What a week of mixed messages.
The chief executive of the (English) Qualification & Curriculum Authority pondered upon what English school pupils should study. He asked, “Are we going to deal with the Battle of the Nile or are we instead going to concentrate on how to take out a mortgage and manage it?” Was he really saying our heritage and history doesn’t matter?
On the very same day came news that the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded Denbighshire £1.5mil towards a £3mil project to investigate, preserve and manage its chain of five upland Iron Age hillforts on Bryniau Clwyd/Clwydian Range, over Rhuthun. What the county council is saying is that our heritage and history definitely *does* matter. After all, those who built and lived in these hillforts are our ancestors, and they lived here not that long ago – from the 6th century BC. That this was a borderland, a “Celtic Maginot Line”, adds a certain modern day spice.
We are a nation because of our past. In fact, we are *only* a nation because of our collective memory of how and why we have gotten to this particular point in time. This is surely more true of Cymru/Wales than of our eastern neighbour. History with its unique culture shapes our identity. It explains who we are, and why we are somehow ‘different’.
And this is precisely why we in Rhuthun must welcome the £3mil ‘Heather & Hillforts’ project within site of our town centre. History is not a past country, not here, not in Cymru.
The chief executive of the (English) Qualification & Curriculum Authority pondered upon what English school pupils should study. He asked, “Are we going to deal with the Battle of the Nile or are we instead going to concentrate on how to take out a mortgage and manage it?” Was he really saying our heritage and history doesn’t matter?
On the very same day came news that the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded Denbighshire £1.5mil towards a £3mil project to investigate, preserve and manage its chain of five upland Iron Age hillforts on Bryniau Clwyd/Clwydian Range, over Rhuthun. What the county council is saying is that our heritage and history definitely *does* matter. After all, those who built and lived in these hillforts are our ancestors, and they lived here not that long ago – from the 6th century BC. That this was a borderland, a “Celtic Maginot Line”, adds a certain modern day spice.We are a nation because of our past. In fact, we are *only* a nation because of our collective memory of how and why we have gotten to this particular point in time. This is surely more true of Cymru/Wales than of our eastern neighbour. History with its unique culture shapes our identity. It explains who we are, and why we are somehow ‘different’.
And this is precisely why we in Rhuthun must welcome the £3mil ‘Heather & Hillforts’ project within site of our town centre. History is not a past country, not here, not in Cymru.
And should we perhaps also consider taking a stand against the despoliation by wind farm of that other historic upland, the one west opposite the Clwydians to Rhuthun's west, known as Hiraethog?
Tags:
Clwydian Range