The Value of History to Employers.

History is collective memory.
If an individual suffers memory loss for whatever reason, the effects can be devastating on their lives. They forget what they like and dislike, they forget what they value about their lives and they lose any sense of who they are. But an individual would have the opportunity to reconstruct their history by talking to the people who know them.
If an individual has lost all knowledge of their history it is tragic for them, the effects of Alzheimers or traumatic brain injury can reduce a person to what appears to be an empty shell.
But what if a nation loses its collective memory, because its history is no longer taught, is taught badly or with such prejudice to a certain perspective as to be worthless?
What will be the effect of the loss or deterioration in the quality of our collective memory?
What if our understanding of our history is lost?
What if we forget how we used to live, the mistakes and the injustices that used to be in place?
Will we return to repeating mistakes, will we reinstate prior injustices and return to prejudices that used to be prevalent in our society?
By understanding our history, we understand the direction in which we as a community, large or small, are going, we can see the changes that are happening to our society and we will have examples and precedents before us that can guide us and provide us with ways of coping with new situations as they arise. Without understanding our history everything is new, everything is a challenge, we have to learn everything afresh. By understanding the changes and events that have happened in our past, we are much more able to cope with new changes and new events that happen in our present, and much better equipped to appreciate how our world will change in the future.
A loss of collective memory would mean that we as a community lose our identity, we lose our shared values, and we forget all the progress that was achieved through the struggles of our ancestors. Without a shared sense of our own history we, as a community of people, would be an empty shell, a blank piece of paper, a cipher, powerless to define ourselves and reliant on others to do it for us.

Knowledge is power, and historical knowledge is the sharpest, most effective tool we have in understanding what is happening in the world now, and what will happen in the future. It must be retained, investigated, and passed on to those who don't yet know it, to give them the tools they will need to deal with the future. Any employer who does not understand the value of the skills of a historian or have a historical perspective, is one who, when faced with a crisis or a new situation, will find it difficult to cope, hard to understand and impossible to see a way beyond.

Plaza Bibarrambla, Granada

On our recent holiday in Nerja on the Andalusian coast we took a day trip to Granada. By far the most famous monument in the city is the Alhambra palace; it is a fabulous place, a little empty but occasionally breath-taking. Historically it is of great interest, but I believe that the most evocative place in the city, the one in which the history of Granada, indeed the history of Spain, can be followed most closely and more intimately is the Plaza Bibarrambla.

The Plaza Bibarrambla in Granada is a square in the centre of a vibrant and exciting Spanish city. It is oblong in shape surrounded by attractive 3 and 4 storey buildings, above which the truncated single tower of the cathedral of Granada can be seen. Flower stalls provide a colourful and fragrant buffer between the smart restaurants and tourist shops and the centre of the plaza in which a sweet fountain made up of large and small bowls topped by Neptune all held aloft by rather ugly giants sits within a low fence. The place is relatively peaceful and calm, cool and fairly sophisticated, in other words it is modern Spain.

Although Granada has an ancient history, Celtic, Roman, and Vizigothic, its establishment as a city of major importance began with the creation of Moorish Al-Andalus following the occupation of the Iberian peninsula by the Umayyads in 711. In the almost 800 years that Muslim caliphs, emirs and princes lived in and ruled over the city it developed a culture that was sophisticated , exploratory, welcoming to those from other cultural and religious traditions. Plaza Bibarrambla was an open space at the time of the Moors, it stood on a sandy bank of the now enclosed River Darro, hence the name which comes from Arabic and means ‘beach gate’, and it provided space for trading (the Arab bazarre or Alcaiceria is right next to the Plaza) as well as festivals and displays of all kinds, including jousting.

In 1492, despite having good relations with the Catholic Spanish kings and queens of Castille, despite becoming a tributary state of Christian Spain and providing a lucrative and mutually beneficial direct link to the Muslim world, the Emir of Granada was forced into signing a treaty in which he gave control of the city to the Catholic monarchs. The treaty stated clearly that Muslims and Jews would be able to continue in their faith unmolested and that their customs would not be interfered with. This was based on a long established tenet of the Catholic Church that an enforced conversion is invalid in the eyes of God. The Catholic Bishops tried to convert the Muslims by preaching and persuasion, but progress was slow and after only seven years the treaty was forgotten. The rights of Muslims to follow their faith were ignored and the autos de fé – or trials of faith – were held in the Bibarrambla.  

These trials would examine those who were Muslim or Jewish, usually intimidate them into conversion and provide a kind of quasi-legal framework by which their goods, businesses and property could be confiscated. As an off-shoot of the Inquisition it also examined those Christians who were accused of heresy. The trials were public affairs and followed a set ritual in which two processions would converge in the Bibarramblas: one bringing the accused from wherever they were being held prisoner, and the other bringing the judges (bishops, archbishops and abbots usually) from a nearby church. It was a long affair, going on from dawn to dusk, and stopping for lunch - a huge banquet for the judges - watched by those standing trial. Sentences would then announced in the afternoon, and those who refused to either abandon their faith and convert, or recant their ‘heretical’ views and rejoin the ‘true’ faith, would be taken away to be burnt or burnt in Bibarrambla itself, while those who converted or recanted would be pardoned. It is estimated that up to 70,000 Muslims were forced into conversion, with 3,000 being baptised on one day in 1499.

At the same time as the Catholic Church forced conversion on Muslims and Jews and burnt those who refused, they were burning something else as well. The sophisticated and well-educated culture of the Spanish Moors meant that Granada was an important centre of learning and book production. They now boast a fine University established in the Sixteenth Century, but they had many Muslim and Jewish centres of learning long before that. Indeed close to Plaza Bibarrambla the University’s Faculty of Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts are housed in what was the home of a Muslim madrasah or mosque school. One Muslim scholar who attended this school was the historian and poet Ibn-al-Khatib whose poems can be found decorating the walls of the Alhambra. In 1499 Cardinal Ximenes de Cisnero ordered searches of the homes of Jews and Muslims, as well as suspect Christians, declaring that all books in Arabic or Hebrew found should be brought from all parts of Granada to the Bibarrambla. There they were burnt. It is thought that around 1 million books were destroyed in this way in Granada.

Mosques were destroyed or converted into churches, the Jewish quarter was demolished and those who had not converted were forced out of the city, those Muslims who could afford to make the journey left for North Africa. Those who remained converted and became Moriscos Catholics of Moorish descent or Marranos Catholics of Jewish descent.  Spanish traditions and customs replaced the Muslim festivals and competitions in the Bibarrambla. It became the place in which bullfights were held. In August 1609, 20 bulls were killed, but not before they had killed 36 and injured around 60 people, nice one bulls. And today the river is enclosed, the Arab bazzare provides a great opportunity for tourists and it is a pleasant, peaceful square of restaurants and florists, popular with tourists and locals alike.

Instinctively I would prefer Moorish Spain over Catholic Spain any time, and will be writing a further blog on my trip to Cordoba making this preference even clearer very soon. But highlighting differences between different cultures and different times is something that historians do at their peril; it is for example something that Enlightenment historians did with a judgemental relish that still echoes today. By unleashing your own modern values to judge different cultures, you always end up supporting the premise that one is good and one is evil, one civilized and one barbarian, usually that yours is good and the other evil. But great care should be taken when making historical comparisons, even in what appears to be a clear cut case such as the comparison between Muslim and Catholic Spain. It is worth noting for example that in 1066 over 4,000 Jews were killed and their leader crucified by a Muslim mob in the city of Granada, so the enlightened and civilized Muslim Granada could also succumb to religious hatred and turn to violence as its expression.

The Enlightenment or ‘The Age of Reason’ began in the Seventeenth Century and has become a fine example of how history, economics, culture and political philosophy can be used to make unfair and judgemental statements about different cultures and different times. They argued that by applying reason and scientific analysis to all things, the world could be understood, knowledge could be advanced and the ills of society could be cured. Philosophers, mathematicians, economists and authors, such as Adam Smith, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Isaac Newton and Voltaire, believed they could explain things, that they could understand things, that they could predict things, that they could provide certainties based on truths derived from scientific analysis and the application of reason. They were deluded by the notion that facts exist, that science always leads to progress and that human behaviour and motivations can be understood through glib and superficial generalizations.

The Enlightenment looked back on the Middle Ages as a period of barbarism, religious superstition and division, disorganization and rule by military might. They looked beyond the middle ages to the ancient Roman and Greek worlds and perceived a ‘Golden Age’ of democracy, science and reason. This approach to history provides the origin of the gross generalization that is the phrase ‘the dark ages’ among many other historical mistakes. The Catholic conquest of Moorish Spain and the subsequent mistreatment of those who had lived, created and thrived in that region for many hundreds of years is one of those historical moments when it is very difficult not to be judgemental.  You just have to stand in the Plaza Bibarrambla, smell the flowers and hear the water flowing in the fountain and think; ‘Well all those people are dead now, all those things happened a long time ago and no-one here was responsible. My job as a historian is to make sure that we do not forget that they happened, my duty as an individual is to try and make sure they never happen again.’

WOMAD 2011 – Four of the Best, One of the Worst.

Bellowhead at Womad 2011 - Photo - Dr. Biddlecombe

Bellowhead – probably the best English folk band around. When you read the words ‘English Folk Band’ you do tend to think of chain-knit pullover wearing beardies who look like they should be presenting a Physics programme on the Open University, and sound exactly like Old Bert Hardy used to sound. This is a very unfair generalization and certainly untrue in this case, Bellowhead are sharp and funny, some might even say sexy, they are raucous and loud, and they rock out on the banjo.  

Musically they are very adventurous, and yet they sing sea shanties, Cumbrian folk songs from the nineteenth-century, not to mention songs that are intended to accompany Morris Dancing. They wear their Englishness on their sleeves, not in a nasty, idiotic nationalist way, but in a charming, enthusiastic and slightly odd way, tons of personality and wit, a hearty openness about their music that, despite its complexity and depth, makes it welcoming and warm. If anyone ever asked me to play them some quintessentially English music I would be happy to play them Bellowhead, not The Kinks, Blur or The Jam.

Afrocubism – A world music supergroup made up of Cuban and Malian superstars; Bassekou Kouyate and Toumani Diabate representing Mali and Elias Ochoa leading the Cuban contingent. Some musical collaborations are like PhD topics, occasionally interesting, usually very worthy, but very rarely exciting. Afrocubism is a collaboration between artists from two cultures that have blended different musical styles to create something wonderful. Mali and Cuba seem to share the same attitude to live music performance. In both cultures virtuosity is celebrated, the more skill the better, the more difficult the piece the greater the achievement in completing it. Both musical cultures require a solid and exciting rhythm section, that can provide the heart of the sound, but which can also break out into virtuosity on a par with that of the lead performers. Both cultures also rely on great melodies that flow, fly and dance into the ear, that lift the heart on high and send the mind on sweet winding pathways.

The musicians look very happy together, the songs they play owe much to both sides of the collaboration, and the sense of equal contribution and mutual respect results in a celebratory mood at the heart of the performance. This is how you do musical collaborations, with joy, celebration and bags of respect for each other.

Mahala Rai Banda – I have been looking forward to seeing this band live since getting their album ‘Ghetto blaster’ last year. I was expecting them to be on the main stage, headlining, but instead they are in the Arboretum on the BBC Radio 3 stage, and late too. Mind you the lights, the trees swaying, sipping cool cider all creates a bit of a magical space. And then on stage came this bunch of Romanian gypsies and an ex-Moldovan army oompah band. The combination of brass, violin, accordion, thumping rhythms and great singing add to the magical space to create one of the best sets of the weekend at Womad, and hardly anyone saw or heard it. The wonderfully rich sound of the brass and woodwind and the high melodic tunefulness of the violin, united with exuberant singing and a very joyful, dancing crowd lead me to believe that this is the best Gypsy Wedding/Birthday/Funeral Dance Band in the world.

Bomba Estereo – I tend to avoid the Big Red Tent at Womad, it tends to have stuff that is too clubby and too loud. They have DJ sets which usually result in lines of stoned thirty-year olds sat in deckchairs outside the tent nodding their heads like a row of dogs on the back shelf of a 1974 Austin Princess. I thought this was a music festival, not an excuse for some blokes to play some records. Anyway, rant over and bias against Big Red overcome we went to see Bomba Estereo, who are Colombian, they are clever, they mix up what they do brilliantly and they have a charismatic lead singer with s stunningly fast vocal style. Spanish is definitely a language that lends itself to rap and hip hop – witness Cuban band Orishas – and the mix of their native Cumbia – a fairly ancient folk music style – with electronic and psychedelic sounds is exciting and occasionally unique.            

One of the great things about Womad is hearing things you have never heard before. Sometimes those new things are obvious – the band Ayarkhaan are from the far end of Siberia, they use a variant of the Jews Harps and their own voices to present the sounds of their homeland. Sometimes it sound a little bit like Ross in Friends playing one of his ‘sound poems’ on the keyboard, but more often it is fascinating, eerie, and very original. Bomba Estereo are more subtly original the newness creeps up on you and you realize that this sound is distinctive and new.

Dub Colossus - one of those collaborations that feels really uncomfortable. Occasionally it is interesting, and clearly it is a good project, but it appears that the relationship between the white, European musicians led by Nick Page and the black, Ethiopian stars is somewhat dysfunctional. Sometimes the music works so well that you can ignore it, their version of Satta Massagana is great for example. But, when Teremage Woretaw, a traditional Ethiopian folk singer, an azmari, and exponent of the one-stringed messenqo violin comes out to sing a song that has been sung in Ethiopia for nearly two thousand years, it is announced in a desultory fashion with a seeming complaint about how long he takes to tune the violin. As he sings the song the other musicians stand around at the back having a laugh, sharing a joke, swigging a beer and generally ignoring what is going on. When it is finished the singer walks off with not a word said by the band. I was pretty disgusted by that, it felt disrespectful, exploitative and wrong. I took against Dub Colossus and all they stand for, maybe it was just me and i had taken one too many ciders by that time of night but they are not for me, twits.

Feel bad i have not reviewed Asa who was very entertaining, Hassan Errajin and his Morroccan Rollers who was lovely and created a gentle melodic sound, or the Eurocool dudes known as Nidi D'Arac who were aces.  Maybe next time.

Police and Thieves on the Street.

 

The riots across London and other parts of England came as a real shock to many. Places like Ealing, Enfield, Clapham and Croydon don’t do riots, and so to see them burning, shops being ransacked and violent gangs running unopposed through terrified communities was a shock to the system.

In 1976 the Jamaican singer Junior Murvin wrote ‘Police and Thieves’ about how armed and violent gangs were terrorizing his neighbourhood and his country and how the police, despite their own use of guns and brutality, could do little to stop them. Thirty-five years later we still see ‘The crowds coming in day by day, with no-one to stop them in any way. All the peacemakers turned to war-officers.’ It seems the last three days we have had crowds coming into London communities, and no-one being able to stop them doing whatever they want. We now have calls for the army to be deployed on the streets, for the police to be allowed to use rubber bullets and water cannon and for the rule of law regarding arrests to be suspended in order to allow for a faster arrest process. Hopefully the peacemakers will not be turned into war officers.

Some people have tried to argue that the ‘riots’ are a reaction to social and political issues, to the failure of the police to ‘respect’ young people. But we did not see political protest on the streets of London, we did not see disaffected youth finding their voice and standing up for themselves, we did not even see ‘riots’ in which the authorities in the form of the police are being attacked. What we saw were thieves, arsonists and vandals, people who revel in destruction and others who enjoy watching and running alongside mayhem being given the opportunity to do exactly what they wanted. They drew in other, mostly young, people from their communities, who would normally be law-abiding. These innocents became accomplices to the actions of a very small criminal minority, providing a mob that would give a degree of anonymity to those wishing to steal and destroy. We can only hope that the guilt they feel the morning after is something that will make them stronger and more determined to be a force for good and for construction and cooperation, rather than for evil and destruction and selfishness. The rioters copied what had happened in Tottenham over the weekend, taking part in looting, vandalism and rioting for their own profit and pleasure, believing that 'if they can get away with it in Tottenham, then we can get away with it here'. The disregard they showed for the safety of others, their homes and livelihoods, their local neighbourhoods and communities was heartless and cold.

            Unsurprisingly many people are very, very angry with the rioters, in part because we know that the criminals have got away with it, they have had their fun, they have stolen what they wanted and their will be no justice for the innocent people who have lost the homes they live in and the cars they rely on; for businesses that provided jobs, and services, paid tax and business rates and those who have been terrorized by the wanton destruction of their communities. Others are also angry with the police who appeared to leave the hearts of their communities unprotected, giving the mob a free hand to steal, destroy and terrify. Tonight (Tuesday) there will apparently be 16,000 police officers on the streets of London, ready to respond to rioting. I doubt very much whether there will be any rioting tonight, they have had their fun, got a new pair of trainers, settled some old scores with people they don’t like, and made the police look ham-fisted.

Anyone out on the street tonight intending to try and do the same thing would have to be seriously stupid, risking the no doubt very strong response of the police. But then again these people smashed up the shops, and burned down the businesses that provide services, jobs and much of the prosperity in their community and they presented a face of their community to the world that may now look elsewhere for a place to site their factory or open their business. The talent, verve and style that made these places great to live in, may in fact desert them and they will be left to live in dull, lifeless and drab communities with nothing going for them. They were too stupid to realise the consequences of their actions, maybe they will be too stupid to realise that the police will be ready for them this afternoon. The response to a personal attack usually is a desire for vengeance against the perpetrator, a desire to punish the person who inflicted the attack; tonight many millions of people in Britain will be watching their televisions hoping to see retribution being meted out by the police in London.

                It is not a very uplifting thought but the sight of rubber bullets and truncheons being used on men in hoods would be very gratifying at this time. But will truncheon blows lead to more rioters on the streets,  will the use of rubber bullets by the police lead to the use of lead bullets by armed gangs? Will the death of a rioter lead to the death of a policeman? The desire for revenge and gratifying punishment must always be balanced against the impact and the outcome of those actions. The police in London and other parts of the country clearly have some very difficult decisions to make, and sometimes very little time to weigh up the effect and the consequences of those decisions. I hope they make the right decisions most of the time and I trust they make those decisions for the right reasons all the time; in the service and for the protection of the communities in which they work.

In the Mosh Pit with Gogol Bordello

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello - Photo by Ella Biddlecombe

On Sunday night at Womad with baited breath we, my twelve-year old daughter, my wife and myself, awaited the arrival of Gogol Bordello on stage. Arriving a good hour before they were due on, we had thereby secured a spot right at the very front, in the middle. All seemed well, until a thirtyish looking man with dreadlocks came over and started talking about how rough it can get at a Gogol Bordello gig and how a mosh pit develops and how he didn’t want any Daily Telegraph readers to get hurt. Although unnerved by his talk of gigs in Brighton that just went completely mad, we felt happy to stay where we were. Anyway, why should anyone listen to a middle-class white boy with dreadlocks who has just insulted everyone around him by referring to them as ‘Daily Telegraph readers’, twit.

It is getting closer to the start of the set, and the area around us is filling up; dreadlock boy has abandoned his efforts to scare people into giving up their place at the front, and the tension is starting to increase as the press photographers are allowed into the small gap between stage and audience. They come out with most of them wearing false moustaches in honour of Eugene Hutz, leader of the Gogol Bordello madness.

The band hit the stage, Eugene is wearing a T-shirt that says ‘No Human is “Illegal”’ and tartan trousers rolled up to his knees, and they launch into a set of great dynamic tunes, ranging from the sweetest melodies played on violin and accordion that could gently rock you to sleep, to heart-thumping, full-speed-ahead punk rock tunes that engage your whole being in motion. It is rough, with lots of pushing and shoving, and I am thankful for the moments of peace and relative tranquillity, like the beginning of ‘Start Wearing Purple’, it allowed some breathing space before the madness begins again.

All is going fairly well until Eugene decides to bring himself, his bottle of red wine and his microphone into the audience, right in front of us. This is an interesting development as suddenly all the people who were previously happy to dance and sing along, now want to reach out and touch Eugene, perhaps share some of his wine, but generally be a lot nearer to him. The crush that develops means that I am forced away from the barrier and back a couple of places into the crowd. This means I no longer have a secure barrier to hang onto and as the waves of people are carried back and forth, so, to some extent, am I. Eugene goes back up on stage and the pushing and shoving subsides. But then they play ‘Immigraniada’ and the pit reaches a crescendo of craziness. Some guy wants out, and instead of trying to push his way through the crowd asks to be lifted up so he can crowd surf to the front, only a few feet away, and be taken away from the action by security, lazy sod.

At Womad they run a very tight ship, each stage has a clock visible to the performers, and everyone has to start on time, because they will be finishing on time. This means that I can see the minutes ticking away, and although I was having an absolutely fantastic time there came a point when I just wanted the physicality, the struggle to stay on your feet, and the effort required not losing your shoes, to end. After one encore it did.

It felt like I had survived a battle, and shared a happiness and exhilaration with all the other survivors around me. We were amazed at the energy and wonder that had been created on stage and in the audience. The singing, the head-banging, the pushing back and forth, the elbows, the straining forward to get nearer to the star, the getting splattered with red wine and the tension and danger all combined to make it a really intense and exciting experience.

But please don’t ask me to do it again, I will be fifty years old in three weeks time and I think dying trampled underfoot in a mosh pit might not be the best way to go. Although of course it depends whose playing, if it’s Gogol Bordello then perhaps it might be a fitting end for an old punk.

Norwegian Murderer

Where do you start with such a horrible weekend? Seventy-six people murdered in Norway by a man who, it seems, had rationalized what he was going to do over a number of years, and planned his actions in detail to be as devastating as possible.

It is very difficult to understand how someone could do what he did. It goes so far against human nature to deliberately kill another person that we cannot comprehend how a murderer  can detach themselves to such an extent, become so alienated, that they can look a person in the eyes and then shoot them. Most murders are crimes of passion, they are committed in anger and rage, when a person has lost control. We can almost understand that a person can react violently and cause death and injury that they did not with malice aforethought intend. But this man gathered children around him - they were drawn by the fact that, dressed as a policeman - he behaved as though he had their welfare at heart and wanted to help, but in fact he simply wanted to kill the largest number of them as he could.

Is this the equivalent of a suicide bomber  who finds the most crowded part of the market in in which to blow himself up?

Or is it more like the killers in Mumbai, India who methodically searched two hotels floor by floor looking for people to kill? They eventually killed 166 and injured more than 300.

The shared patriotic, religious and anti-government sentiments expressed by Breivik suggest a similarity with Timothy McVeigh, who, in bombing a US Government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killed 168 and injured nearly 700.

We think we understand those attacks, we can grasp at a notion thay they were motivated by religious and political extremism mixed with ignorance, cowardliness and desperation. This may be because in cultural, geographic and historical terms, we have sufficient distance between us and them, between here and there and between then and now to allow a degree of supposed understanding derived from rational thought.  

But in Western Europe we are faced with the horror of an educated, seemingly intelligent man living in a mature democracy who can rationalise the mass murder of children in order to further his racist and nationalist aims. We have no distance in time, space or culture in which to process our feelings about what has happened, we are suffering a collective shock.

All we can do today is to feel the sadness and despair of survivors, express the sympathy and support we want to send to those who have lost loved ones and hope that at some point in the future we can learn something good from such a horrible episode.

Rational thought is of little use on days like these.

What is History?

History is the set of stories we tell about ourselves. The stories can be vast; from the dawn of creation to the last second of time; they can spread across continents even planets or be played out in a tiny attic room; they can survey the lives of millions over thousands of years or focus on 30 seconds in one life. They can be told by the most distinguished, ancient professor writing in a plush study surrounded by the finest set of history books ever collected in one place or they can be told by a ragged old drunk sat on a step shouting them out to no-one in particular.
History is not the record of what actually happened, 'facts' do not exist, and the 'truth' is constructed by the teller of the story.
We can be sure that something has probably happened, we can be fairly certain of when it happened, but as to how it really played out and why those events actually happened - that we cannot possibly know. All we can know, indeed all that we have to go on, is how that event is remembered. In the case of Medieval History we have chronicles, charters, and whole books that claim to be the true history of events, these are called 'primary sources' and they come to us in manuscripts, slips of parchment and rolled up records. They are written in the language of the time and place, in Western Europe, for example, they are usually in Latin, although large numbers of vernacular records also exist.
They form the best record we have of events, in part because they are closest in time and place to those events, but mostly because they are all we have. This means that nothing is certain, we have a primary source written down by someone who remembers those events in a particular way, who has contructed 'the truth' from what he or she remembers - or chooses to remember. But is that not the case in all things?
Reality is constructed by the individual as a way of making sense of the world, as a means of surviving its horrifying, stupid, beautiful and inspiring wonder. Once you embrace the fact that you create the reality of the world every day in your own head then you can start to shape the parts you have some control over to make it the way you want it to be.
The purpose of history is to provide you with the building blocks that enable you to construct that reality. The things you as an individual remember, the things we as a community of individuals remember, enable us to construct the house, the street, the town, the country, the continent and the world we live in every day when we wake up.
Without history we are without collective memory, without collective memory we cannot attempt to understand the world we live in, without trying to understanding the world we live in we are no better than a rock rolling through empty space.
Long Live History!!

Welcome to this Blog

Who knows how long this blog will last? Who knows how famous it will become? Will these be the first words in a long stream of well-informed, interesting and entertaining communications? Or will it be a brief and incoherent spluttering, rarely updated and potentially sleep-inducing? All i can say is that i will try.
But what will i try to do?
The title of the blog 'historymusicpolitics' embraces my three main interests. I am a historian, the 'Dr.' comes from a PhD in Medieval History from the University of Bristol. I have always loved music, one of my earliest memories as a child was seeing 'A Hard Days Night' in the Classic Cinema in Birkenhead on Merseyside. The moment when the four boys decide to escape the stifling confines of the theatre they are going to perform in and somehow find themselves at the top of a fire escape, free, young, energetic, happy and fun-loving they run out into a field to 'Can't Buy Me Love' - hooked on music from the age of 5. I am interested in politics and participate by supporting my local Labour Party - handing out leaflets, canvassing, writing letters and generally arguing the case for breaking down national barriers between people, encouraging a society in which hard working and talented people, from what ever background, are given all the help they need to succeed, and where the vulnerable and helpless are protected and supported.
I will be writing blogs drawing on these three themes - hoping they will be interesting, trying to make them so and awaiting responses from readers.