Life may unfold in dribs and drabs but put them together and pretty soon you have a narrative. And in much the same way, one can look at the stories of recent days about Mary Seacole, and discern a pattern. Time to knock the black icon off her perch, appears to be the philosophy, and it starts with Michael Gove – who else? He wants the nurse and her exploits expunged from the national curriculum because once she has gone, there will be more time for Churchill, and to learn the names of all of the kings and queens of England.

Time also perhaps for other desirable and modern essentials, such as fagging and Latin. But she's of historical importance, isn't she? No she isn't, say a motley assortment of historians, and guardians of the memory of Florence Nightingale. Into the fray rides the Daily Mail. "The black Florence Nightingale and the making of a PC myth," it says. "One historian explains how Mary Seacole's story never stood up." She wasn't really black, it says. She wasn't really a nurse. She was just a sort of cheery barmaid dispensing bonhomie and medicine. "She undoubtedly did at some point go on to a battlefield dispensing comforts such as wine and doing her best to deal with the odd injury." But, hey, she was no Florence Nightingale.

Spare a thought for Lord Soley, for as chair of the Mary Seacole memorial statue appeal, he has to deal as diplomatically as he can with those who would traduce her memory for their own purposes. On the day of publication, he patiently composed a letter to the Daily Mail challenging the premise of Seacole as a modern-day construct born of political correctness. His letter has yet to see the light of day. He has cross-party support and military encouragement, but with the ongoing resistance to the idea of a statue and now her dismissal from the curriculum, Soley is faced with a fight on two fronts. And there's no need for it, he tells me.

Was she important? Well, the military was quick to honour her. Does she threaten Nightingale? No. Nightingale developed modern nursing and training. Seacole reigned on the battlefield. It's not a competition. And, guess what, it is possible for a person of colour to gain prominence for reasons other than political correctness. Gove and co, take note.