Great Lives

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Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Matthew Parris

Great Lives: Sathnam Sanghera on Alexander Gardner

Sathnam Sanghera on Alexander Gardner

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Sathnam Sanghera on Alexander Gardner

Writer Sathnam Sanghera nominates adventurer Alexander Gardner

4 Extra Debut. Author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera chooses Scottish-American adventurer, Alexander Gardner. With Matthew Parris. From 2017.

Author and Journalist Sathnam Sanghera nominates a Great Life; a man dismissed as a fantasist and a liar in his own lifetime. 

Alexander Gardner was a Scottish-American soldier, a traveller, an explorer and adventurer - a white man with a tartan turban, who ended up in India in a Maharaja's Sikh Army in the 19th Century, just before the British Raj took over. 

Possibly a plagiarist and touted as a scoundrel, yet Sathnam claims he's worthy of a bigger place in history. If just a tiny portion of what we think we know about him is true, he is a genuinely remarkable figure.

Historian John Keay is the expert witness to Gardner's life.

Presented by Matthew Parris.   

Producer: Perminder Khatkar.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2017.

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