My passion for history began before I went to senior school. I spent my summer holidays in Algeria, where my French mother was born and where most of her family lived. It was at the time of the Algerian War of Independence and I was conscious then that history was being made around me and that in a small way I was part of it. I was lucky that at a time when few people travelled abroad I was not only in North Africa but also experiencing history first hand. The following year I started at a Grammar School in Essex. The only thing I was enthusiastic about was rugby and athletics in the summer and of course history. I was taught history for several years by a teacher that I shall call “Mr. X”, in deference to the fact that he is still probably alive and I would not wish to cause him any embarrassment. He was passionate about his subject and conveyed that passion to his charges – me especially. He made serfs and villeins exciting and the Industrial Revolution positively gripping, a rare feat in itself. He would bring in artefacts such as swords and pieces of armour and a uniform and rifle from WWII that I can see today as I write. I still have my history exercise book with a fairly mean drawing of a “spinning jenny” with an “A” grade that I treasure to this day. We touched history in his classes and he made us feel part of the great events he was teaching us. In those days, we did not do history field trips – at least not in my school. I suspect that it was not for want of trying on the part of “Mr. X”, but more the case of the outdated views of how children should be taught from the Head Master. When we got to look at the Great War it was at a time in the early sixties when it was fashionable to deliver a torrent of criticism of the Generals, and contemporary historians re-evaluated the war and its conduct. Ordinary soldiers like my two beloved grandfathers were no longer heroes but tragic victims. They of course, did not see themselves in that light but in their quiet and dignified way kept their experiences to themselves. Many of their contemporaries almost became half ashamed of what they had endured, convinced that by modern standards it had all been futile. “Mr. X” did not see it like that and was bold enough to say so (remember this was the 1960s). I recognised that in some way he had an affinity with those men of the Great War that no amount of 1960s liberal thinking was going to change, and he brought up a small number of my generation to think “outside the box”, a term I know he would have liked. To me at the age of 14 he seemed quite old, but I now know he was younger than I am as I write this now. It was only years later that I discovered something of his past. He had landed on D-Day at SWORD Beach and had fought his way through the Normandy break out battles that resulted in daily casualty rates not dissimilar to those of the Somme a generation earlier. His war eventually took him into Germany and because of his linguistic abilities (he spoke German) he found himself at Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp helping to try and co-ordinate order out of the unbelievable chaos that was found there. How incredible it would have been to have visited these places with him – someone who was actually there and who had experienced it all first hand. I know now that with his passion for history he would have taken us despite the obvious ghosts and memories such a tour would have invoked. It would have been a privilege to have been with him. You don’t have to have been a soldier to take a tour to the battlefields or any other history based tour. You just need to have a passion for the subject, combined with a deep knowledge of the subject matter and the ability to deliver it to an audience with clarity and enthusiasm, which our guides have. The aim of our guides both ex military and non military (and in a way their obligation) is to get young people to stand in the boots of the men and women whose story they tell, to stand where they stood and to be able to see things as they saw them, to try to understand and above all not to be judgemental. Today’s young people are not so very different from “Mr. X” and those earlier generations whose stories are part of their heritage. Let Anglia take your students back through time for an unforgettable educational experience that will stay with them through their school years and beyond. Colonel AD Chissel TD |
by Colonel AD Chissel TD,