To continue with my round up of books read over the last two months we now come to Andrew Marr and The Making of Modern Britain. No need for a review from me really as it will make no difference to publicity and sales, both of which he has had in abundance.
I have to state straight away that I really find Andrew Marr acutely irritating. This may have a great deal to do with the fact that when he was political correspondent on the BBC, and had to give an 'unbiased' view on politics of the day (Labour) and when interviewing ministers and members of Parliament with whom he was in agreement (Labour), and those with whom he was not in agreement (anybody who was not Labour or Tony Blair), his bias was anything but un... In fact there were occasions when I was puzzled he could see daylight as he seemed to be so far up the Government's collective backside.
Sorry, I digress.
Anyway, he has now gone from the Beeb, well as far as reporting is concerned. But the BBC sticks by its servants who toe the party line and since his political days, he has popped up on the box as telly historian. Now Andrew M studied English at Cambridge and has enjoyed a long career as a journalist, so he is no slouch intellectually, but he seems to have no serious claims to being a historian as such, even if he is an excellent writer. However, this did not stand in his way and soon his face was beaming at us again from our screens as he expounded all about the Making of Modern Britain and the Changing face of Britain blah blah blah.
I cannot watch history on TV. Whether it be Andrew Marr or David Starkey or A N Other, they seem incapable of producing a historical programme without leaping about in ruined buildings, gazing admiringly at gothic ceilings or wandering around the battle fields of England. This is accompanied by a sentence or two before we then leap onto the next location. If a battle is referred to then we see a blurred film of men fighting and shouting (in the case of the Civil War we see two pikes being waved about) to apply some verisimilitude. I remember David Starkey telling us that Mary Queen of Scots was 'fond of dancing' - cue blurred video of lady in Tudor costume dancing. It is quite insulting to assume that those of us who tune into these programmes have the attention span of a newt but that is the way it is done nowadays.
So, don't watch and read the book instead and Andrew Marr is a very good writer, punchy, witty and lively. Whether you want your history to be punchy or witty is a moot point. It certainly makes this book extremely readable and nothing wrong in that I hear you cry. I agree. But the book itself is so obviously 'the book of the series' so it is divided up into easy to read sections. Therefore, in a section dealing with the Abdication and other events of that time, we have headings A Funny Kind of Crisis, The Appeasers and Winston and the Grasshopper. In another section we have The Lost Hero (two pages of hyperbole before he identifies this hero as Ramsay Maconald); this is followed by A Very British revolt (miner's strike) and Air Magic (all about radio). In a book, this makes no sense. In a TV series, then it will no doubt fit.
This is why, readable though this book is I found myself losing patience, hence the reason for taking my time reading it. Witty and amusing is good, but can be overdone - captions for some of the photos (and there are some wonderful illustrations as well) range from 'A strangely sinister man, Queen Victoria's grandson, Kaiser Bill, doing his bit for world wildlife' (he was holding an unidentified furry animal) to a photograph of Sylvia Pankhurst 'in full flood' which comment profoundly irritated me; a photograph of a war canteen 'where American popular culture really first invaded Britain. Eat your hearts out Pilgrim Fathers'.
OK I am probably being nit pickety, but this flippant attitude really began to grate on me by the time I was half way through, so I will own up and say I skimmed the rest of it. I am not a historian snob, I cannot read serious academic historical tomes, they are over my head, but I do like a middle way and this snappy little number is not for me I am afraid (if you read the reviews on Amazon they fall into two separate camps, some agree with what I have written some not, so interesting to check them out).
Of course, the real reason for all of the above is The Ears. I mean have you seen them? Having had to view them waggling at me on the BBC over the years, I fully admit that they have influenced my thoughts on this book...............
Shallow, moi?
