This obscure London memorial is filled with heart-wrenching tales of everyday heroism.
Tucked away in a small park in London is a wall of plaques dedicated to acts of everyday heroism.
In Postman's Park, nestled among Japanese musa basjoos and dove trees, is a gallery with many small tiles lining a 50-foot brick wall.
It's called the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, and the 54 plaques each commemorate the brave acts of men, women, and children who perished trying to save others' lives.
Victorian sculptor George Frederic Watts first proposed the idea for the memorial in a letter to The Times for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887.
"The character of a nation as a people of great deeds is one, it appears to me, that should never be lost sight of," Watts wrote in his letter.
George Frederic Watts. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
According to the Everyday Heroes of Postmans' Park, Watts combed through newspapers for decades searching for small stories about ordinary people who sacrificed their own lives to save others.
Plaques are displayed along a memorial wall in Postman's Park. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
Eventually, the wall came to life in 1900 in a stunning and emotional display of selfless acts.
A general view of Postman's Park. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
The memorial was designed to be as simple as possible so as not to detract from the great deeds recorded upon it.
The austere wooden gallery was designed by Sir Ernest George.
And some of the beautiful blue-and-white tile plaques were designed by famed tile designer William de Morgan.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
In his letter, Watts said he was partly inspired by the story of Alice Ayres, who saved three children's lives by pushing a feather bed out a second floor window of a home that was on fire and tossing the children to safety. Tragically, she fell during her escape and died at the hospital.
Ayres' story became the first plaque of the memorial.
Photo by Jez Nicholson/Flickr.
The ages of those memorialized range from 8 to 61 years old.
Henry Bristow, the youngest person on wall, died saving his sister’s life from a fire in 1890.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
And each story is astonishing.
Like Mary Rogers, a stewardess who gave up her life belt to save another person when her ship, the Stella, sank.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
In 1884, Samuel Rabbeth, a doctor, willingly risked his life to try and save a child from diphtheria. Ultimately, he succumbed to the disease along with the boy.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
In total, the wall commemorates 61 lives lost during the Victorian era.
They are a humbling reminder of the risks, perils, and dangers society faces everyday and the people who bravely step up to protect others.
We need these shining examples of selflessness, heroism, and self-sacrifice to remind us of the humanity in the world.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
Watts wrote in his 1887 letter that "the material prosperity of a nation is not an abiding possession; the deeds of its people are."
After Watts death in 1904, his wife Mary continued the project until 1929 when interest in the memorial subsided.
A new plaque was installed in 2009, though, to honor Leigh Pitt, a man who drowned in 2007 while saving 9-year-old Harley Bagnall-Taylor in Gallions Lake.
It was the first plaque to be added in over 80 years.
Though society, culture, and technology has changed significantly since Watts proposed the idea for this memorial 129 years ago, the need for shining examples of everyday heroism has not.
In recent years, there has been no shortage of heroic deeds performed by the average person across the globe. We are constantly reminded through the news, our Facebook feeds, and through Twitter that people are sacrificing their lives to help others.
But where is their memorial?
Who do you know who deserves to be memorialized in a public monument for the sacrifice to save innocent lives?






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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.