HAware

Britain buried a man among its kings. 👑 To this day, nobody knows his name. ❓ Not his family. Not the army. Not even the officer who chose him. 🤫 It was meant to be that way. 🕊️ In 1916, an army chaplain stopped at a grave in a back garden in France. 🪦 Someone had pencilled on its cross: "An unknown British soldier." ✏️ For four years, he told no one what it made him think. Then he wrote to Westminster Abbey. ✉️ His coffin was made from an oak tree at Hampton Court. 🌳 Dover Castle gave him a nineteen-gun salute, usually kept for a field marshal. 💥 The King walked behind him on foot, as chief mourner. 🇬🇧 The guests of honour were around a hundred ordinary women. Each had lost her husband and every one of her sons. 💔 Today, his is the only grave in the Abbey nobody may walk on. 🌺 They buried him among the kings, because he had done good toward God and toward his house. 🙏 We will remember them. 🌺 Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

Britain's first poppies weren't made in Britain. 🇫🇷 In 1921, every one was shipped over from France. 🚢 Back home, thousands of men had come back from the trenches without an arm, a leg or an eye. Many couldn't find work. 💔 One wounded officer, Major George Howson, had an idea. Britain's poppies, made by Britain's wounded. 🌺 He wrote home: "I do not think it can be a great success. But it is worth trying." ✍️ In June 1922, five disabled men sat down at a bench on the Old Kent Road. 🪑 Within two months, they'd made a million. 🤯 By 1924, twenty-seven million. Enough for more than half the people in Britain. 🇬🇧 A century later, veterans there still make the royal wreaths laid at the Cenotaph. 🕊️ So now, when you put yours on, you can also remember where it came from. 🙏 We will remember them. 🌺 Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

There's a road in England older than the pyramids. 🏜️ You can still walk it today. 🥾 It's called the Ridgeway. Eighty-seven miles of white chalk along the tops of the downs. 🇬🇧 Five thousand years ago, traders carried flint axes along it. ⛰️ At that moment, there wasn't a single pyramid in Egypt. 🐐 A tomb of giant stones was already standing beside it. It's still there. 🪨 A Viking army marched down it to take Wessex. A prince barely in his twenties stood in their way. ⚔️ At school they teach you about Roman roads. 🏛️ They never tell you this one was three thousand years old when the Romans landed. 🤯 No king built it. 👑 So how has it survived five thousand years? 🤔 That's who we are. 🙏 Every Proud Of Us film is free, made by people who want Britain to know its own story. 🎬 Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

In 2012, a man sat at a small desk in the middle of the Olympic stadium and typed four words. 🏟️ "This is for everyone." 💡 It was Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The man who invented the World Wide Web. 🌐 He could have made every person on earth pay to use it. 💷 He made sure it was free. 🇬🇧 He wasn't the first British inventor to make that choice. Not even close. ⚖️ 1796. A Gloucestershire doctor proves a way to stop smallpox, a disease that killed three in every ten people who caught it. 💉 He could have kept his method secret and made a fortune. He printed it for anyone to read. 📜 1812. Ninety-two men and boys die in an explosion at a pit near Gateshead. ⛏️ Humphry Davy builds a lamp that can burn safely in the gas. He's urged to patent it. He refuses. 🔦 His young assistant, a blacksmith's son, goes on to build the first electric motor. Then he shows the world exactly how he did it. ⚡ In Glasgow, a surgeon stops infection killing his patients. He publishes his method for every surgeon on earth to use. 🩺 In wartime Oxford, a team turns a mould into a medicine that would save millions. Their leader refuses to patent it. 🧫 You've heard their names. You've probably never heard the choice they made. 🤔 Look around your home. 🏠 The little round scar on your grandad's arm. The switch on your wall. The cream on a grazed knee. The medicine in the cupboard. The screen you're reading this on. 📱 They knew their inventions would change the world. 🌍 So they made sure the world could have them. 🙏 Ordinary people, just like you, helped make it happen. 🇬🇧 Every Proud Of Us film is free, because people like you make it happen too. 🎬 Will you help make the next one? ☝️ Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧