Why the sudden loss of interest in history?
So, what has that TV programme got to do with Cray Wanderers' supporters? Well, here's the thing. There are similarities between the latest crop of Wands supporters and those potential buyers of pre-World War II vehicles, insomuch as neither group now want to know about 'the old days'. Mathewsons, the auction house in the TV series, have noticed a huge drop-off in would-be bidders on the much older vehicles, in much the same way that the older and much longer-in-the-tooth of us Wands supporters have noticed a recent huge drop off and decline of interest in our club's history.
In addition to this, I can cite TV quiz shows like The Chase and Tipping Point for the lack of competing contestants' history knowledge when asked simple questions about it, like for instance "which king abdicated in 1936?" only to hear their genuinely-believed replies of "Henry the Eighth" or even "William the Conquerer". Where do these quiz shows find these people?!
I must admit that I was probably the worst student in history because I took an instant dislike to history lessons at school. But then, I believe it was because I was in that growing-up stage between 11 and 15 years old, where I thought I knew it all and none of it needed to be about history itself. How wrong I was. In the ensuing half-century or so since I last walked the corridors of our school I have picked up a lot about history information just by getting interested in it. History as taught in school during my educational years, I quickly realised, was such a dry subject and I definitely found it so. In fact, on one occasion I remember offering up my history homework on 'the organisation and development of association football in the 1800s', only for it to be marked down because "it is not proper history". What I later realised was, it was because "it wasn't proper history" the way the educational board wanted history to be covered in the school's curriculum of history lessons and homework.
Finding out the background of something, be it a football club's early existence, how cars were manufactured and constructed in the pioneer motoring days of the early 20th century or maybe learning the line of succession of British kings and queens since King George III (or even earlier) is fascinating when achieved by one's self without being laboriously lectured to by a school teacher when all you really want to do is go outside and play football or cricket. I know because I have lived through my personal version of it.
History, it seems, is currently on a one-way ticket out of town towards being confined to, er, history. Please don't make the mistake of helping it get there.
Trevor Mulligan