The thing about history. . .

You learn something every day. The seed for the latest rumination started in fact some years back. I was involved with a local arts centre and at various times, had discussions with a West Indian contact at the Community Relations Council, who despaired at the way Black history was being taught, recorded and discussed, as well as the lack of information in local libraries. 

Multi-cultural British history started a long time ago.Some of which I learnt about at school, in my history classes from my charismatic teacher, Miss Overton. But there were many other elements that I didn't find out about until much later, including some very recent discoveries. One of which is that Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar had a foreign crew of 1400 from 25 nations, of which a third were black. How many years have I walked by and around Trafalgar Square and not noticed the black face on one of the plaques?

Mr Gove's attempts to remove Mary Seacole has stirred up a flood of criticism, but also useful website details and interesting re-postings. There's one on you tube called Nelson's Black Sailors. It's short but riveting stuff: 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWnrc5BGGf8www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWnrc5BGGf8. 

History came up for discussion at one of our Anglo/French groups yesterday, over lunch. Where does a country's history actually begin? There are so many different types of histories. Our multicultural history would start I suppose with the Angles. But conventionally apparently, recorded history starts in AD 43 with the Roman Invasion. What about the Domesday Book - our earliest public record, or the Magna Carta. Given that the M.C. set us on the track to constitutional law, perhaps that should be the point when British history as we know it, began. Back at school one of my A-levels was Social History and another Economic History. The list of histories is extensive.

Someone said yesterday that the majority of Americans feel they don't have a history.  Is this true? There a multiple histories in the States,  including that of rampant European colonialism. Maybe it's the time of the War of Independence where American History could be said to begin. We've an American couple who've joined the Anglo-French group recently. It would be interesting to hear what they think.