William Dalrymple

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And me, William Drimple.

Now, these princesses grew up in the heart of the British Empire, which had destroyed their world and their family.

And in this, I'm going to hand the reins over to Anita, because this is really not just her story.

It's a story which she discovered, which she made famous.

A woman who had been totally forgotten by history was resurrected.

And you wrote a wonderful book about it, which I much loved and enjoyed and reviewed.

Which you opened and managed to drop the entire thing on your head, I remember.

Yes, it did.

When we were just little baby podlings.

So Sophia Dulip Singh was born 150 years ago, and she was a product of the great Sikh Empire, which was a considerable empire.

Not many people, I think, learned about this at school.

But the Sikhs at one point controlled not only the current Indian Punjab and its Pakistani equivalent over the border, but a huge chunk of Kashmir and Himalayas right up to the borders of China and the Wakhan Corridor.