The Short Version
I trained as a photographer at the RAF School of Photography Wellesbourne Mountford and served in photographic sections in theUK Germany UK London North Pembrokeshire in 1987. In 2006, and in parallel with BFA, the History Unlimited web site was launched by a new partnership, Hill House Publications. At the core of the site is the History Unlimited Bookshop, a selection of titles based on more than fifty years of reading.
A Fascination with History
As far back as I can remember history has had an absorbing fascination, not as an academic discipline, rather because of the simple enjoyment that good books bring. Perhaps my childhood had something to do with this – I lived within a couple of miles ofNottingham Castle
Every child knows something of Robin Hood, but proximity and local pride added savour and stimulated curiosity: a little light reading unveiled themes that were richer and darker than the popular legend. For centuries the medieval stronghold had been witness to great events. It was here that the future King John established his seat of power when his brother Richard Coeur-de-Lion was absent on crusade; and it was here that Richard captured John on his return - a tenuous point of contact with the mythic storyline. It was here that Edward III seized Roger Mortimer, who, with Edward’s mother Isabella, had deposed and murdered his father. It was here that Edward IV was proclaimed king during the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses. It was here, at his ‘castle of care’, that Richard III awaited the news of Henry Tudor that led toBosworth Field and the final downfall of the House of York. And it was here, a century and a half later, that Charles I raised his standard in defiance of Parliament.
For the casual reader a single point of interest – in space or time - can begin a paper chase through ever-widening circles. A title selected at whim will take the reader into new territory. Gradually the circles overlap and pictures of the past emerge, to be refined as new authors and new perspectives are discovered. The eclecticism that is born of chance and coincidence can reveal associations that escape a less random focus.
The Spirit of Place
Small intrusions of the past into the present bring history to life: at the end of 'The Desert Fox' [Henry Hathaway, 1951] there is a still moment when the camera holds on the grave of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. For me the headstone has always brought a shiver of electricity – Rommel died on the day that I was born! But perhaps it is the spirit of place that can evoke the past most potently. I first travelled throughGreece Marathon ’ emerged. And again, wandering along an island track with distant views of the Aegean , my eye was drawn to a flash of white marble. The unlikely setting for the small plaque was a stone wall in a nondescript field. An inscription read: “This is the place where the Venus of Milos was found.” These accidental moments were, for me, more redolent than the obligatory visit to the Parthenon, sweating under its cloud of petrol fumes and the hordes of guidebook-ticking tourists.
If a unique setting can produce an emotional response to a solitary event, there are places where the past is a tangible palimpsest. A brief stopover inAthens Crete . Papandreou’s connections with Crete and its republican traditions brought the island under special scrutiny. Prominent citizens were deprived of their passports, the music of Cretan composer Mikis Theodorakis was banned and the local police carried out their duties under the supervision of the military.
Around the headland to the west half of the US Sixth Fleet lay at anchor. American support of the new government was well known and it was a matter of local certainty that the coup had been engineered by the CIA (something that was hinted at by US Navy officers who visited the village). The American presence reflected otherUS Greece Turkey Cyprus Israel
But there were deeper strata that could be mined by a simple change of focus. Around the eastern headland lay the Fair Havens whereSt Paul Rome palace of Phaistos Palace of Knossos Knossos Cairo
In the 1960s the German occupation was already entering the realm of myth, merging perhaps with folk memories of the Cretan struggle for independence from the Ottomans. Villagers told tales of the resistance and the shepherds who brought their flocks down from the mountains to over-winter on the coast had, by their own embroidered accounts, played cat-and-mouse with the occupying forces among the high peaks. (The last two communist partisans, reduced to years of sheep-stealing, did not finally emerge from theWhite Mountains until 1974.) Add to all of this Myceneans, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Arabs and Turks: the confluence of centuries upon a single place.
History as Process
If the layers of the past can merge to give ambience to place, there are places where the present overpowers the past with forebodings of the future. FromCrete I moved on, to a kibbutz in the Northern Negev where a generation wore the tattoos of Holocaust survivors. It was less than a year after the Six Day War. We were a dozen miles from the Gaza Strip Suez Jerusalem West Bank were overwhelmed by the consciousness of ever-present armed escorts. A trip to Eilath on the Gulf of Akkaba Dead Sea , evoked nothing of Biblical narrative. More suggestive was the bullet-scarred frontier post that had marked the border with Egyptian Sinai; and it seemed more relevant that the journey had somewhere crossed the route taken by TE Lawrence to report the taking of Akkaba. Here was a genesis, the consequences of which still seem insoluble a century later.
On the shore of theLake of Galilee Capernaum Golan Heights . In Acre , last redoubt of the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar, no sense of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem remained. Jerusalem Temple Israel
We are the product of history and we live through historical events. History is the background music to the human condition, supplying the major and minor themes and, all too often, the discords that reverberate from generation to generation and escalate into the myths that pollute the modern intercourse of communities and nations. George Santayana famously said that “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it”. But this requires qualification: remembrance must be more than a simple accumulation of prejudices or outworn claims and counter-claims. So that if I am asked, as I sometimes am, what relevance the reading of history has to the 21st Century I will cite Santayana. But I will add that a sense of history and context is the antidote to the nationalist, racial or religious biases that perpetuate old conflicts.
History as Discussion
For the general reader historiography is perhaps best seen as a debate between alternative and sometimes opposing viewpoints. As example, 1955 saw the publication of two works that were seminal in their own way. The first, ‘England Under the Tudors’ by GR Elton, was sufficiently controversial to set the agenda for his successors, who questioned his pronouncements on the power cliques that influenced Tudor policy. The second, ‘Richard the Third’ by Paul Murray Kendall, challenged the orthodoxy of early Tudor history and set in train a revisionist trend that continues to the present day. These authors have strongly partisan views on the significance of the first Tudor, Henry VII. Elton presentsBosworth Field as the event that ended the chaos of the Wars of the Roses and set the nation on the road to stability. For Kendall this stability had in great part been achieved in the short reign of the last Plantagenet. Kendall saw Henry Tudor as a parsimonious paranoid whose usurpation of the throne refreshed old factionalisms and whose reputation rests mainly on ‘the foresight he displayed in being the progenitor of the great Gloriana’. If the contrasting views of reputable historians lead us to no absolute conclusions we can at least eavesdrop on the conversations and controversies. And with a little reflection we might learn to question everything and trust no-one. Because there are always new questions to be asked of conflicting versions of the past, whether prompted by world events or by the local and particular.
My home of the last twenty-five years is as steeped in history as the Nottingham of my boyhood and there are coincidental points of contact in time. I am writing close to Henry Tudor's route to Bosworth and his birthplace, Pembroke Castle, is within easy reach. We are ringed with place names that originated with the Norman-Welsh aristocracy that struck across the sea toIreland Brittany
I trained as a photographer at the RAF School of Photography Wellesbourne Mountford and served in photographic sections in the
A Fascination with History
As far back as I can remember history has had an absorbing fascination, not as an academic discipline, rather because of the simple enjoyment that good books bring. Perhaps my childhood had something to do with this – I lived within a couple of miles of
Every child knows something of Robin Hood, but proximity and local pride added savour and stimulated curiosity: a little light reading unveiled themes that were richer and darker than the popular legend. For centuries the medieval stronghold had been witness to great events. It was here that the future King John established his seat of power when his brother Richard Coeur-de-Lion was absent on crusade; and it was here that Richard captured John on his return - a tenuous point of contact with the mythic storyline. It was here that Edward III seized Roger Mortimer, who, with Edward’s mother Isabella, had deposed and murdered his father. It was here that Edward IV was proclaimed king during the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses. It was here, at his ‘castle of care’, that Richard III awaited the news of Henry Tudor that led to
For the casual reader a single point of interest – in space or time - can begin a paper chase through ever-widening circles. A title selected at whim will take the reader into new territory. Gradually the circles overlap and pictures of the past emerge, to be refined as new authors and new perspectives are discovered. The eclecticism that is born of chance and coincidence can reveal associations that escape a less random focus.
The Spirit of Place
Small intrusions of the past into the present bring history to life: at the end of 'The Desert Fox' [Henry Hathaway, 1951] there is a still moment when the camera holds on the grave of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. For me the headstone has always brought a shiver of electricity – Rommel died on the day that I was born! But perhaps it is the spirit of place that can evoke the past most potently. I first travelled through
If a unique setting can produce an emotional response to a solitary event, there are places where the past is a tangible palimpsest. A brief stopover in
Around the headland to the west half of the US Sixth Fleet lay at anchor. American support of the new government was well known and it was a matter of local certainty that the coup had been engineered by the CIA (something that was hinted at by US Navy officers who visited the village). The American presence reflected other
But there were deeper strata that could be mined by a simple change of focus. Around the eastern headland lay the Fair Havens where
In the 1960s the German occupation was already entering the realm of myth, merging perhaps with folk memories of the Cretan struggle for independence from the Ottomans. Villagers told tales of the resistance and the shepherds who brought their flocks down from the mountains to over-winter on the coast had, by their own embroidered accounts, played cat-and-mouse with the occupying forces among the high peaks. (The last two communist partisans, reduced to years of sheep-stealing, did not finally emerge from the
History as Process
If the layers of the past can merge to give ambience to place, there are places where the present overpowers the past with forebodings of the future. From
On the shore of the
We are the product of history and we live through historical events. History is the background music to the human condition, supplying the major and minor themes and, all too often, the discords that reverberate from generation to generation and escalate into the myths that pollute the modern intercourse of communities and nations. George Santayana famously said that “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it”. But this requires qualification: remembrance must be more than a simple accumulation of prejudices or outworn claims and counter-claims. So that if I am asked, as I sometimes am, what relevance the reading of history has to the 21st Century I will cite Santayana. But I will add that a sense of history and context is the antidote to the nationalist, racial or religious biases that perpetuate old conflicts.
History as Discussion
For the general reader historiography is perhaps best seen as a debate between alternative and sometimes opposing viewpoints. As example, 1955 saw the publication of two works that were seminal in their own way. The first, ‘England Under the Tudors’ by GR Elton, was sufficiently controversial to set the agenda for his successors, who questioned his pronouncements on the power cliques that influenced Tudor policy. The second, ‘Richard the Third’ by Paul Murray Kendall, challenged the orthodoxy of early Tudor history and set in train a revisionist trend that continues to the present day. These authors have strongly partisan views on the significance of the first Tudor, Henry VII. Elton presents
My home of the last twenty-five years is as steeped in history as the Nottingham of my boyhood and there are coincidental points of contact in time. I am writing close to Henry Tudor's route to Bosworth and his birthplace, Pembroke Castle, is within easy reach. We are ringed with place names that originated with the Norman-Welsh aristocracy that struck across the sea to
