She is regarded as our greatest black Briton, a woman who did more to advance the cause of nursing - and race relations - than almost any other individual.

On the Crimea's bloody battlefields, she is said to have saved the lives of countless wounded soldiers and nursed them to health in a clinic paid for out of her own pocket.

Her name was Mary Seacole, and today she is almost as famous as that other nursing heroine, Florence Nightingale.

For decades after her death in 1881, Seacole's story was largely overlooked, but for the past 15 years her reputation and exploits have undergone a remarkable rehabilitation....