Winning the Booker Prize and discovering a lost fairytale

26:55We'll be right back.

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27:20Still to come, how one of the world's favourite toys was created, the female rollerblader who beat the men to grab X Games glory, and the discovery of a lost fairy tale thought to have been written by Hans Christian Andersen. My phone rang all the time. Tibet, China, Japan. And I was really stunned, realizing that Anderson still was so popular or well-liked throughout the world. But before that, a key moment in the late 20th century history of West Africa. In 1987, one of the continent's most famous and radical leaders, Captain Thomas Sankara, was gunned down in a coup in Burkina Faso. Most shockingly, his overthrow was orchestrated by an old friend.

28:06Alex Last has the story. It's October 15, 1987, and in Ouagadougou, the capital of the West African state of Burkina Faso, troops are about to kill one of Africa's most celebrated revolutionaries, Captain Thomas Sankara.

28:31I was at the airport. I heard the first shots. And I even saw military trucks in the movement, back and forth. From everywhere in Wagadougou, in the city, you can hear the gunshot. Paul Sankara, a trainee pilot, is Thomas Sankara's younger brother. So I was wondering what it is. I just grabbed my motorcycle to the palace and see what's going on. I saw some military. And then I just end up at my parents' house. And then I heard the radio. The radio announced that Thomas Sankara had been overthrown. The communique was signed by Thomas' old best friend and number two in the government, Blaise Kampauri.

29:14Some were crying, others just didn't believe it. A plot from Blaise Kampauri against Thomas. Everybody was saying, OK, I hope Thomas is still alive. Personally, I didn't think that he would be alive because they knew how popular was Thomas. The next morning, the family was told he had been killed, his body buried in a makeshift grave marked by a piece of paper in a cemetery on the outskirts of town. I was so angry because I have lost a brother, but it's more about once again in Africa, hope has been stopped. Just four years earlier, Captains Thomas Sankara and Blaise Kampare had seized power in a coup from a previous military regime.

30:01Sankara became the head of state of what was then called Upper Volta. Kampauri became the second in command. Thomas, a guitar-playing charismatic left-wing officer, promised to be a new type of African leader.

30:24Any soldier who isn't patriotic is simply a criminal in power, down with imperialism, down with neocolonialism, down with puppet regimes. Fiercely against corruption, Sankara rejected the usual trappings of office. He chose to live without luxury on a salary of a few hundred dollars. He kept the family's old car he often drove himself, stopping at traffic lights like everyone else. He was the opposite of most African leaders of the time. and as Paul remembers, as soon as he took office, he had a warning for his family. He asked every one of us, the whole family, I would like you to avoid, to receive, to take gifts from especially the business guys, the mansions because sooner or later they will ask you something in return.

31:19Can I have an appointment with the president, your relative, or can I have this contract? It was Thomas' philosophy. No, bribery or corruption. If you start helping relatives, friends, when are you going to stop with that? Was he a good brother? Yes, he was a good brother, but tough. He never drank, never smoked, doing sports, trying to be curious, learning how to play guitar. He used to like to enjoy life. He was thirsty of learning, like to discuss, to debate with anybody. Thomas had joined the army at 19 and there he met Blaise Kompare. The two became the best of friends. Since Blaise has been introduced to our parents as one of his closest friends and also he's an orphan, our dad and ma 'am felt that they have the compassion to be the new parents for Blaise Kompare.

32:21So, bless Kompare, share private and even professional issues with our parents, specifically of our dad. So he was like a member of the family? Well, absolutely. He was even closer to our parents than Thomas. Apa Volta was desperately poor and relied on aid, particularly from the former colonial power, France. But Sankara had other ideas. He embarked on a radical programme of development and self-reliance. He led campaigns on desertification, illiteracy, women's rights and immunisation. He even changed the country's name to Burkina Faso, meaning the land of the upright or honest people. While other African leaders stole vast amounts, travelled in huge convoys, Sankara sold off the government's fleet of Mercedes and made officials drive small Renault 5 cars instead.

33:17Wearing just his military fatigues and a red beret, he became a symbol of change across the continent.

33:31He was the most enormous success with the less important people in Nigeria. And when he left, he went to the airport at Abuja, and as he was leaving, he turned on the steps of the plane and raised both arms in a salute to the crowd. and there was the most tremendous cheer. Even the policemen and soldiers on duty at the airport were cheering. Now that didn't go down terribly well in Nigeria in official circles. What he did really was to appeal to the ordinary people in the rest of West Africa over the heads of their rulers. But he wasn't popular with everyone. Local revolutionary committees established under the regime were accused of abusing their power.

34:13Organised dissent was not tolerated. some opponents were imprisoned. Sankara's radicalism and independence worried the French and their conservative African allies. And by 1987, rumours had begun to circulate that his old friend, Blaise Kampare, wanted to take over.

34:35The last time I saw him, it was in the palace. I went there and just talked about what I heard and the city was going on. What were you telling him people were saying? There was a plot to get rid of him and apparently it was his friend, Blaise Kompare, and he told me that, yes, he heard about it. But he seemed relaxed. He wasn't worried then. He seems relaxed when we talk, but at the same time I can feel that something was bothering him. He told me that he didn't want to arrest anybody. He didn't want to involve in, you know, killing or plotting. Even if it meant his own death. Yeah, exactly. He knew.

35:18He knew. But he chose to stay himself. And so on October the 15th, 1987, he was in the palace when soldiers arrived. I heard Blaise Comparais plotters shoot the drivers and the bodyguards of Thomas Sankara. And then when inside, Thomas said, they need me. They're looking for me. He went out and then they started shooting. Thomas Sankara's death was mourned across Africa and for many, he remains a revolutionary hero.

35:55Every day, something will remind you this October 1587. Somehow, somehow. The only thing I wanted is to know exactly why Blaise Kampare and what happened that day. Paul Sankara, brother of the late Thomas Sankara, spoke to Alex Last in 2013. Blaise Kampare was president of Burkina Faso until October 2014, when he resigned following violent protests over his attempt to extend his 27-year rule. In April 2022, he was found guilty by a special military tribunal of complicity in Sankara's murder and handed a life sentence. He's lived in exile in Ivory Coast since his removal from office. A complete change of tone next as we bring you something of a detective story involving one of the most famous writers ever to have put pen to paper.

36:52In 2012, an unexpected discovery was made in a box of archived papers in Denmark. But could the handwritten manuscript really be a lost work by a legendary storyteller? Surya Alanga has the tale. Odense takes its name from Odin, the Norse god of poetry and storytelling. Beneath its cobbled streets sits an 11th century Viking fortress. In the cathedral crypt rests Denmark's last Viking king. And according to legend, one of Odin's eyes lies at the bottom of a well here. But this story isn't buried in myth. It's hidden inside a little box, deep inside the vaults of the Danish National Archives. If you misplace a manuscript in the National Archives, they are lost forever.

37:44You should be so lucky to find what you have misplaced in the archives. In October 2012, Einar Eskel, a senior researcher and curator at Museum Odense, gets an urgent phone call. It's an archivist telling him that inside one of the tens of thousands of boxes, they've found something rather unexpected. I didn't believe it, to be honest. But I went to the archives immediately and I saw this manuscript. It's plain white paper in quite good quality, consisting of two folded sheets. They were neatly sewn together to a little booklet. And on three of the pages, this fairy tale was written. And then at the end, it was signed Hans Christian Andersen.

38:39It sizzled and fizzled as the flames fired the cauldron. It was the tallow candle's cradle. Hans Christian Andersen wrote over 150 fairy tales, including favourites like The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid. Einar had read them all. Except for this one. He had a man called Espen Brough to thank for this. He was a genealogist and a local historian. And he was making research on a family, a Danish family, called Plum, at the National Archive in Odense. And he had required some boxes. And he found in one of the boxes by chance this manuscript. He was amazed. And on the front page of the manuscript, it read.

39:32To Madame Bunkeflod from her devoted Hans Christian Andersen. The name Hans Christian Andersen, it's in Denmark a common name, but Mrs Bunkeflod, it's a very rare name. But Aina already knew her name from Andersen's memoirs. Madame Bunkeflod, she was a widow, and she lived on the opposite side of the street where Anderson lived. And Anderson was a regular visitor there because he borrowed Madame Bunkerflou's books and he read all the books he could find. It might be in this period that he wrote this fairy tale and gave it to Mrs. Bunkerflou in 1823 or 1825.

40:23So what is this lost fairy tale all about? The fairy tale is about a tallow candle. It's a very simple candle made out of the fat of sheeps and it easily gets dirty. Completely covered by the dirt of a surrounding world that had come much too close. False friends found they could not reach its inner self and angrily cast the candle away as useless. but then it's discovered by a tinderbox that knew the candle better than the candle knew itself, as Anderson says. And then the tinderbox lit the tallow candle and the tallow candle burns and the flame blazes and the drops of tallow covers the dirt of the outside of the tallow candle.

41:13So it gets white and bright and then it has found its place in life and can shine for the delight of its fellow creatures. He always speaks of the nobility of mind, that the inner quality is more important than the outer appearance. Einar spent two months studying the manuscript, which was not in Anderson's writing, as it was a copy. It was a nice handwriting, but I had no idea who made this copy. And then there was a watermark on the paper. It was a beehive, and it was paper from a paper mill in the Netherlands called Hornig. The paper fit into the period when Andersen was young. So that's the first part.

42:04The second part is to find out, could it be Hans Christian Andersen behind this tale? And to be honest, it's not very good, so it should be written by a young Anderson. And that fits also into our finds. In December 2012, news broke about the discovery of the tallow candle. There was a lot of debate. Some said it could be a hoax and they didn't believe it could be Hans Christian Andersen. And some scholars said that some words in this transcription couldn't be from this period. So there was a lot of debate, but it very quickly fizzled out. Einar wasn't swayed by the reaction. I was expecting this, but I think it's not clever to make a hoax by misplacing a manuscript in the National Archives.

43:02because in the National Archives there are millions of papers. The story made headlines. My phone rang all the time. Tibet, China, Japan. I was really stunned realising that Anderson still was so popular throughout the world. So what does it mean to find something like this? It gives a new chapter in the story of Hans Christian Anderson because it shows us that he was in an early age very interested in writing such metaphorical stories. So it changes the opinion or the idea that Anderson just in the age of 30 began writing fairy tales. He was already as a child was making some experiments in writing fairy tales.

43:57The scholars are divided. Some recognize it as an Anderson fairytale and somebody don't. So the tallow candle is placed in the box it was found in. It's back at the National Archives in Copenhagen. Everything is fading away in history, but I think that fairytale in our life is when such discoveries are done, it wakes you up in some way and makes your life richer. Outburst a flame. Light burst out bright and clear all around, bathing the way forward with light for its surroundings. Its true friends, who were now able to seek truth in the glow of the candle. Aina Eskort, chairman of the Hans Christian Andersen Society in Odense, was talking to Surya Alango.

44:54Sporting history next, and there's long been a debate about whether there should be mixed sports, women and men competing together against each other. In the Latin X Games, they did just that. And in 2002, Fabiola da Silva, widely considered the greatest female rollerblader of all time, beat all but one of her male competitors to win silver. Guy Kielty explains. Oh my gosh, you know. For me, it was the same as winning first place. Because I knew how hard it was. And I was very happy to accomplish so many things and to be just as good as they are, you know. And I was very excited. In the 1990s, rollerblading or inline skating had separate competitions for men and women.

45:45That changed in 2000, though, when the two were combined into one mixed competition. Fabiola, like many of the other female competitors, wasn't happy. Not initially, anyway. I remember in the beginning I got upset. I was like, wow, that's crazy. They're not going to have the women's division anymore. And then the other hand, I was like, well, but if you love skating so much and if you're so good as you are, you're going to try to be top 10.

46:17As a young girl, Fabiola got into extreme sports early. I grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. And at first, I used to skateboarding a little bit. My mom used to go to Paraguay on the weekends because some parents here, they used to have to go to Paraguay to buy things to sell. And she brought me to me and my sister a skateboard. It was a pink skateboard. And then they used to have a skateboarding park by my house in Sao Paulo. So I brought my skateboard to that skate park. and then after a while, after like a few months, I saw some people roller skating. Fabiola wants to find out more. They used to rent a park at night and I was like, oh my gosh, I never saw, I never thought that roller skating could skate the ramps.

47:11So I was very fascinated by that and I went back home and I told my dad that I wanted a pair of roller skates, that I saw some people skating at the park, roller skating, and I wanted to try. but my family didn't have the money to buy like a really expensive skate so I had a really cheap skate, inline skate in the beginning. So what are inline skates, otherwise known as rollerblades anyway? It's kind of like ice skates with the frame and four wheels in line. At the skate park Fabiola crossed paths with someone who would change her life forever. I met a guy called Carlos, and Carlos was my teacher for all my skating tricks.

47:57And I was learning very fast how to do tricks, how to drop in, and then I never stopped. And then in 1995, our biggest skate park in Sao Paulo called Ruler Brothers, they invited the X Games champions to come to Brazil to do a demonstration. and I used to watch those guys on the VHS tapes. At that event, the US skaters spotted Fabiola's talent and approached her about flying to America to compete there. We didn't have cell phones or computers, nothing. I didn't speak English or anything. I gave him my address and six months later, I received a letter on the mail inviting me to compete on the X Games.

48:44Fabiola was just 16 years old when she was invited to the X Games and her family didn't have the money to get her there Fortunately, a local sponsor stepped in but despite being handed this amazing opportunity her mum didn't want her to go She always wanted me to finish school first because back in the day, you know, skateboarding wasn't seen as like a profession in sports Man, she didn't like it at first and then after a while she saw that I could be my profession and then she accepted and she was very happy about it. She was very proud, you know. As soon as she got to the X Games, Fabiola started winning, taking gold at the women's vert event for three years running.

49:27But what exactly is vert skating? OK, vert skating, for all you guys that don't know, is that big ramp in a U-shape and it's about four metres high and we all go on it and do a lot of tricks on it. The judges, they judge the tricks, not only the tricks, but how hard they are, it's counted, and how high you go and you execute the tricks and how you link the tricks. In 2000, the sport's governing body, concerned by a lack of competition due to Fabiola's dominance, scrapped the women's vert event and combined it with the men's competition. That decision would later become known as the Fabiola Rule, after she consistently finished in the top 10 for the next few years.

50:13They decided to launch women against guys for the vert competitions to see if they could motivate all the women to push themselves and to skate harder. But instead of motivate them, a lot of them, they completely stopped because they think girls are not capable to be as good as a guy. But in my mind, I took as a challenge. I was always skating with guys and training with guys. For me, it wasn't a problem. I just challenged myself and I told myself, wow, my goal is to be top 10 every final. So I start training and I start, you know, being top 10 every event. And then top eight, top seven, five, three, top two.

51:00And that's why they call the Fabiola rule, because there was no rules for me.

51:08Initially, plenty of commentators thought Fabiola and the other female competitors wouldn't stand a chance against the men. They kept saying like, oh, if you go to the Olympics, you can't do girls with guys. It's girls, girls, guys, guys. Of course, some people, they hate it because they don't want to lose for a girl. But to be honest, I didn't care. I did not care what all these other negative people were saying because I had no option. Fabiola competed against the men for the first time at the 2001 X trial in Grand Prairie, Texas. So how did she feel? Of course, I mean, I've been competing for so many years, you're always nervous.

51:51I'm always nervous. But for me, it was a challenge to see where could I get, how far could I go I just wanted to do my best and show not others but myself that I could do it you know that was possible Each of the mixed competitions from then on featured at least 20 athletes and at that first event Fabiola finished in 4th place In the years that followed she always held her own against the men securing her best ever finish in 2002 when she took silver at the Latinx Games in Rio de Janeiro Then, a couple of years later, she made history again by becoming the first woman to complete a double backflip in competition.

52:35When I landed, the double backflip was a big thing, because they never thought that women would do that. I didn't think I was going to do it. When I saw a guy performing that trick, I thought that was the craziest thing in the world. I was like, oh my gosh, you know, that's crazy. More than a decade after her retirement, Fabiola says today's female skaters often tell her how much she means to them. They're like, Fabiola, no other woman did what you did for sports. You're the pioneer that showed that women is capable to do anything they want. And I never skated to become the number one. I never skated to travel the world.

53:17Everything happened like really natural. I was born to be an athlete. And I'm very happy to achieve what I have with skating. And I was the pioneer of the sport.

53:34Fabiola da Silva is the most decorated female athlete in X Games history. She now runs a skating school with her sister in Brazil. She was speaking to Guy Kilty. Finally, a toy franchise, which, judging by the global sales, has brought joy to millions of children. In fact, hundreds of millions. and it was a burning childhood desire for a pony that first inspired its creation in the 1980s. Josephine McDermott has more. I'm Bonnie Sackerley. I am the creator of My Little Pony. I drew the very first one. Did you come up with the names of the first ones then as well? Yes, I did. I came up with the first six.

54:15You're not going to ask me what they are. I can't remember all of them, really. Cotton Candy. Yeah. I think that was the pink one. Any of the others for bonus? Minty Snuzzle was a gray pony. I believe it had pink hair. And I kind of like that one. But I don't think they did any gray ones after that. Minty was the green one. Yeah. The yellowish, orangish one. I don't remember. I think that was Butterscotch. and I think I had that one. Butterscotch, did you really? Yeah. Oh, good for you, good for you. Now we've met Bonnie and the first toys, let's hear how her little pony became my little pony and our little ponies and one of the most successful toy franchises ever.

55:11Her childhood in the late 1940s and early 50s was spent away from the United States as her father was in the military. As a child, I didn't care much for dolls, and I enjoyed my pets more than anything. My family moved around a lot, so my brother and I mostly played together. I guess I played with the normal things of that age. Who walks the stair without a care and shoots so high in the sky? Bounce up and down just like a clown, everyone knows it's slinky. My dream was to have a horse, not actually a pony. But when my father was stationed in Japan, because he was the veterinarian in charge of all the animals that were in quarantine, I had the ability to ride a Korean pack pony named Nicker.

56:05So I considered Nicker my little pony. knicker as in the sound, the sound, not the clothing. At university, she studied illustration and advertising design and ended up at the toy company Hasbro, a dream job for many. It was a lot of fun. Well, for one thing, you're working with a lot of people that are mostly your age and they're all artists and they're all funny and they have a great sense of humour and it really is a lot of fun. You know, there's pressure to come up with something great all the time. But, you know, rarely does anyone come up with a blockbuster toy. Bonnie, of course, would.

56:50But before that, she made her mark on another childhood favourite. I was at Hasbro for five years, and I redesigned Mr. Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head, take all the parts and put them together. I played with Mr. Potato Head as a child. Mr. Potato Head, where's your other ear? It's over here. With all these little plastic pieces and, you know, a kind of a potato shape that was hollow, why not put in a trap door in the back so that you can store all the pieces inside of it? I thought mothers of the world will appreciate that. Then one day a new idea came to her. You know, you think of the toys that you liked as a child.

57:37I was not a baby doll person. I think I was too early for Barbie. I wouldn't have enjoyed that anyway. I wasn't really into fashion. And I thought, well, surely I'm not the only girl who dreams of having a horse. so I thought well maybe I'll make a toy that is a horse a miniature horse that you can play with like a doll you can comb the hair the mane and the tail you can braid it and it's kind of soft and squishy like a doll would be and that was the inspiration for what became my little pony But it wasn't a straightforward trot to the toy shop, the research and development or R &D department blocking the way to every little girl's wish list.

58:27You sit and you sketch and you sketch after sketch. And I presented my idea of this soft little miniature horse, at least three years in a row. It was killed every time, especially by my boss. I would say, little girls love horses. And he would say, Bonnie, little girls aren't like you. They like to cook and clean and iron. Because in those days, those were big toys for little girls, like a little kitchenette set. That's all they had, really. They didn't have so many great toys for girls. But later on, a designer working for her boss told her he'd been tasked with drawing a toy horse and asked her to help.

59:13He said, Bonnie, our boss has this idea that I know is yours, but he wants me to draw it up. But I can't draw horses. So I said, OK, okay, fine, I'll draw this horse. And it was the same version of what I was doing in miniature, but he wanted it about two feet tall, made of hard plastic, with a winking eye and an ear that wiggled, and I don't know what all, but all these mechanisms that made no sense to me. And it was very hard plastic, and his idea was that little children would take it to bed with them. And I'm thinking, you're not going to take this chunk of plastic with you. You're going to get an ear in your cheek.

59:59It'll be horrible. My Pretty Pony went to market in 1981. They sold a few million of it. But my boss's boss's boss took it home to his wife. And she said, you know, this is fine. But it'd be so much better if it was small and soft and played with like a doll. which was exactly the way I had envisioned it. But the first smaller ponies, which would become My Little Pony, still wouldn't look like the ones that made it to the toy shops. They had the colouring of real-life horses. There was a Palomino, which was the original, a Dapple Cray, a Black One, which was my favourite, Pinto. Her friend, the marketing director of Girls Toys, came to her one day and suggested the pony should be less realistic in color?

1:00:51A brave woman. When she came in with that idea, I said, get out of my office. And she said, well, Bonnie, you know, little girls like pink and purple. I said, I don't care. Get out. And she said, now, why don't we test it? So, as it goes, of course, pink and purple won out. And the rest is history. My little pony, my little pony, what will today's adventure be? This is Cotton Candy, and she's got a pink body and kind of lavender eye with eyelashes top and bottom. She has the muzzle of a real pony, and she has white spots on her rear quarter. I think the appeal of horses to little girls is independence, really.

1:01:48Because you can ride off on your own, you can do your own thing, you know. You're not dependent on anyone else. Did you get to own a horse? Sadly, I never got my horse, but I have all these little ponies. I'm very proud of what I've done. Pony will live long after I do, and I'm okay with that.

1:02:14Bonnie Zacherle, who regularly appears at conventions for fans, was speaking to Josephine McDermott. My Little Pony has been revamped several times, and it's attracted new fans with a TV programme watched in 180 territories around the world. In 2014 alone, the brand made more than$1 billion in global retail sales. And that's where we need to gently trot off into the sunset, because that's it for this edition of the History Hour. We'll have more first-hand stories from the past for you next week, so do join us again then. For now, though, this is Max Pearson. From all of us here, thanks for listening.

1:02:48Goodbye. Sporting Witness takes you to the events that have shaped the sports world through the eyes of the people who were there. We weren't going to ask permission. We were just going to do it. It was such an amazing feeling. It was incredible. He started to write a story about how he came up with the idea for the red and yellow cars. I got to go. We cried a bit. We laughed a bit. It was wonderful. There's a magic during those moments that carries your soul. We were truly blessed to be a part of history. Sporting Witness. Subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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