldiers serving with

the East India Company about the spread of Western culture

and Christianity, which threatened their traditions and religion.

Thousands of these formerly loyal Indian soldiers

were now taking up arms against their colonial masters.

To try to quash the rebellion, more troops were sent north.

But the British still needed soldiers like Daniel Doyle

to maintain a strong military presence in the south.

We can see that he volunteers for the Royal Artillery as a gunner

and he spends three years there and then moves up to the

-Royal Horse Artillery, which is really prestigious.

-Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's great.

So he must have been a pretty good gunner.

This is an elite corps, there's no doubt about that.

That's an extraordinary picture.

Have a look at this.

"With regard to the character and conduct,

"it would appear his conduct has been good

"and he is in possession of three good conduct badges."

Hmm.

-And he's promoted to corporal in 1863.

-Yes.

So Daniel's done quite well for himself

with his good conduct medals, eh?

So he would have been quite happy, I think, here.

What we have got is a diary account

by somebody who was actually in the Royal Horse Artillery

-at the same time.

-Oh, yeah?

"Get up at five o'clock, roll up the blanket or bed,

"any drills, parades, stables or fatigues are done by nine.

"From nine until four in the afternoon

"we're not allowed to leave the camp.

"If you could look in here now you would see most of our men asleep.

"From four to six is set apart for drill.

"This, I think, concludes a day's work."

Not a lot of work went on.

"Everything is such a sameness.

"Everybody knows everybody and we see each other so often

"we tire to look at each other."

Ooh, I can see it coming.

"Then there is so little variety in our duties

"that they become quite a bugbear.

"To bed at nine, up at six, to bed at nine again,

"thus we drag our miserable existence."

Miserable existence.

I thought they were leading a rather jolly life.

Not really, because you've got to remember

-there's no fighting going on at the moment.

-Yes, yes.

So you can see boredom would drive them to all kinds of distractions.

Oh, indeed, indeed.

We do have some more information about him.

"His name appears 16 times in the Regimental Defaulters' Book...

-"..and he has been held once by court martial."

-Tried.

-Oh, he's been tried once. That's quite serious.

-Mm.

What did he do?

Unfortunately we don't know.

What's the Defaulters' Book?

It's sort of like a naughty book if you step...!

THEY LAUGH

The naughty step!

If you step out of line, your name goes down.

But that could have been for fairly minor things.

-Yeah, misdemeanour...

-Being drunk, being rude, yes, exactly.

I can smell alcohol.

-Oh, can you?

-Yes.

If you're 16 times in the Defaulters' Book,

I reckon you're a bit of a drunk.

So has he been flung out?

No, not really. He just goes back to being a gunner again,

but he's lost that, you know, that prestigious job unfortunately.

Yes. Yeah, well, I don't understand why he's got himself in trouble,

having gone from private to corporal.

I mean, his next step was sergeant.

You would think he would behave himself. Oh, for shame, for shame.

-I think he'd be good fun by the sound of him.

-Yes.

And what happened to him after that?

We find him in Bangalore, in hospital, in 1866.

-Oh, really?

-Mm.

I wonder what he went to hospital for,

that's what I would like to know.

I think when Daniel was in India,

he's obviously lying around here bored stiff.

16 times in the... in the Defaulters' Book!

BILLY LAUGHS

He's a bit like me. I'm sure I would have been in the Defaulters' Book.

Find him very colourful. I kind of like him.

When I heard that he'd been in hospital in Bangalore

I immediately thought, "He's been in a fight."

Maybe it's just some act of vandalism

when he was drunk or something like that.

I may be completely wrong. He maybe caught some disease.

There was no... I mean, I don't imagine it was terribly difficult

to catch a disease then here, for a white guy especially.

So I really don't know. I haven't a clue.

I'm desperate to find out.

It's got my nosy bone going.

I really want to know what he's been up to,

why he's in hospital.

Billy is heading 200 miles north to Bangalore city,

where his great-great-grandfather was in hospital.

PEOPLE CHEER

HORNS BEEP

If it's a quiet time you're looking for...

..don't come to Bangalore!

I never saw so many people in my life.

All the mopeds and...

the heart-stopping sight of women in saris sitting side saddle,

hurtling through the traffic with a baby in their arms.

It just crossed my mind how it must have looked in 1866.

Cos there would be no cars. Just be bullock carts.

I wonder how Daniel got to Bangalore.

Maybe he just jumped on a horse.

It's not known which hospital Daniel Doyle was treated in,

but historian Dr Mridula Ramanna has found his medical records.

-Here's Daniel Doyle.

-Daniel Doyle.

Diseases.

And these are the dates when he was in hospital

with the years '66 to '69.

-So he's come back and forth out of... in and out of hospital?

-Yeah.

Is that diarrhoea there?

Yes, diarrhoea, dysentery was very common.

-What does that say?

-This is ebriositis.

-Ebriositis.

-..sitis. Which is...

-What's that?

..which is actually alcoholism.

Oh!

-Yeah. And you'll see...

-It's a family tradition.

-Oh! There's, there are two entries for ebriositis.

-Yes.

-Yeah. What does that one say there?

-Yeah, that is, er,

enu...enuresis, which is excessive urination

in the night,

and that is caused by, again, alcoholism.

My goodness!

-He, he...

-So he would be alcoholic and peeing through the night,

-and having diarrhoea during the day!

-Yeah.

-His life was quite jolly!

-Yeah.

-For this ebriositis...

-Yes.

..Doyle would have been given morphine.

-For his alcoholism?

-Yeah.

To sedate him, because he would...

Sedated by morphine?

..because he must have been violent.

-You know, in alcohol...

-Yes.

-So you know...

-Throwing his weight around.

-Right, yeah, perhaps.

Is that syphilis?

Yes. Primary syphilis.

My God!

BILLY LAUGHS

Golly! Oh...

I didn't see it tucked away there.

Oh. So he's got syphilis and diarrhoea.

What a happy young man he is(!)

And that was pretty common here in the British Army.

-Was it?

-Yeah.

Many of these young men,

their only outlet would be to go to prostitutes.

So probably that's where he caught it.

My goodness me!

The dirty bugger!

THEY LAUGH

The British Army saw prostitution as a necessary evil.

To exert some control, they procured prostitutes for their regiments.

Around 20 prostitutes were expected to provide sexual services

for up to a thousand soldiers.

Typically, the prostitutes were poor local women,

used exclusively by the troops.

But by the 1860s, as many as one in three soldiers,

like Daniel Doyle, had a sexually transmitted disease.

Syphilis was called the scourge of the British Army.

The British Medical Journal has a number of articles on how

they performed health inspection of the regiments.

With primary syphilis the symptoms are genital sores.

"In some regiments the men are marched in a body to the hospital.

"In some cases they stand in their ordinary fatigue dress,

"each man unbuttoning the front of his trousers

"and parading the genitals for the inspecting surgeon.

"This operation generally giving rise to suppressed manifestations of

"mirth, shame or indignation, but at all times,

"to say the least of it, humiliating and disgusting to the surgeon."

Oh, but of course.

"Sometimes the soldiers are partially or even entirely

"undressed or with shirt on only, the front tail of which is lifted..."

THEY LAUGH

"..as the surgeon passes down the line!"

Oh, it's a peculiar salute he's getting there!

Oh, God, when you think of how they behaved in those days.

It was a matter of grave concern to them, so that's why...

I'm sure it was, yes.

-And they were very keen on containing it.

-Yes.

But it was invariably the argument that it was the woman to blame.

-Yes. Of course it was.

-So it would be...

If the women were found diseased,

they would be sent to lock hospitals.

Locked up as if they were in jail?

Yeah. The idea to lock up the woman

for a period of maybe three months.

In an attempt to control the spread of syphilis,

the Army forced the prostitutes into lock hospitals

to undergo examination and quarantine.

When they were declared clean, they would be released

and made available to the soldiers again.

My goodness!

-All of this was conducted by men, all these examinations?

-Yeah.

And would that be going on when Daniel was around?

-The lock hospitals were in operation.

-Yes.

But just after this,

he got married.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

Here is his certificate.

"15th June, 1869,

"Daniel Doyle to Margaret O'Brien."

-Well, the syphilis didn't stop him getting married.

-No.

-Oh, I'm glad to hear it.

-Yeah.

By 1873, you'll see that he was "regular, good and temperate."

"Regular, good and temperate."

Probably the marriage to Margaret O'Brien sobered him.

He must have got over both the syphilis and the alcoholism.

To become a good father and husband.

-Yeah.

-He saw the light,

and married the beautiful Margaret.

Margaret O'Brien.

THEY LAUGH

And does it end there?

Yes. He went back to Britain, '78.

Discharged from the Army.

-20 years in India.

-Mm.

Well, there we have it.

My syphilitic great-great-grandfather.

Well, thank you very much indeed.

Nice meeting you.

Oh, the pleasure's mine, I can assure you.

I think he was doing what lots and lots of guys were doing.

Getting drunk and getting laid.

But you don't usually see that about your great-great-grandparents.

They're usually all stiff and getting their picture taken.

But he was a real Jack-the-lad.

It's astonishing, once he meets Margaret he's...

he cleans up his act completely.

Either she was immensely strong or he was very strong willed.

The more I read about him, the more I like him.

He's a vulnerable guy from Ireland who's taken a little drink

and got in a little mess here.

I thought he would be fighting but there you go, I was quite close.

I would like to see what happens next to him.

I think it would be difficult for him

to adjust to living in the UK after living in India.

Freedom's quite frightening if you're not used to it.

-Hello, Billy.

-Hello, Gillian.

How lovely to see you.

Billy has asked researcher Gillian Wright to look for

records about Daniel Doyle's life back in Britain.

Well, I think we're in luck because we have some information.

Great.

And, er, this is actually from Scotland.

-Oh. So they moved to Scotland?

-Yes.

"Application For Relief."

No, I don't understand it.

Are they applying to the Government for relief or the Church?

-Yeah, they're applying to the, to the parish.

-Oh, the parish, yeah.

-And it's poor relief.

-Oh!

Which means they are very desperate.

My God.

I'm sad.

-I wanted him to do better than that.

-Yeah.

And then we know that he'd had a stroke

and he died in 1902.

BILLY SIGHS

What a shame.

It's a terrible tragic end to his life.

-After this period, it's his wife who's applying for assistance.

-Yes.

She's the widow of Daniel Doyle, this is Margaret,

and on the 28th of July, 1903, she's committed to the poorhouse.

-She's complaining of weak vision.

-She is, yeah.

-God, life isn't easy for our Margaret, is it?

-Not at all.

And then we get the final entry on the 18th September 1905 when,

again, she applies for relief.

Her life has changed radically, too. She must have been deeply depressed.

I mean, when she married a dashing young man...

She married a dashing young drunk with a history of syphilis.

THEY LAUGH

-Well, I doubt if she was aware of that.

-Yeah.

Erm...I'm depressed about the whole affair.

This...this severe slope downwards.

But that's the last application. After that, she never applies again.

So perhaps then her family take responsibility for her.

-But we don't know.

-Yeah.

-So that's where her story ends here.

But there is, on the first page of this document,

something which tells us about where she began.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah. Because they not only show the children,

they show the parentage, so that may interest you.

"Wife - Margaret O'Brien, born in East India.

"Daughter of John O'Brien and Matilda Allan, both dead."

-They're her parents. So I have a record.

-You do?

-I do.

-Of...of her father?

-Of her father and for her journey in life.

Oh, great.

-Registry of Baptisms in the year 1852.

-Yeah.

-And if you look for Margaret...

-This here?

-Yes, there she is.

"Parents' names - John and Matilda O'Brien.

"Rank or occupation of the father - bullock driver."

No, unfortunately, that would have been really fun.

That's the next one down.

Oh! THEY LAUGH

-"Private."

-He was a private in the 1st M,

-which is the 1st Madras Fusiliers.

-Really?

-Yeah.

And Madras Fusiliers had been sent up north to quash the rebellion,

the Indian Mutiny, as they called it, the Great Rebellion.

That started that year.

-So, her father was a private in the Madras Regiment?

-Yes.

-He would definitely be up fighting in the mutiny?

-Yeah.

-Oh, my God.

Billy has discovered his connection to India

goes back another generation.

While Daniel Doyle was stationed in the south

during the Great Rebellion,

his father-in-law, John O'Brien, was sent to the heart of the uprising.

You know, I didn't know I had anybody involved

in the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion, you know.

And he was actually in action.

And I would... I would suspect that Daniel

would be a wee bit in awe of him.

Billy is heading north to Cawnpore, where John O'Brien

and his regiment, the 1st Madras Fusiliers,

were sent in June 1857 at the height of the rebellion.

'Must have been a horrendous, hairy affair.

'Shooting and killing and smoke and flame everywhere.

'Was he brave? Did he run away?'

The rebellion was turning into a bloodbath.

Atrocities were taking place on both sides.

British officers and their families

had been murdered by the Indian rebels.

Retaliation by the British was swift and brutal.

Some rebels were strapped to canons and blown apart.

And many soldiers were ordered to shoot Indians indiscriminately

and burn their villages to the ground.

The British had lost control in major cities.

Now, the garrison cities of Lucknow and Cawnpore were also under attack.

To find out what happened to John O'Brien,

Billy is meeting military historian Rana Chhinna.

The uprising spread like wildfire.

It was called the Devil's Wind.

And the force of which John was a part

were desperate to reach Cawnpore

because they were aware that massacres had been taking place...

-Really?

-Yeah.

In Cawnpore, 350 British men had already been killed by the rebels

but 200 women and children were still being held captive.

Their lives depended on John and the relief force

arriving before they suffered the same fate.

John's regiment marched over 100 miles,

facing fierce resistance, as they battled to reach Cawnpore.

And this was at the peak of summer,

-and they were all in their woollen redcoats.

-Of course they were.

John would have seen his comrades dying of heat exhaustion,

-heat stroke, dysentery, cholera...

-Oh, my God!

The relieving force, of which John was a part,

reached here just two days too late.

-Just two days too late?

-Yes. The women and children were killed.

They were dragged out and thrown into the well.

And this is that well.

Just two days before John and the relief force arrived,

the women and children had been butchered,

dismembered and piled into the well.

Oh, my God.

I'm just trying to imagine my old great-great-great-grandfather

arriving here to see this well and this nightmarish scene.

Yes. If they looked into the well, they could actually...

-Yeah.

-..see the remains.

It would have a profound effect on them all, never mind John,

-to be confronted with this when they arrived.

-Yes.

Which would be done on purpose, of course.

It's a great military manoeuvre

to confront the approaching troops with something nightmarish.

And there's another thing. If you notice the bats, fruit bats?

-Yes. Yeah.

-You know what the locals believe?

They believe the bats are here

because this is a place of tortured souls.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Well, that's creepy!

It's such a delightful place,

it's hard to believe that such a horrible thing happened here.

We also have to remember that when John O'Brien got here,

just days after that, he became a father for the second time.

-And Margaret, his first daughter, was five years old.

-Yeah.

So, to see these young children having been butchered...

It would mean a great deal to him.

-Yeah, would have had a great impact on him.

-Mm.

Yeah. For John and his comrades, "Remember Cawnpore"

-became the rallying cry for them.

-Really?

-Yeah.

John's commanding officer, Colonel Neill,

ordered immediate punishment of those suspected

of taking part in the massacre.

"Each miscreant, after sentence of death is pronounced upon him,

"will be taken down to the house and questioned under a guard

"and will be forced into cleaning up a small portion of the blood-stains;

"the task will be made as revolting to his feelings as possible...

"After properly cleaning up his portion,

"the culprit is to be immediately hanged

"and for this purpose a gallows will be erected close at hand."

Oh, my God!

The suspects were forced to clean up

the victims' blood with their tongues.

As further humiliation,

and in violation of their religious beliefs,

Muslims were forced to eat pork

and Hindus to eat beef before being hanged.

He was not concerned whether they were guilty or innocent.

It didn't matter to him.

-So, he... John would be part of this?

-Yes. Very much so.

-Enforcing this?

-Yes.

-Oh, dear.

John O'Brien would have been part of that, yeah.

One of the officers said,

"Every day the trees are ripe with the fruits of rebellion,"

and he was talking about the corpses that were strung up.

-Yes, hanging.

-Yeah.

-My God! Neill, guy's a sadist, isn't he?

-He was very brutal.

-I don't know what to think about that.

-Yeah.

-We didn't get this history at school.

-No. No.

The way I see it, my great-great-great-grandfather

was a very nice man who was lorded over by Mr Neill.

He probably just was a private, doing what he was told.

Private soldiers have to do exactly what they were told to do.

With the horrors of Cawnpore fresh in their minds,

John and the relief force were ordered to march 50 miles

to Lucknow, where a massacre on an even greater scale was threatened.

2,000 British soldiers and civilians

had sought refuge in the British headquarters called the Residency.

Surrounded by rebels, and under constant attack,

they were desperate to be rescued.

With thousands of civilians now supporting the rebel soldiers,

the relief force suffered heavy losses in the battle

to break through enemy lines and reach the Residency.

This was the main gate

-and this was the gate that John would have come through.

-Yes.

And, of course, he would have fought his way to here.

They were fighting every inch of the way.

God, it's remarkable to think I'm walking up the same road

as my great-great-great-grandfather walked up.

When John and his relief force finally arrived in late September,

the Siege of Lucknow had been raging for three months.

This was a proper battle ground of...

You can see where that one's been hit with heavy artillery,

-just up at the top there.

-That's right.

-24 hours a day under fire.

-Yes.

There is a contemporary print.

Oh, yes. That's great.

-I'm just trying to imagine, with the cheering.

-Yes.

There's an account.

-A Lady's Diary Of The Siege Of Lucknow.

-Yeah. The extract.

"Yesterday evening, on the 88th day of the siege,

"our long-looked for and so often despaired of 'relief' arrived.

"Never shall I forget the moment to the latest day I live.

"The big, rough-bearded soldiers were seizing the little children

"out of our arms, kissing them with tears rolling down their cheeks,

"and thanking God they had come in time

"to save them from the fate of those at Cawnpore."

God, that must have been a party!

That's wonderful.

So, did any fighting continue in here?

Yes. You see, you have to remember the numbers were so few

and they were surrounded by a force of 8,000 to 10,000 men.

-Really?

-There was no way that they could actually battle their way out.

-Couldn't get out.

-Couldn't get out.

And they would be a weight on the food and all that, and the resources.

Yes. Yes, cos you know, they had marched in as...

-The great saviours.

-..the great saviours.

And then the relievers became part of the besieged.

God! It's never ending.

We have an account by one of the officers of the Madras Fusiliers.

"Instead of affording any great relief to this unfortunate

"garrison of Lucknow, I am writing one week after our entrance.

"We are almost as badly off as the garrison

"and with few supplies left - daily fighting, daily loss.

"But such a scene of filth mixed up with costly things,

"it's impossible to imagine.

"The finest china used by soldiers of the force,

"all this mixed up with dead bodies until the stench is so great

"we can hardly sit - and no-one to remove all this filth.

"Our force is so small, nothing more can really be done."

-Oh, my God!

-Conditions were growing...

-Worse and worse.

-..worse and worse.

And these are events that John O'Brien was definitely

-a part of and would have seen first-hand.

-Yes.

With rebels pounding the Residency with artillery fire,

casualties inside were mounting daily.

The banqueting hall was turned into a hospital.

As a matter of fact, we know John O'Brien was wounded.

If you look at that, it says, "O'Brien, John..."

"Severe gunshot." Does that say wound?

-Yeah, wound...

-Yes, left shoulder.

-..of left shoulder.

And now, in those days without anaesthetic,

-you can imagine what he must have gone through.

-Yes.

My God!

People dying all around him, would have been blood everywhere.

Must have thought his chances were pretty small of getting out of here.

And hundreds of people in here.

It must have been an extraordinarily place.

This place would have seen a lot of suffering.

Must have been unimaginable torture for them.

It would have been awful.

And lying in a hospital here, unable to do anything.

He must have thought his chances were pretty small

of getting out of here.

On November 17th, nearly six months after the siege first began,

a larger relief force came to the rescue.

John's ordeal was finally over.

The defence of Lucknow became the pinnacle

-of the British Imperial achievement.

-Yeah.

So, for John to have been present at this key moment

in British Imperial history was huge.

Extraordinary, yeah.

If it was an American you would say he was one of the guys

who was present at the Alamo.

That is a medal roll and there he is, Private John O'Brien, 2252.

-Top of the list.

-And it says,

"Entitled to a clasp for the defence of Lucknow."

Rana has a replica of the medal John O'Brien would have received.

My goodness!

-That's a lovely thing, isn't it?

-It is.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

That's amazing. Good on him.

It wasn't just British soldiers like John O'Brien

who were decorated for their part in defending Lucknow.

Over 700 Indian soldiers remained loyal

to the British during the siege.

Every Indian member of the garrison was subsequently admitted

to the Order of Merit, which was the highest gallantry award.

-Really?

-Yeah.

It was the Indian equivalent of the Victoria Cross which they gave them.

That's wonderful.

I think he would have been quite proud.

And quite delighted to have survived.

My God!

What a guy!

When I think of what his eyes must have seen was a disgraceful act.

And it must have been terrible for him,

having seen the massacre in Cawnpore,

then coming here and wondering

what was happening to his wife and two children.

But he came through it all and he won a medal.

On one hand it's valorous because you did your job extremely well.

But was your job really worth doing? It has to be questioned.

It's very easy for the likes of me to sit here and say that.

He lived in a completely different world.

Where we had an Empire that had to be looked after

and he was there to keep India British.

You know, it's dead easy for me sitting here, Joe the hippy,

"Peace and love and save the whale."

But when you're there, it's a different sausage.

Regaining Lucknow was a turning point for the British.

But it took them another six months

to finally quash the Great Rebellion,

or as many Indians called it, their First War of Independence.

In 1858, the East India Company was dissolved.

The British Crown took direct control

and many soldiers returned to Britain.

John O'Brien was wounded in the Great Rebellion,

and Billy wants to know what happened to him.

I've been looking at some records here.

General Orders. Is this him here?

Yes, that's him there, right there, yeah.

-"Pension - one shilling and six pence."

-Yeah.

-So that's him being pensioned out of the Army.

-Yeah.

1859. So that's just two years after the Relief of Lucknow.

That's right.

So he wouldn't be living very high on the hog, would he,

to live on a shilling and six pence?

But for that point of time it was a good amount

-and he could have lived quite comfortably.

-Really?

-Yeah.

So, do you think he would have been invalided out?

Yeah, because he was wounded.

Yes, his left shoulder, he was badly wounded.

Yeah, so probably he couldn't serve any more,

which is why he was pensioned off.

And since this was at the Siege of Lucknow it was probably just...

-Since he's proved his loyalty to the British...

-Yes.

It was like a mark of the service rendered that they gave him

-that higher amount of pension.

-Oh, yeah.

-Yeah. So they appreciated the service that he gave them.

-Yes.

It also mentions where he chose to reside after being pensioned.

-And it was Bangalore.

-Yeah.

-Oh, he's chosen to live in India.

-That's correct, yeah.

-Oh, I like that.

Yeah, that's interesting because most of the others chose to go back.

Yes. "England, England, England..."

So he's gone and settled in Bangalore.

And is there any information how long he stayed there?

-Yeah. So if you would look at this.

-Baptisms. I can't make out the date.

-1864.

-So he has more children at this point.

-We have another baptism record.

-1866.

-That's right.

-I have another record as well for you.

-1872.

-Mm-hm.

-More babies! It's the climate!

-Yeah.

Yeah, you can blame it on the climate, yeah.

And probably being a pensioner, he had a lot of time on his hands!

THEY LAUGH

BIRDS SQUAWK Even the birds find it funny!

But I kind of like the fact that he stayed in India,

and the children growing up in Bangalore would have had a nice time.

Yes, they would.

I was hoping one of the girls would marry a maharajah.

THEY LAUGH

-Don't we all!

-THEY LAUGH

I was hoping to marry a maharajah too!

-Well, thank you very much indeed.

-My pleasure.

Billy knows Mary Doyle and her mother, Margaret,

were both born in India.

Now he wants to know if Matilda and her parents

take his connection to the country back another generation.

Hello. You're Rajesh? I'm Billy Connolly.

I'd like to know if you have any records pertaining

to my great-great-great-grandfather John O'Brien and his wife Matilda?

You can take a look of marriage and baptism records from 1840s.

-Oh, that sounds great, yeah.

-So, these are the registers.

Thank you very much.

Well, I think I'll do the marriages first.

So, I look for O'Brien.

Golly, this is hard.

Oh, this is a minefield!

Holy moley!

If Margaret was born in 1852...

..I go back to... Where am I?

Bingo!

John O'Brien, 1st Madras Fusiliers.

Matilda Ellen.

Date of Marriage - 16th of July 1845.

Matilda. I don't know where she came from.

There's no information about her parents.

Married 1845, in July.

Billy's searching for Matilda's baptism record,

which may hold more clues.

Baptised... I'm just presuming she was baptised here.

Matilda Allan.

She was baptised on 20th of May 1845 in Bangalore.

The parents - there's no information, surname or nothing.

Hang on.

The 20th June...

And she's married in July.

So, this is obviously to make her a Catholic...

..so that he can marry her.

There's no other information.

I wonder if she was pregnant.

Date of birth - 1832.

If she was born in 1832 and married in 1845...

13?

That cannae be right, surely!

Date of birth - 1832. Date of Marriage - 1845.

Surely she wasn't married when she was 13!

Doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't even say where she was born.

God Almighty!

Really shocked me.

I'm astonished.

Absolutely astonished to find that

my great-great-great-grandfather married a 13-year-old girl.

I had to do the math.

Between 1932 and '45, it's not difficult.

My brain kept saying, "No, that makes her 13, don't be ridiculous!"

Was it legal in 1845?

I'm trying not to be judgmental. Maybe it was absolutely normal.

It's kind of playing havoc with my mind.

That's a nice colour, isn't it? The sari.

-Hi, Richard.

-Hello, Billy.

-Nice to see you.

-So good to meet you.

Billy is meeting local historian Richard O'Connor

at the exclusive Bangalore Club.

My God, this is quite the place, isn't it? Very posh.

-It is.

-This is the India that used to be, the British Raj India.

-In fact, it's nearly 150 years old.

-Really?

-Yes.

We are entering the men's bar now.

This was meant for the officers of the British Army.

Richard, in 1845 my great-great-great-grandparents

were married here in Bangalore. John and Matilda O'Brien.

But it would appear that Matilda was only 13 years of age

and she was baptised a month before the wedding.

Do you know if it was legal to get married at 13?

Could you cast any light on it for me?

Well, to do that, Billy, we'll have to look at the records

of John and Matilda's children.

This is the marriage of one of the daughters, Mary.

Mary O'Brien.

-It says about Mary is East Indian. East Indian?

-East Indian.

I don't know what that means.

-Have you heard of this name?

-East Indian?

-Before, yeah?

Matilda was European, wasn't she?

Matilda Allan. The wife of John O'Brien.

-But look what it says.

-East Indian.

-East Indian.

It's not European. East Indian means Anglo-Indian.

-Anglo-Indian.

-This means that her father was European,

in this case British, and her mother was Indian.

-Lordy, lordy!

-There we go.

-Well, well, well!

-All along you've been thinking she's European?

-Yes, I thought she was European!

-It's here on record.

While the children are Anglo-Indian, the mother was definitely Indian.

Indian! HE LAUGHS

This is ridiculous! Indian! That's wonderful.

And that explains the 13 years of age marriage, doesn't it?

And she's converted to Christianity.

Converted to Christianity because she got baptised.

-Yeah, a month before their wedding.

-Just a month before her wedding.

-And normally Anglo-Indians get baptised soon after birth.

-Mm-hm.

-All these records show that definitely Matilda was Indian.

-Yeah.

Well, that would have helped in his decision to stay here, wouldn't it?

-If your wife's Indian, makes the decision very easy.

-Yes.

I'm still absolutely amazed that Matilda was an Indian.

I'm very pleased. I'm very pleased to have Indian blood in the family.

-It just takes my breath away.

-You must be having relatives in India.

I'm glad somebody diligent kept these record the way they are.

It's given me another family I didn't know about.

I think it's wonderful. I'm very pleased.

-Oh, nice to hear that.

-Can't wait to tell my children.

Three generations born in India. HE LAUGHS

It's just... It's just such a huge thing not to know.

I would love to think I behaved like John O'Brien,

who's a soldier, proud and true.

But if I had to really look in the mirror and own up,

I'm much more like Daniel Doyle.

As a matter of fact, I sent an e-mail to my manager during this shoot

and told him one of my ancestors, Daniel Doyle,

peed too often and he's an alcoholic, you know, and he had syphilis.

HE LAUGHS

He sent me an e-mail back saying...

"An incontinent alcoholic mad shagger?

"You're got a chip off the old block!"

HE LAUGHS

I'm very proud and happy to be part Indian. It's lovely.

No matter how small the part is.

But I still feel very Scottish.

When anybody writes about me they always put the word "Scottish" in.

"Big Scottish comedian."

"Scottish" is right across my forehead.

You know, I'm a Glaswegian, Scottish person

and that will remain till the day I die.

But in my heart I have... I have a little bit of India.

And I'm going to keep it very close to me.