"The past informs the present. Memory makes the map we carry, no matter how hard we try to erase it."
So said Cara Black, in 'Murder in the Bastille'.
And so the past is very relevant.
A pity that more people don't bother to look.
Whether the past and its memories are pleasant or not, our previous mistakes and successes give us experience to apply to the things that we do today.
In theory, there should be little that we should get wrong, when you think of how many generations have passed since the human race came into being.
Unfortunately, the younger generations of all time have often thought that they knew a better way and scorned the older wisdom.
In the end, they usually come back to it (hence why grow-your-own and retro clothing/decorating is now the fashion!), but in the meantime, yet more mistakes are made.
Like war.
You look at images of the Earth from space, a little blue and green marble, and wonder at the insanity of our species!
All fighting over one planet which orbits around one of about 400 billion stars in one galaxy, amongst billions of other galaxies in an infinite universe, which could possibly be only one of an infinite number of universes!
But to get back to human history...
It needs to be made more appealing to younger generations.
I have always had a fascination with all things historical, but there are moments when certain aspects of it come across as a bit dreary.
For instance, I am researching my own family history - a lot was passed down as oral history and some was found to be true, nearly true and sometimes distorted beyond recognition, but then, that's how fairytales are born! I never understand people who say they've researched their ancestry and read it out something like this:
"Mary Jane Whatshername, my great-great grandmother was born on the 10th June 1865, married Henry Bloggs on 15th May 1884, they had ten children, one of which was my great grandfather, Edward Bloggs. She died on the 12th November 1932 and is buried at Such-and-Such cemetery. Then of course, Edward Bloggs, born on...."
In other words, they quote you a long list of dates, names and relationships, but fail to put their ancestors lives' in context.
Which is so typical of how all things historical are described.
I have moved slowly through my family tree, trying to build a picture of what life was like for each of my ancestors individually, as far as is possible. It's hard to know exactly what they experienced, but creating hypothetical scenarios does help you to connect with history.
Which is where historians like Ruth, Peter and Alex come in. They may not get everything spot-on, but they help to bridge the gap between the past and the present, by saying "Well, it might have happened like this; on the other hand, it probably didn't", but in terms of Tudor life, for example, there's no-one to instruct them anyway, so if they didn't try they wouldn't know.
I became particularly interested in Roman history after reading The Roman Mysteries books by Caroline Lawrence. Yes, they are about four fictional children living fictional lives and solving fictional mysteries, but the setting is historically correct, as are the references to the food, the music, the celebrities of the day, like Pliny the Elder, and Roman life in general.
It inspired in me a love of ancient literature, Latin, Ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends and all things historical in general.
They may be children's books, but any adult even remotely interested in history ought to read them. They're fascinating.
It's just the same history as you might read out of a textbook, but it's presented in a more attractive way and the information is committed
(Oops, accidently posted that too soon - continued below!)
to memory without you even realising. Dates, names, the lot.
Then look at garden history.
Without history, we wouldn't have Versailles, Fontainebleau, Rousham, Hidcote and the rest...and historical garden design principles are still in use today.
On a parting note - at some point in time, each of us was the future and at another point in time, each of us will be history - and that's as good a reason as any to be relevant, if you ask me!
It would have been my late wife Joan's birthday yesterday, my Daughters and i went to put flowers on her plot in our Local Church St Mary's circa 1100 burial ground. Standing there Sandra suddenly said I wonder what Mum wanted when she was a school girl, she wanted to be a WREN I replied, "what I never knew that" Sandra said. Joan was two years older than me the war was still on when she was in High School and lots of girls were joining up, she passed all the exams and failed the medical on what was called a heart tick, it could all have been different. They knew my Parents were in there but I pointed out Uncles and Aunts they had never known and so a History lesson as we stood by the cars. I have written much of it up with stories and explanations I think it needs a chart with those stories appended to it and a time line.
Tetley, my mate went in the Navy when I joined the Army he would introduce me in places we met up as his Pal in the army who had spent more time at sea than he had. Went out to the Middle East on the Empress of Scotland with some of the first married families to go abroad. I had been a bad lad and was tried on board, the punishment standing guard on the women's quarters to keep the men out. No chance, the hard part was keeping the women out of the men's quarters. We Docked in Gibraltar Malta and Port Said, I saw women kissing their boat boys goodby and then their husbands hello?? As an 18 year old it made me wonder about the sanctity of marriage.
Muddle up, Done that, was with the BBC as a researcher into WW2 stories for seven years until they closed down. They came up from London with a film crew and we spent six hours on camera and talking which went on air for a week as a loop.The local "Remember when Paper" got hold of me to tell some of the stories in print and they were all published. Tees Radio wanted me to tell some experiences which went out every morning for a week then the local Library caught me and I have articles printed most weeks. It keeps the old brain working putting some of the stories right as when at a forum for people to come in and tell their stories a woman was talking about the Bombs on the Old Mill. Now I was out on the road when that lot came down running for the shelter, they landed around six hundred yards down Mill Lane where we lived and you never forget things like that. She remembered it well and was getting it all wrong until I asked how old she was. I knew the dates of the bombing and when she told me her age she would have been under one year old. We let her finish then scrubbed her story, did she wonder why it was never printed? I have lots of articles on the area and those times so they e-mail asking for verification although we do have a very good library assistants who will research things for you. Sitting here playing on my electronic marvels is my relaxation these days Muddle and there is always the piano behind me for when I get bored. Any one for "In the Mood" the grand children love it.
There have been a couple of questions lately on Rotation, my Father did that all his life, we had a large garden so he did it in five rotations, one lay fallow for a year resting. I does not matter if you have a small raised bed or large garden rotation helps to reduce reinfection of any disease and in some cases one crop will fertilise the next. I watched as Dad planted up talking about why he did certain things and I was good with questions probably why he would give me two pence for sweets and say go play. Plot one was always all kinds of beans peas and broad beans. Plot two would be all the onion family leeks and garlic, yes our house was no stranger to garlic Mother having been cook in a large house. Plot three all the roots including potato's. Plot four was always the brassicas and salad stuff. Plot five resting the free range hens ducks and geese would sun themselves on it at the same time adding fertiliser but taking care not too much as it can burn new plants. The usual rotation the following year would be to move plot one going to two, plot two going to the rested plot, after it had been dug in the Autumn and a good dollop of manure added for winter frosts to do their work. The brassicas would go to plot one after the Legumes and after being treated with lime, he would start all the plants off in pots rows of them then dig out a hole and plant up the Cabbages and other greens, we never got club root. My Uncle Arthur never planted the same crop in the same fields year after year he rotated on a large scale leaving a field as a meadow, the old ways worked and will today no matter what size plot you have.
Posts
Frank - memories of sheep "currants". . . . .
"The past informs the present. Memory makes the map we carry, no matter how hard we try to erase it."
So said Cara Black, in 'Murder in the Bastille'.
And so the past is very relevant.
A pity that more people don't bother to look.
Whether the past and its memories are pleasant or not, our previous mistakes and successes give us experience to apply to the things that we do today.
In theory, there should be little that we should get wrong, when you think of how many generations have passed since the human race came into being.
Unfortunately, the younger generations of all time have often thought that they knew a better way and scorned the older wisdom.
In the end, they usually come back to it (hence why grow-your-own and retro clothing/decorating is now the fashion!), but in the meantime, yet more mistakes are made.
Like war.
You look at images of the Earth from space, a little blue and green marble, and wonder at the insanity of our species!
All fighting over one planet which orbits around one of about 400 billion stars in one galaxy, amongst billions of other galaxies in an infinite universe, which could possibly be only one of an infinite number of universes!
But to get back to human history...
It needs to be made more appealing to younger generations.
I have always had a fascination with all things historical, but there are moments when certain aspects of it come across as a bit dreary.
For instance, I am researching my own family history - a lot was passed down as oral history and some was found to be true, nearly true and sometimes distorted beyond recognition, but then, that's how fairytales are born! I never understand people who say they've researched their ancestry and read it out something like this:
"Mary Jane Whatshername, my great-great grandmother was born on the 10th June 1865, married Henry Bloggs on 15th May 1884, they had ten children, one of which was my great grandfather, Edward Bloggs. She died on the 12th November 1932 and is buried at Such-and-Such cemetery. Then of course, Edward Bloggs, born on...."
In other words, they quote you a long list of dates, names and relationships, but fail to put their ancestors lives' in context.
Which is so typical of how all things historical are described.
I have moved slowly through my family tree, trying to build a picture of what life was like for each of my ancestors individually, as far as is possible. It's hard to know exactly what they experienced, but creating hypothetical scenarios does help you to connect with history.
Which is where historians like Ruth, Peter and Alex come in. They may not get everything spot-on, but they help to bridge the gap between the past and the present, by saying "Well, it might have happened like this; on the other hand, it probably didn't", but in terms of Tudor life, for example, there's no-one to instruct them anyway, so if they didn't try they wouldn't know.
I became particularly interested in Roman history after reading The Roman Mysteries books by Caroline Lawrence. Yes, they are about four fictional children living fictional lives and solving fictional mysteries, but the setting is historically correct, as are the references to the food, the music, the celebrities of the day, like Pliny the Elder, and Roman life in general.
It inspired in me a love of ancient literature, Latin, Ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends and all things historical in general.
They may be children's books, but any adult even remotely interested in history ought to read them. They're fascinating.
It's just the same history as you might read out of a textbook, but it's presented in a more attractive way and the information is committed
Last edited: 07 October 2016 09:36:03
(Oops, accidently posted that too soon - continued below!)
to memory without you even realising. Dates, names, the lot.
Then look at garden history.
Without history, we wouldn't have Versailles, Fontainebleau, Rousham, Hidcote and the rest...and historical garden design principles are still in use today.
On a parting note - at some point in time, each of us was the future and at another point in time, each of us will be history - and that's as good a reason as any to be relevant, if you ask me!
pbff
Tetley, would that be a signed copy.
It would have been my late wife Joan's birthday yesterday, my Daughters and i went to put flowers on her plot in our Local Church St Mary's circa 1100 burial ground. Standing there Sandra suddenly said I wonder what Mum wanted when she was a school girl, she wanted to be a WREN I replied, "what I never knew that" Sandra said. Joan was two years older than me the war was still on when she was in High School and lots of girls were joining up, she passed all the exams and failed the medical on what was called a heart tick, it could all have been different. They knew my Parents were in there but I pointed out Uncles and Aunts they had never known and so a History lesson as we stood by the cars. I have written much of it up with stories and explanations I think it needs a chart with those stories appended to it and a time line.
Frank.
Last edited: 07 October 2016 09:54:29
Tetley, my mate went in the Navy when I joined the Army he would introduce me in places we met up as his Pal in the army who had spent more time at sea than he had. Went out to the Middle East on the Empress of Scotland with some of the first married families to go abroad. I had been a bad lad and was tried on board, the punishment standing guard on the women's quarters to keep the men out. No chance, the hard part was keeping the women out of the men's quarters. We Docked in Gibraltar Malta and Port Said, I saw women kissing their boat boys goodby and then their husbands hello?? As an 18 year old it made me wonder about the sanctity of marriage.
Muddle up, Done that, was with the BBC as a researcher into WW2 stories for seven years until they closed down. They came up from London with a film crew and we spent six hours on camera and talking which went on air for a week as a loop.The local "Remember when Paper" got hold of me to tell some of the stories in print and they were all published. Tees Radio wanted me to tell some experiences which went out every morning for a week then the local Library caught me and I have articles printed most weeks. It keeps the old brain working putting some of the stories right as when at a forum for people to come in and tell their stories a woman was talking about the Bombs on the Old Mill. Now I was out on the road when that lot came down running for the shelter, they landed around six hundred yards down Mill Lane where we lived and you never forget things like that. She remembered it well and was getting it all wrong until I asked how old she was. I knew the dates of the bombing and when she told me her age she would have been under one year old. We let her finish then scrubbed her story, did she wonder why it was never printed? I have lots of articles on the area and those times so they e-mail asking for verification although we do have a very good library assistants who will research things for you. Sitting here playing on my electronic marvels is my relaxation these days Muddle and there is always the piano behind me for when I get bored. Any one for "In the Mood" the grand children love it.
Frank
my grandfather used to say
if you have one eye in the past and one in the future then you are blind in one eye.
if you have both eyes fixed on the future then you are blind in both eyes.
There have been a couple of questions lately on Rotation, my Father did that all his life, we had a large garden so he did it in five rotations, one lay fallow for a year resting. I does not matter if you have a small raised bed or large garden rotation helps to reduce reinfection of any disease and in some cases one crop will fertilise the next. I watched as Dad planted up talking about why he did certain things and I was good with questions probably why he would give me two pence for sweets and say go play. Plot one was always all kinds of beans peas and broad beans. Plot two would be all the onion family leeks and garlic, yes our house was no stranger to garlic Mother having been cook in a large house. Plot three all the roots including potato's. Plot four was always the brassicas and salad stuff. Plot five resting the free range hens ducks and geese would sun themselves on it at the same time adding fertiliser but taking care not too much as it can burn new plants. The usual rotation the following year would be to move plot one going to two, plot two going to the rested plot, after it had been dug in the Autumn and a good dollop of manure added for winter frosts to do their work. The brassicas would go to plot one after the Legumes and after being treated with lime, he would start all the plants off in pots rows of them then dig out a hole and plant up the Cabbages and other greens, we never got club root. My Uncle Arthur never planted the same crop in the same fields year after year he rotated on a large scale leaving a field as a meadow, the old ways worked and will today no matter what size plot you have.
Frank