by Bert Meinders

Created on: December 04, 2008   Last Updated: September 03, 2009

History is too often presented as a collection of important events, usually having something to do with kings, generals and prelates, which happened on precise dates which have to be remembered if the student wants to pass.

Once out of school and free of any pressure to recite who did what to whom, where, when and in the reign of which king, I started to learn more about real history.

Teachers, constrained by the curriculum, have to impart a lot of repeatable knowledge in a short time. Dates and names of places and leaders assume great importance. In 1970, for example, I studied the American Civil War, the unification of Germany and Italy, nineteenth-century imperialism, the Boer War and the build-up to the First World War. I continued to be interested in history after leaving school and failing to complete a law degree (I did much better in mechanical engineering), and after nearly forty years of informal study, I understand the discipline a great deal better now.

In writing convincingly about history, it is important to gather as much background information as possible. Tennyson's too-often-cited poem about the Charge of the Light Brigade gives an idea of the emotional impact of that heroic folly, but little else. Cecil Woodham-Smith's book "The Reason Why" explains the effects of Raglan's inability to communicate concisely, Lord Lucan's excessive caution and his brother-in-law Lord Cardigan's lifelong affliction of Yorick's Disease ("The melancholy truth was that his glorious golden head had nothing in it.").

George Macdonald Fraser, in "Flashman at the Charge", adds a convincing humanity and a feeling of being there. None of these works is an approved textbook, but each adds useful material to the study. Fraser and Woodham-Smith both emphasise the catalytic effect of Captain Nolan in triggering the tragedy.

Dates have their place, but too much emphasis on them can lead to dogmatism and an obscuring of the truth. For example, try asking yourself when the First World War began and when it ended.

Conventional teaching has it starting in August 1914, with Serbia's rejection of Austria's ultimatum. and ended with the signing of the Armistice in November 1918. Neither date is correct. The war's beginning is uncertain, but after years of informal and intermittent research and much headscratching I'd place it about 1899, when Britain attacked the Orange Free State, or perhaps in the previous year when the United States used a convenient magazine explosion in a

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