I’ve just watched another episode of Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain on the BBC i-player. Until now I didn’t know the difference between Harold Wilson and Harold Macmillan, nor what exactly led to the three day week.
This is frankly appalling considering the years I have spent 1) in education and 2) living in this country. So I am indebted to Mr Marr for enlightening me in such a painless (and actually most entertaining) manner.
Turns out the series was first broadcast last summer, and even won a BAFTA for best specialist factual programme in April.
What I like is:
- listening out for Mr Marr’s sporadic lapses into a scots lilt when he gets excited
- the way he clearly loves storytelling as much as he loves the factual stuff
- how empassioned he gets about rationing, politics, film, protests, well anything really
- how he drives around in vintage sports cars in this pseudo-Bond manner which is faintly ridiculous but also quite endearing considering how much of a nerd he is.
The government should probably pay him to make series after series until he has covered the whole of history, and then schools can replace rubbish history teachers by simply buying the box-set: Andrew Marr’s History OF THE WORLD.
You have five more days to learn about 1964 – 1979 here.
I haven’t seen the TV series, but his book on the same topic is pretty good. He has a delightfully old-fasioned BBC prose style – patrician, but in a very readable way. The only problem is when he moves away from politics, and tries to summarise cultural history. Then it becomes very obvious that he’s spent his whole live with politics, and so has nothing at all to say about music, art, etc.
I’ve only seen the first two of these so far but have been impressed. Despite doing a three year history degree I realised I knew very little that has happened in Britain post c.1951. This is definitely how history should be told. Viva Schama, Beevor et al.
I listened to the entire cd version on a gargantuan drive from Calcutta to Delhi, was excellent (although the section on Thatcher provoked a two hour argument in the car), and as you said made some rather hazy corners of British modern history seem altogether clearer.