BBC Documentaries

A Scottish Soldier: A Lost Diary of WWI (2018x271)

: 12, 2018

Thousands of black soldiers fought in the First World War. Poet Jackie Kay tells the story of one of them - Arthur Roberts. Arthur grew up in Glasgow and joined the King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1917. He fought at Ypres and kept a detailed diary, which gives us a unique account of the war. Arthur's evocative writing and sketches paint a vivid first-hand picture of life in the trenches. Like Arthur, Jackie Kay is a black Glaswegian, and she explores what it was like being black 100 years ago.