I n the annual A-level results debate, the government is politically
sensible to position itself as the 'well-donekids-the-standards-are-getting better-all-the-time' party. It thus turns anyone who says that the
government's policies aren't working into a sour-faced child-hater. But what if both sides of the argument are right? What if children do work harder than ever and yet are educated less well? This is surely what is happening. Like compliance with directives in the workplace, achievement at A-level is more and more a matter of doing a great deal of clerical work as instructed. It is not seen as a means of acquiring knowledge and applying it independently. I know young people from families who have never been near a university and now get into the best. That is a wonderful thing. Often, though, they have not been taught how to learn much when they get there, That is not a wonderful thing. When I was a student nearly 30 years ago, we used to look with absolute amazement at American students who said they had 'done' James Joyce (or whoever), by which they meant that they had lecture notes and coursework about him but had never read any of his books. Now Americans read more books than we do.
When the 300th anniversary of the battle of Blenheim was celebrated on 12 August, it was pointed out how few people now knew why the battle mattered. Fuller information on French defeats comes from the Essex historian and thinker, Adrian Sykes, who has produced a full list, month by month, of England's victories over the French since 1066 (available from him at awgsEt.sykes.co.uk). August offers, in chronological order, Minden, the Nile, the surrender of Calais in 1347, Blenheim, the storming of Ahmednagar fortress (French advisers', Sykes notes cryptically). Harfleur, the battle of the Spurs in 1513 (The French used their spurs more than their swords'), Rolica, Almeida, Lincelles, Lagos, Vimeiro, Dover, Crecy, the capture of Java in 1811, and Walcourt. Sykes also includes some controversial entries, such as 7 February 1992: 'Treaty of Maastricht. Britain refused to accept the Social Chapter', and 14 March 1959: 'Leeds. England's biggest victory over France in a rugby match (50-15)% There were, it must be acknowledged, occasions when the French beat the English. One was the battle of Castillon, where we lost the Hundred Years' War under the command of an ancestor of mine
called John Talbot. On holiday there last month, we were touched to find the Monument de Talbot by the banks of the Dordogne. Talbot himself fell because he was so conspicuous in the bright clothes he wore to Mass that morning. The monument does not depict him, but a Virgin and Child on a pillar. It is courteous of the French to name the statue after the dead man rather than their great victory.
Sykes ingeniously includes the battle of Hastings on his list because it 'resulted in the Norman creation of the nation state of England'. Last week the BBC television series Battlefield Britain tackled 1066 and all that, Although it features the engaging Peter Snow and his pleasant, quieter son Dan, the programme managed to exhibit almost every infuriating feature of history on the telly. The grisly device of actors playing the
participants was made worse by them pretending to reminisce round a campfire. A note at the beginning explained that they were improvising. Duke William spoke like a French waiter. Peter was filmed in an anorak walking round the Bank of England (why?), and the Union flag was shown fluttering in the breeze though the battle took place more than 700 years before the United Kingdom which it represents existed. England was referred to as Britain. Police in riot gear were shown holding their shields to illustrate how the Saxons held theirs, but it was then said that the Saxons actually locked their shields together in a different way. Dan was wired up with a monitor which proved that his heartbeat rose when horses charged at him. Harold's coronation was illustrated by film of a castle which was never named and his journey south from Stamford Bridge by pictures of lorries on the motorway. And throughout it all the poor Snows had to fulfil the most insistent of all modern televisual demands — to laugh and josh when nothing is, in fact, funny. In sum, you learnt slightly less in an hour than you would have picked up in five minutes from a good encyclopaedia. Goodness, it was depressing.
T suppose it was all in the name of accessi
bility, now the highest aim of all cultural and educational endeavour. But some things, many works of art for instance, should be rather inaccessible. Museums have a greater duty to the objects they house than to the millions who might want to see them. They should spend large sums on employing scholars and small ones on displays. I look forward to notices in the British Museum saying, 'We regret that, owing to a shortage of funds, this gallery is open to the public.'
Rail travel enforces chat. The other day I failed to get to Birmingham to give a speech because my train was cancelled. I then waited for the train home, which was half an hour late. When we finally got on, a youngish, plumpish man from the North decided that my close study of the Daily Telegraph did not constitute work and gave me his views on Tony Blair (once for, now against), broadcasting in Montana (against), working for sheikhs (for, due to their prolonged absence). He said he wanted to go into paediatrics but was, at present, a butler, and was seeking a situation like an embassy where 'you pick up all the gossip'. He was garrulous about his former employers, except when I asked him where he had his first job butlering. He named an ancient and noble house, and its owner. 'Aye,' he said laconically, 'thrifty.'
Thepicture of Silvio Berlusconi with the Blairs this week was pure joy. He looked like one of the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera, when they dress up as gipsy women in Trovatore. Mrs Blair looked like a mixture of Shirley Valentine and 'The Awakening Conscience'. His villa has seven swimming pools and an amphitheatre where a Neapolitan sings love songs of Berlusconi's own composition. He also owns 14 houses and most of Italian television. What a man! What a country where such a one can become prime minister. Not like Britain, where you can only make it if you are vulgar, cynical and dishonest enough to rise to the top of the secretive organisation known as the 'Labour party'.
Previous page
