SIMON NOTT: Be Like Thomas Roberts

W

ho? Well, more of that after the first bit. What is wrong with people? OK, a year of constraints then a start to 2021 which mirrors (and more) the worst of 2020, I get that. Honestly though, sometimes I’m gobsmacked by people. Yes, I’m revisiting that old social media treadmill again.

Blimey, this week, well it’s been something else. Do you think given the lockdown that people’s anger is being magnified beyond all reasonable proportion? I mean, OK you might not like the guy’s style but the ire that’s been exhibited towards my latest interviewee had to be seen to be believed. Can people really get that wound up about someone that hosts a podcast? Have things really got that bad? Imagine if something really awful befell those angry tweeters, how would they cope?

Which brings me on to Thomas Roberts. Who you cry? Well, they’ll be no chastising from me for not knowing him, he died in 1798 aged 85. No mean feat for a fellow back in those days. I found him mentioned in a facsimile of The Sporting Magazine dated October 1798 bought in error but something I found fascinating. No doubt Thomas would have wondered at the world we live in, as for the sight of people losing their minds in public over a man that hosts a podcast, well God only knows.

Thomas was posthumously given a column in this magazine for Sporting Gentleman, not just because he reached 85 but because he managed that despite being born a commoner. Oh, I should add, with no arms or legs below his elbows and knees. His only ‘hand’ described as, ‘A short bony substance like the joint of a thumb which had some motion and was of considerable use to him.’

Had he been alive today, Tom wouldn’t have been wasting his time having a moan up, none of it, back in the 1700s, despite his handicap, Tom was employed as a Gentleman’s Huntsman ‘riding with courage and dexterity’. And then became a farrier of considerable reputation. Add to that Tom was married three times and had two sons who when his time came, buried him in a decent manner.

What a man. Yes, life is frustrating now but let’s not dive into a mire of self-pity fuelled Internet bile.

Let’s be more like Tom.

Simon Nott

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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Simon Nott is author of: Skint Mob! Tales from the Betting Ring

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