by Sandra Piddock

Created on: February 08, 2008

If history isn't our teacher, it's not history's fault. How often have you vowed you'd have done something different with the benefit of hindsight? What is history if it isn't recorded hindsight? And it's a very old but very true adage that history has a habit of repeating itself.

Anyone who never made a mistake never made anything, and our forebears made mistakes aplenty. Even the greatest figures in our past made the odd boo-boo. Take Churchill, for instance; he led the Allies to victory in World War II, but he got it wrong at Gallipoli in the Great War. More recently, Margaret Thatcher fronte the Falklands Campaign to great acclaim; it guaranteed victory for the Conservatives in the following General election. But I bet she regrets listening to the ministers who told her it would be a good idea to replace the Domestic Rating System with the Poll Tax.

History provides us with a record of what has passed, from which we can learn and, hopefully, avoid the pitfalls of previous generations. Times change but people don't, and this is a good maxim to hold onto if you really want to learn from history. There will always be evil people, such as those responsible for the Holocaust. But they were only able to carry out their wicked agenda because at first people didn't know what was going on, and, when they did, they couldn't believe that such things could happen. While similar things still happen, there will never be carnage on such a scale because, thanks to the power and ubuquity of the modern media, such infamy is soon discovered and stopped in its tracks.

History has also taught us that democracy is the best policy. We have seen what dictatorships and absolute monarchies have done to the countries of the world and its peoples and democracy is now the norm rather than a novelty. Of course, we have to remember that history is written by the winners, and it is only in the last century or so that we have had access to the historic voices of ordinary men and women. Even so, there is a clear lesson that the tyrants and incompetents almost always fail to prosper. Think of Charles I of England and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

History should be like a third parent; if you will allow it to, it can be your teacher, mentor, comforter and friend. These days, people are very fond of saying that history should remain where it belongs - in the past. I believe that we can only look forward to a good future - individually, nationally and globally - if we have the courage and wisdom to look back and learn from our history. The past is not another country, it is our heritage, and we owe it to our children and grandchildren to see that our heritage does not become buried treasure.

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