SOMETHING unusual happened in Britain during the spring of 2020. As the
nation went into lockdown to fight a killer pandemic our view of what
constituted a hero changed. Suddenly celebrity businessmen, actors,
sports stars, singers, even royals seemed irrelevant. The people we were
truly in awe of were the low-paid lifesavers, so much so that we stood
outside our homes every Thursday to applaud them. As spring turned to
summer and the Black Lives Matter movement gathered momentum, action was
taken against those from past generations who had been feted, such as
Bristol slave trader Edward Colston whose statue was hauled down. It
felt as though the country was re-evaluating the notion of heroism. But
how did we arrive at such a skewed version of it? 'Diamonds in the Mud'
asks why the British have traditionally been taught to venerate kings
and queens, generals and Eton-educated Prime Ministers, while, a few
notable exceptions aside, those who changed history from below rarely
got a look-in. It does so by telling the stories of a selection of
working-class heroes the award-winning writer has met through life and
journalism.
