'If I Remember Correctly!'

I have created this blog to highlight my latest book 'If I Remember Correctly' A History of England writing solely from memory, no research, Googling or Wikipedia peeking. Let me explain!

This book will contain, if I remember correctly, a light-hearted approach to all that I can recall about English History, Legend, and Literature.  I decided to embark of this voyage of remembering when I was sat sipping tea in a lovely little street café in Montmartre. Well, there, you see, my memory have failed me quite early. It wasn’t Montmartre, it was Hastings in Sussex, and I wasn’t sipping I was gulping from a large mug. The lovely little café is correct though.

Anyway, we, and I mean six or so grumpy old men, were on the topic of History when one of them said they couldn’t remember something about a certain period on history. I then started on a stream of consciousness recounting events and tales of the period. I surprised my companions as well as myself because I had no idea that I had all that information stored in my ancient brain.

It was on the back of that conversation that I decided to write a History of England entirely from what I recollect without using any formal research, no sneaky checking on Wikipedia or surreptitiously googling. I have always felt that research is the most boring part of writing, so I have discarded it. All I have at hand is a list of monarchs solely for continuity. I am sure I might miss out lumps and chunks of pertinent history and may well be poo-pooed by historians if historians actually say poo! I am not expecting to give out all the information about the times I will cover but I intend and hope that any stories and tales I pen will have a truthful core. I have decided that at certain pertinent points I will inspect my crystal ball and produce here and there, a comedic scenario by introducing a fictitious family called The Sanscervelle’s to explain what may have actually taken place during some of the more famous periods in History. You will probably notice that Sanscervelle is French for Brainless, you will find out why I named them that. I have also decided to drag from my memory everything I can remember about English Legend and Literature. I will write it with as much solemnity and hilarity as I can conjure up.

            Well, how do I start…I shall start with a little bit of pre-history move through the various epochs using no research, no googling, no Wikipedia nothing, just my immense intellect (Yeah, right) and using only a list of monarchs for continuity. I may also use a little humour to bring theses incredible events to life. If I unusually commit any historical errors, please do not hesitate to let me know. I shall ignore them obviously. I would like to dedicate this book to my fusty, ancient brain and hope it’s up to the task at hand.

Let me give you a taster of the book by placing the first chapter here and if you like it then the book is available in Paperback and Kindle on Amazon.

Chapter One

It’s Funny What I Remember of Prehistory

The Ages of Man

I thought I would just add at this juncture and reiterate that I am not trying you show off my knowledge of English History to show how clever I am.  If that were the case, I’d cheat and research. I am just trying to prove that my brain is surprisingly agile for an old one. I promise, NO CHEATING!

If I remember correctly, following the separation of the mega continent Pangaea, continental drift forced the planet’s tectonic plates apart to where they are now, and has the world keeps turning, the plates continue to separate causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the like.

As I said I am writing this book totally from my memory and as there are no written records about this, maybe just myths and as I have no memory of this time let’s hop forward a few millions of years.

Prehistory is defined as the time when no written records were made, wall paintings etc. was the only way they could show of their existence although great strides have been taken in the search for prehistory.

Around nine thousand years ago, the last Ice Age came to an end and the ice that covered the European Continent started to recede and melt and it wasn’t long, it probably was quite a long time, the Atlantic Ocean began to rise with the melt water and eventually flooded the lowlands.

It separated the North-West peninsular of the Continent from the rest of Europe. This global catastrophe formed, as a separate entity, the British Isles et al!  Well it was either melt water or someone left a tap running!

Anyway, as the water was gradually rising, animals and people crossed back and forth.

Soon the land turned to marsh and massive lagoons formed and this gradually stop the toing and froing. The waters crashed through that small gap that was England and the Continent and what was in one place remained and what wasn't stayed where it was.

You can imagine people making their way back and forth across the marsh land hunting and foraging until it started to get rather difficult. It was at that point that knee-jerk decisions had to be made.

We can see Mr and Mrs Ancient Celtic standing on temporarily dry land somewhere near what is now Dogger Bank.

“We must decide now,” shouts Mr Celtic, “carry on or go back!”

“What about my mother?” replies Mrs Celtic, “we can’t just leave her!”

Mr Celtic continued arguing with his wife as the water lapped around his knees. He suggested leaving her where she was as they were going to be enough snarling beasts where they were going.

Although now separated by what would be called the North Sea and the English Channel (Much to the annoyance of the French, they call it the Mange Tout or something, or is that just flat peas?).

The language of most of Europe, and at that time, in what was to become England, was Celtic.

This remained across the board until invasion and incursion forced the Celtic speakers further west and north until Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Manx, Cornwall and Wales retained a form of the Celtic language.

This common language initially helped trade flourish and as time went on jealousy, deceit and all the other traits of the human being came to the fore. If they believed in any idea of deity, it was localized to the forest, rivers, mountains, and such. England got a good deal when the sea separated it from the Continent.

It inherited the lush forests, fish-filled rivers from the plentiful northwest corner of the continent and plenty of game to fill the biggest of bellies. This new country went through periods of change and experiences.

Prehistoric peoples at that time lived a very frugal, hand to mouth existence. They were hunters and gatherers who were constantly on the move following herds of animal and the seasons growth.

Their first great find was Fire! This enabled them to find warmth and protection from wild animals that were hunting them, and it also gave them the means of cooking their rather tough old fare. How did they find fire, a stray spark from flint-knapping onto dry grass, or a lightning strike, who knows?

During the first period called the Stone Age they used stone tools, literally used a stone as a tool. They knapped flint to give a sharper edge to their cutting tools and weapons. This had been the ways for a couple of million years until the skills of making bronze changed all this.

Well, the Bronze Age slowly melted into the Iron Age and life continued, people slowly turned from being Hunter-Gatherers into Farmers. They decided that running about the countryside chasing wild animals for food was tiring and, at times, dangerous. This was a time when your lunch sometimes had you for lunch.

It was a time when decisions had to be made regarding feeding the tribes. Despite fatalities and near misses when hunting, it was the only way they knew.

It was also decided that changes to their way of life had to be made. It was agreed that a few could still hunt and gather but the majority started to organise areas of cultivation, clearing forests and planting seeds. They also found that keeping animals in pens or on rope leads was better than running after them. How did they do it?

As we look back through the mists of time when tribes of nomadic tribesmen, were wandering… nomadically through the giant forests, we come across a tribe of our ancestors. Let’s call the tribe the Sanscervelle’s for no other reason than I like the name. It seems they decided to settle down and stop wandering. After a few days, they are hungry and thirsty and one of the tribesmen, Grunte the Clever, turned to the chieftain, Thicke the Not-So-Clever.

“I say, O Great Leader.” The rest of the tribe were in awe of Grunte, mainly they admired the way he could talk to Thicke and call him ‘Great Leader’ without laughing himself silly. He went on.

“I believe, O Great One, that the reason we are hungry and thirsty is due to the abrupt change in our lifestyle from hunter-gatherers to sitter-downerers doing sod all!”

Thicke pondered this for a moment and then stood up and faced his tribe. “Friends, Nomads, the gods have spoken to me and have decreed that the reason we are hungry and thirsty is because we have changed rather too...”

“Abruptly,” said Grunte quietly.

“Abruptly, yes, from hunter-gatherers to um”

“A Latin-American Formation Dance Team,” said Grunte. “To a Latin…what? Thicke looked at Grunte bewildered.  Grunte stood up.

“What our Great and Wonderful Leader is saying,” began Grunte, “is that we must become, er, what shall we call ourselves, Farmers, that seems a good word for it. We must clear this ground and till the soil, plant the seeds and tend them and when they are ripe, we must harvest and store them.”

A man, Moana the Argumentative, piped up from the back. “Sounds like a lot of hard work to me, why don’t we go back to hunting and gathering. Maybe we don’t want to become…Framers?”

“Farmers! It will be a lot of hard work,” said Grunte. “But it will be worth it in the end, no longer will we have to live hand to mouth, we will be a community, we can build ourselves houses and raise animals and then we can live in peace, what could be better than that.”

Moana piped up again. “Hunting and gathering.”

This also gave them the time to build baffling monuments like Stonehenge and Avebury Circle and The Shard, but not the Shard obviously. I wonder how it went!

After a little more debate and the strange death of Moana the Argumentative, the tribe began to prepare the ground.

The years pass and we find them in the village of Thicket.

The chieftain called a meeting and informed the villagers that they must raise a great monument near his house.

Sycophant the Druid stood up and said that Thicke was right; they must raise an edifice to the gods, to thank them for their munificence.

Thicke agreed, but his idea for a monument was not really for the gods.

“We must build a structure of stone, a large structure, big enough for us all,” said Thicke, “somewhere we can talk and relax by the light of the moon. We can put tables and seats and all sorts of things in there.”

Gitte the Quarrelsome, a cousin of Moana the Argumentative, spoke up. “Why can’t we make it out of wood? We’ve got stacks of wood; the nearest stone is miles away. Sounds like a lot of hard work to me.”

Grunte the Clever then spoke. “It has to be made of stone, then it will last for millennia, people will look at it and wonder.”

“Yes,” said Gitte, “they’ll wonder why these idiots went miles out of their way to carve out and haul great blocks of stone to build it when they were surrounded by stacks of wood.”

After a little debate and the strange death of Gitte the Quarrelsome, the tribe prepared to go into the wilds of Wales to collect the stones. It took years for the great monoliths to be erected.

Many designs were discussed; square, oblong, triangular, what was the best configuration! All the options were looked at and the villagers decided that a circle of stones, with a stone on top was the best of them. Twatt the Cantankerous, a cousin of Moana the Argumentative and Gitte the Quarrelsome stood up and spoke.

“Okay, a circle of stones, I’ll accept that, but why do you want to put stones on top, it sounds like a lot of hard work to me.”

Grunte the Clever began to sharpen his knife and he looked at Twatt. “We want to put stones on top because we want to.” He threw his knife, and it stuck in a tree inches from Twatt’s head. “Any arguments?”

Twatt shook his head. So, there we have it, Stonehenge was not a place of worship for druids or a landing platform for intergalactic flying saucers, or any other of the ideas that have been or are being bandied about.

It was, and still is, some sort of unfinished conservatory for those balmy evenings just after the Ice Age, when the Celtic chieftain would invite his friends and family around for a postprandial chat and a glass of whatever passed for wine in those days… wine probably.

It is fantastic to think, that all of those centuries or even millennia ago, some bright spark had the idea of adding to ones property to enhance its value on the market.

When you consider that if you wanted a house in those days, you just had to collect a few sticks and some cow dung and you could have your own beautiful home with all the comforts of the era in which you lived, plague, marauding robbers, and the constant smell of cow crap. It never occurred to the locals that this was a conservatory because it needed to be glazed and glass was not readily available in this area, so it was really a waste of time. The builders picked up their tools and wandered slowly off into the mists of time leaving us with the mystery that has haunted us for all time, until now that is!

Eventually a hierarchy soon developed and the cream or what passed as the cream rose to the top of the tribe. Various members of the tribe, be they a member of the tribal elite, local wise man or the man with the biggest mouth but more than often the man with the biggest weapon started living in the largest round house and having the best of the food and everything began to command respect.

This respect was of the man, respect of his newly acquired position but also respect for his enormous weapon. They considered themselves the chief of the tribe and at a later time thought the title of King was a much better. Everything was fine, except internecine wars with tribe against tribe, cattle raiding, wife raiding and wanting to have whatever someone else had.

This was the life that people led during this time and still now in a few places. I agree, not very interesting, just sitting in your roundhouse, not even a corner to go and hide in and all around the smell of wet straw and animal dung. Topics for discussion would be very limited, gossip not really a thing.

One can imagine those cold smelly nights in mud huts, the conversation would go like this

as they warmed themselves around the fire, they turned to each other and asked. “Well, what’ve you be doing today?”  “Hunting” said one. “Gathering” said the other.

“Good, good, what you doing tomorrow? “Hunting” said one.

“Gathering I expect” said the other.

Conversation soon drifted away with the smoke from the fire into the ether. Silence descended and eyes returned to the glowing embers. I would imagine, with a life expectancy of around 25-30 years, the end must have been sudden and probably in mid-sentence.

We now move silently into the mists of time when people got along quite well (they didn’t) until two Celtic brothers were strolling along the sea cliff edge and spied many large ships heading for the beach and run off to tell their chief.