{"id":11736,"date":"2022-03-29T11:35:02","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T09:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com\/?p=1332"},"modified":"2022-03-29T19:14:12","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T17:14:12","slug":"boris-johnson","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/rss_feed\/boris-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rssexcerpt\"><\/p><p class=\"rssauthor\">By Rich Marshall\n                \t\t<\/p><p class=\"rssbyline\">Published: Tuesday, 29 March 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p><hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/><?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><div>In his episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, the UK\u2019s Prime Minister Boris Johnson explored his heritage. His episode aired in 2008 when he was Mayor of London.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Boris Johnson\u2019s heritage is almost as diverse as that of the capital itself. \u201cLike honey\u2026or indeed British sherry,\u201d says Boris, \u201cI am the produce of more than one country.\u201d<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Growing up, Boris was aware of his paternal grandparents\u2019 intriguing ancestry. His half-French grandmother \u2018Granny Butter\u2019 was happy to regale him with stories of her aristocratic antecedents, the de Pfeffels. His grandfather, \u2018Johnny\u2019, however, remained tight-lipped about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of his father, a Turkish journalist and politician named Ali Kemal.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Determined to find out more, Boris travels to Istanbul in Turkey, where Ali Kemal was born and received his education at a traditional Muslim school. Boris is unnerved by the parallels he finds between his ancestor\u2019s career and his own \u2013 Ali worked as political columnist for a newspaper, writing with a frankness that often landed him in hot water. \u201cThe imperative to be read, to be punchy and provocative, can conflict with your political cause,\u201d Boris reflects.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Ali Kemal also made the move from print to politics, becoming Turkey\u2019s Minister for the Interior. But his strong views lead to a disastrous clash with Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk, the founder of modern Turkey, and left him a marked man. In 1922 Ali was lynched and murdered by Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s aggressive supporters.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Though saddened by the circumstances of his death, Boris is clearly proud of his ancestor\u2019s unyielding sense of principle, the way he \u201cstuck to his guns.\u201d Ali\u2019s brutal end also goes some way to explain Johnny\u2019s reticence on the subject. \u201cIt must have been very, very tough for my grandfather\u2026Maybe it was just too ghastly for him.\u201d<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Boris\u2019s grandmother Ir\u00e8ne Williams, on the other hand, was vocal about her heritage. But was \u2018Granny Butter\u2019 quite as posh as she thought she was? A sceptical Boris returns West to find out.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div><strong>Royal connections<\/strong><\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Although one tantalising clue from his childhood \u2013 a chest thought to contain the de Pfeffel family silver \u2013 has long since been sold, Boris uncovers an heirloom in many ways more precious. This handwritten document takes him back a further three generations, to Baron Charles de Pfeffel and his wife Caroline von Rothenburg \u2013 German nobility.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Boris heads to Munich to dig deeper and finds himself on the cusp of an even more exciting discovery: the paternity of Charles\u2019 wife Caroline. \u201cAre we about to find a dark secret \u2026something deeply\u00a0embarrassing? My ancestors have\u00a0<em>carte blanche<\/em>\u00a0to commit whatever acts of fornication they want, as far as I\u2019m concerned,\u201d says Boris, his interest piqued.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>The paper trail takes him to the archives of Augsburg then Stuttgart, where he finds his answer.\u00a0Caroline was the illegitimate daughter of Prince Paul of W\u00fcrttemberg \u2013 German royalty, and the original owners of the \u2018de Pfeffel\u2019 family silver.<\/div>\n<div\/>\n<div>Next Boris visits the family seat, the grand Baroque palace of Ludwigsburg. At its heart is a portrait collection, the Gallery of Ancestors, where he discovers a few more of his own, including none other than Britain\u2019s King George II. \u201cI\u2019m more than surprised, I\u2019m stupified,\u201d says Boris. \u201cI\u2019ve always felt like the product of newcomers to Britain, so it\u2019s totally bizarre and surreal to be told that, in fact, my eight times great grandfather was George II. Not even Granny Butter in her wildest dreams could have come up with that one.\u201d<\/div><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rich Marshall Published: Tuesday, 29 March 2022 at 12:00 am In his episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, the UK\u2019s Prime Minister Boris Johnson explored his heritage. His episode aired in 2008 when he was Mayor of London. Boris Johnson\u2019s heritage is almost as diverse as that of the capital itself. \u201cLike [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":11737,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2022\/03\/boris-johnson.jpg",1680,1664,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2022\/03\/boris-johnson-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2022\/03\/boris-johnson-300x297.jpg",300,297,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2022\/03\/boris-johnson-768x761.jpg",768,761,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2022\/03\/boris-johnson-1024x1014.jpg",800,792,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2022\/03\/boris-johnson-1536x1521.jpg",1536,1521,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2022\/03\/boris-johnson.jpg",1680,1664,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Rich Marshall Published: Tuesday, 29 March 2022 at 12:00 am In his episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, the UK\u2019s Prime Minister Boris Johnson explored his heritage. His episode aired in 2008 when he was Mayor of London. Boris Johnson\u2019s heritage is almost as diverse as that of the capital itself. \u201cLike&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/11736"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}