A long, long time ago

This is dedicated to Mrs. E. Borde, my Form 3 history teacher.  Settle down, kiddies, it’s an actual dedication to a teacher.  Mrs. Borde taught us history back in the day.  And for me, she turned it into a subject that was SO boring, SO horrific that 2 things happened.  The first was that history (notably Caribbean history) was the first and only subject that I have ever failed in my life.  The second was that I developed a deep-seated hatred for anything labelled as “historical.”  And that’s very sad.  There were several careers that interested me back when I was 14 in Form 3, but when I learnt that they REQUIRED history, I turned away from them. (I wonder now if I would have enjoyed any of them, really)  My reading (which has always been prodigious) moved away from anything that touched on Caribbean history, because it sent me back to that period in my life where those classes were torment.  At university, I skated through the required History of the Caribbean classes, attending maybe 3 lectures for the entire year.  (Happily, the exam was based on what I gathered from those 3 lectures, so I passed.  Imagine the horror of failing my degree because of the mandatory but not essential to my plan history)

Anyway, I made it through university and the beginning of my career without troubling any history at all.  For me, history = “romances with heroines in long dresses” or “Greek mythology” or “stories about King Arthur and Robin Hood.”  Sadly, too, anything that spoke of “women’s studies” fell into the ‘history’ category, because the same teacher often spoke of women’s rights.  It almost (not quite) turned me from an ardent feminist into a chauvinist…

Many years later, I began doing some real reading of history.  It was prompted by this odd woman in my office who was a member of one of the more extreme Christian groups – she railed against the use of lipstick, the wearing of short skirts or trousers, promoted a purely raw-food diet and generally went around spreading her message of imminent destruction.  Part of her messaging was to attack Catholics, and this sent me off to learn more about the history of the Church so I could answer some of the charges she made.  (Some were complete rubbish, some sparked thought.)  That then led me into reading about the Eastern churches, and that led into the prevailing cultures, and then into the political environment that existed in the Middle Ages (and incidentally into learning about the technological developments in that period.  Fascinating.)  Still later, after I had moved to Canada, I began reading Caribbean history because of my involvement with the community groups and the celebration of Emancipation (which, up to that point, was mostly associated with my father’s birthday and a holiday to be spent at Maracas.)

I still don’t love Caribbean history.  That is a great pity, because it is my history and heritage, but I have no affinity for it.  I have read about different areas of my ancestors’ back stories, but not so much of what happened after they landed in the Caribbean and shaped the culture that exists.  All this because one teacher in my early teens kept me away from a subject that impacts my life. 

I have found that history isn’t always a dull subject, and that there was so much to learn (and read!)  I’ve learnt that visiting certain European cities is more interesting if I know the historical figures that shaped them.  My time in the Middle East awed me with its many links to the distant past – and the effect that some of that past has on modern life.

And there are other revelations, too.  For instance, I found that reading a book that was written in a particular time had many subtle hints about life that were not present in a book that was set at that period, making it all the more enjoyable.  And that reading even fantasy fiction could tell when the author lived by means of the inventions that they dreamt up.  But most of all, it highlighted that no matter when people lived, they all faced the same basic concerns.

So in summary – history isn’t as boring as it seemed in school.  But I still blame my Third Form teacher for driving me away from many things that were of interest, and killing my desire to learn about my own past.   Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of a delightful set of Victorian era magazines which are totally entertaining in their Victorian-ness (I particularly love the cooking section… but more on my cooking addiction later!)  Bye for the nonce!