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		Contents	[ Close all Abstracts ]		Current issue
		Editorial By: ALAN CROSBY [ Read Abstract ] To present the story of our own times and our own experience, and to analyse and assess it coolly and accurately, is a challenge for any historian. If we have personal memories of an event or a period the instinct of many of us is to say that, by definition, it simply cannot be history. Accepting that we are ourselves part of the past as well as the present is not easy. An obvious exception is that category of people who are great or famous: think of those carefully-designed one-eye-on-the-readership diaries which politicians write in the knowledge that they will one day be published, or the conveyor belt production of ghost-written autobiographies by ephemeral celebrities. We should, therefore, acknowledge that history continues right up to the present and that very recent topics are worthy of investigation by local historians. But if we choose to investigate such subjects and themes we have to recognise that there are special problems in trying to identify truth and portray reality, for the history of recent times can be heavily distorted in the mirror of memory and perception. There is usually a superabundance of material, by the standards of most earlier historical periods, but it is material of a different sort. Public documents may be inaccessible, and the popular image of events and trends is likely to be unusually conditioned by the ever-growing influence of the media. In this issue of The Local Historian, Sally Sokoloff discusses the truth and reality of a period in recent world history which is of paramount local significance - the Home Front in the Second World War. Her article carries several messages. It addresses the issue of the reliability of the written evidence which comes from the war itself, suggesting not only that much of the contemporary published material was (understandably enough, of course) constructed as essential propaganda during the life and death struggle, but also that, less obviously, many later accounts have accepted this perspective as straight evidence without serious questioning. She argues that the rhetoric and the exhortation helped to conceal the stresses and strains in society which were inevitable during such a protracted crisis. The evidence for these problems was at first suppressed deliberately and in later decades was overlooked but, if analysed carefully, it would give a much truer picture of what actually happened in the war. In the article Sally Sokoloff emphasises that local analysis - the preparation of detailed case-studies within the restricted geographical area of a community [however that may be defined, and she has interesting thoughts on that score too'>more... - can test and validate this corrected view of the war and give new dimensions to our understanding of the lives and experiences of British people during it. Central government records alone are insufficient for this task, but local evidence - derived in significant measure from non-standard and unwritten sources - can shed light upon tensions, discontent and differences of opinion and attitude. In other words, the local historian may make fundamental contributions to the reassessment of Britain's wartime experiences, sixty years after the war ended. There is a powerful lesson here, which was echoed by Kate Tiller in her 2001 Phillimore lecture: she argued then that local case-studies of the experience of rural phenomena, such as enclosure and its consequences, can produce major revisions of the accepted general picture and may therefore be crucial to a more sophisticated interpretation of what was happening. Local history is not national history broken up into chunks. National history is, to a much greater extent than is often appreciated, an aggregation of the local historical experience. Undoubtedly there is a particular problem with the views which Sally Sokoloff has put forward. To some people they will be construed as yet another example of 'knocking people off pedestals', an addictive habit of which historians are often accused. This approach may also be interpreted as seeking only the negative, denigrating the heroism and selflessness of the millions who kept the home fires burning. It touches personal sensitivities, the raw edges of the experience of living individuals, and that is bound to be less 'comfortable' than dealing with the more distant past. My view is that sensitive analysis which uses the 'revisionist approach' does not detract from the might of the achievement of those on the Home Front. Rather, it can add to it, because the people whose actions, thoughts and perceptions are analysed become, to a greater extent than before, real flesh-and-blood human beings with prejudices, weaknesses, doubts and uncertainties. In some discussion of the wartime experience the people become two-dimensional cardboard figures, semi-mythical heroes of legend. We expect heroes to win - that's what they were there for - so their eventual triumph seems a foregone conclusion. But how much more remarkable it really was, and how much more triumphant, that ordinary human beings did what they did despite or because of their fears and frailties. I quote one of my own heroes, a very ordinary man with plenty of human inadequacies, who said, 120 years earlier, that 'as all men have their weakness & failings when I see any writer give us an account of men all fair & faltless, & every thing that is good and amiable, I allways suspect that the author has only [told'>more... us a part of the truth'. This issue includes another aspect of twentieth century history. Martin Johnes has recreated the forlorn history of the Mid-Rhondda Football Club, whose glory days barely existed. Sports history is one of those sub-disciplines which has only recently become respectable in academic circles and is still regarded by some with a certain condescension. That it has achieved its proper place is a development long overdue. Why have housing and employment long been acceptable subjects for serious historical investigation, whereas equally basic and central elements in human life, such as costume and clothing, food and drink, or sport and recreation, have tended to be seen as frivolous 'amateur' subjects unworthy of intellectual assessment? They have not been treated with the seriousness and depth of analysis which they quite clearly deserve. Martin Johnes demonstrates that sports history can profitably be considered in the context of the community and should be a major theme in its social history. This can be achieved partly by looking at such topics as spectators and their communal behaviour, or rivalries between towns in which the clubs are surrogates for the community as a whole. But it is also important to investigate the context within which the sport operated and to identify its connections with other dimensions in the history of every community - class, money, political and social power and influence, local patriotism, and religion, among others. One of the most fascinating lectures on local history I ever heard was about the power, money and politics of Preston North End FC in the 1920s and 1930s: it exposed not just the [usually murky'>more... goings-on within the club, but unexpectedly illuminated the [equally murky'>more... structure of power and influence within the town. Sports history has much to offer local historians. Local historians have much to offer sports history. 1. Alan G. Crosby (ed), The family records of Benjamin Shaw 1772-1841 (Record Society of Lancashire & Cheshire, 1991) vol.130, p.1 Military gravestones in south-east Essex: classification and analysis of a neglected source By: STEPHEN MURRAY [ Read Abstract ] Military gravestones are found very widely in cemeteries and church graveyards, but have rarely been used as a source of local history or military history. The article discusses the results of a comprehensive survey of such gravestones in south-east Essex. It considers the evidence which the gravestones give for various aspects of the history of the individuals concerned, and the wider military context. These themes include types of gravestone (private, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and commemoration on family gravestones; the chronology of death; service and regiment; military rank; burial of people from outside the area; and the place of death, and all are considered within the context of the military history of the area. There is a more detailed case-study of the gravestones which resulted from the Shoeburyness explosion of 1885, and a summary emphasises the potential for local history research using this neglected source. The Home Front in the Second World War and local history By: SALLY SOKOLOFF [ Read Abstract ] This article examines the local histories of the Home Front experience in Britain which have been produced since the 1970s. It considers why an X at War type of local history has been prolific since the 1970s, coinciding with practices of popular history and of commemoration. Local Home Front histories make a roll call of local participation, are retrospectively inclusive of women's efforts, emphasise the endurance and spirit of ordinary people, and assume that local identities and communities had enhanced significance in the war. Such histories can be complacent and can overlook dissent and poor behaviour on the Home Front while ignoring the control of information and behaviour which the authorities - local and national - exercised. By contrast, histories of the nation at war have looked to test received truths and myths about the British Home Front. Since the 1970s, historians have analysed the nature of memory in wartime, and have shown propaganda and social memory at work in oral history and in media such as photographs and films. Their enquiries, while potentially revisionist, have not seriously eroded the record of national achievement but have brought some scepticism to precisely those facets of local histories which the latter highlight. Finally, the article points to the patchy evidence about local experience on the Home Front and to aspects of wartime communities marginalised by local history practices that might be fruitful channels of enquiry for future historians of places at war. Mushrooms, scandal and bankruptcy: the short life of Mid Rhondda Football Club By: MARTIN JOHNES [ Read Abstract ] The Mid Rhondda Football Club had a short and inglorious career, founded as a professional club in the Southern League in 1912 and finally collapsing amid financial and other scandal in 1928. The article analyses the history of the club and the distinctive personalities which were involved in its affairs, placing them within the context of the community as a whole and in particular the dramatic decline in the fortunes of the South Wales coal industry and the towns which depended on mining. It is suggested that the club had close links with the local community, evidence such as shareholding by miners being cited to support the view that it was firmly tied within the culture of the working-class population from which it drew its support. The article concludes with an assessment of the role of football history in studies of local communities, and the place which sports history has in the 'wider collective biography that academic history seeks'. It is argued that clubs such as Mid Rhondda were important civic institutions, creating a common mood or feeling which reflected the vicissitudes of the history of the community itself. This, it is suggested, means that sports history, like local history, can with validity investigate the detail of the narratives of the people, while remaining conscious of the context of 'wider issues' which lead to proper understanding. Robert Whitworth (1734-1799): canal engineer of Calderdale By: GEOFFREY OXLEY [ Read Abstract ] This was joint winner of the BALH Local History Award 2001, given for articles in local and county journals. It is a biographical account of Robert Whitworth, based on an extensive range of local archive sources, which argues convincingly that Whitworth was one of the most important figures in the heroic age of English and Scottish canal building. His very close association with the famous James Brindley is analysed and it is suggested that Whitworth, not Brindley, was responsible for much of the detailed work and became a major engineer and designer of canal structures in his own right. The evidence of his early career and the influences upon his choice of occupation, and the examples in Calderdale of his approach to surveying and measurement, are discussed. This is within the context of his developing private and public life, both of which have been researched from primary sources to piece together a coherent narrative of his progress from local projects to a national stage. The article concludes with a reassessment of the key figures in the Canal Age, in which the Calderdale influence was much greater than has hitherto been recognised. Photographs of canal structures designed by Whitworth, with his distinctive and characteristic style, are used to illustrate the article. Reviews Editor's Round-up 2001 Reviews Recent Publications in Local History
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