Why the 2007 BBC series Cranford engages us

‘Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat’ and a bird informed me I would receive the DVD of the 2007 BBC series, Cranford. I had passed by parts of the episodes but I had not seen the whole series so I look forward to a full showing. News of the gift prompted me to reflect on its success. There are many reasons: good adaptation, good cast and performances, good stories and interesting characters presented by the talented Mrs Gaskell. The full list is long and I suspect it includes a fascination with the different responses of Cranford’s people to change. We may be more inured to change now, some 150 years after the Cranford story, but response to change continues to be a significant challenge to all. A perspective on change, and its consequences on people’s lives, is a helpful contribution from History and, in our media soaked society, historical novels and dramas to a better positioning of ourselves in the world today and thereby the possibility of sounder judgment with decisions that will help to fashion our personal and collective futures.

Contributor: Geoff Williams. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.

The content of A-level and degree History courses

What is the value of A-level and degree courses’ content? It is a short question but a simple answer will be not useful. What can be claimed is that a course at these levels develops the students’ capacities as learners. This is a theme that we have promoted in our Study Centre presentation AS/A2 History in a World of Rapid Change [also available in a YouTube version in our The X Files section]. Vineet Nayar of Indian IT firm HCL Technologies, probably the fastest growing IT services group in the world added a gloss to this in an interview on the Today programme [BBC Radio 4] today. Not shy of controversy, Vineet Nayar stated that these courses, with emphasis on content, did not prepare students for work in business and his business trains students for some12 to 18 months after graduation. To end with a question: does the content of an A-level or degree History course matter at all? [You can be sure contributors to this question will come from this office.]

Contributor: Tom Wells. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.

The ‘fourth estate’. Is it really needed?

When I watched ‘Dispatches: How the MoD Wastes Our Billions’ [20 September, Channel 4], I remembered how important the media, the Fourth Estate, are for healthy government within the liberal democratic pattern. By healthy government is meant a form and process of government in which decisions and activities by decision makers are available to widespread scrutiny. With the busyness of modern government and the range and noise, and some would say near frenzy, of media activity particularly in the areas of sport and pop culture, the importance of bringing to public attention government-related activities, especially if they have a byzantine character, is as important as the defence of the rule of law, the latter itself under threat by the need to deal with terrorist threats. The achievement of [relatively speaking] good governance is never finally won but a dynamic that requires constant vigilance for its continuation.

Contributor: Tom Wells. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.

Spies and state interests

Ten people were arrested in the US this week and are accused of spying for Russia. Spying by Russia and by the Western Powers was regular news during the Cold War era but this week’s arrests have surprised some. The period of ideological confrontation may be over but state interests remain. Infiltration of ‘seats of power’ and policy creation forums reminds us that knowledge/information is power and gives a competitive edge in relations and negotiations. For a state to cease to seek to gain intelligence (information), both by careful collection of open-source data and by other means is to neglect the interests of the state and its citizens.

Contributor: Tom Wells, Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning office

The Bloody Sunday Report

Lord Saville’s Report is finally published today, after 12 years. Weighing in at some 5,000 pages it is hoped, by the British government, to be a definitive statement and a marked step up from the Widgery Triburnal. Bloody Sunday, on 30 January 1972, over 38 years ago, projected the ‘troubles’ to a new level but now most of the protagonists co-exist in the same coalition and many among the population in Northern Ireland prosper. Simon Hughes mentioned today [The Daily Politics, BBC2] that it is hoped it will serve a similar healing role to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Mandela and Archbishop Tutu supported. It is a procedure that could be helpful with Anglo-Chinese history in the context of the nineteenth-century Opium Wars, an issue that this author adjudges is also unfinished business.

Contributor: Tom Wells. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.

Battles are not the only warfare successes

26 May to 4 June is the anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation, a tremendous achievement. While many men were taken by 42 destroyers and other large ships 700 small boats, some no larger than river cruisers, also played a significant part and some 300,000 people were transported to England. War can evoke the very best in people and one survivor recounted yesterday that it was not so much ‘it’s my turn’, rather ‘we will help one another’. The last surviving ‘little ships of Dunkirk’ captain mentioned that the greatest enemy for him was lack of sleep: with only one hour rest in 24 it was difficult to keep alert.

Contributor: Tom Wells. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.

How far will the party ‘landscape’ change?

On 11 May 2010 a new, a coalition, government is formed after a three-cornered general election contest. Well, it seemed three cornered until the exit poll on 6 May was published. As at 13 May, pending one result [a safe Conservative seat], the LIberal Democrats have 57 MPs. Historians may think back 100 years and the two general elections of 1910 and three vigorous political parties. In December 1910 Labour had 42 MPs returned, up from 30 in 1906. All three parties, over the years 1910-30, had less than certain futures although by 1945 the pattern of two dominant parties, a pattern that pertained for the nineteenth century, had become re-established. Who can say what the future party-political pattern will be if in the current [5-year] parliament the AV [alternative vote] form of voting is made law subsequent to a referendum, as promised by the coalition agreement?

Contributor: Tom Wells. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.