Great Lives Sathnam Sanghera on Alexander Gardner
Dec 28, 2018
27:43
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.