Pop Vultures

Excuse me for getting all intellectual on your collective asses this week, but I have for once been indulging in some television which actually has redeeming educational value. I know! I was shocked too. Don’t worry, I’m still hooked on Britain’s Next Top Model and I have yet to find a better ironing companion than Beauty and the Geek. But nevertheless, this week, my television has actually taught me things of social and historical worth.

A History of Modern Britain is a documentary series looking at events in British history since the end of World War Two. It is presented by Andrew Marr, a man so clever that, as Jonathan Ross once pointed out, he could be Stephen Fry’s phone-a-friend. The first episode, which is still up for grabs on the good old iPlayer, looks at the immediately post-war years and could quite legitimately have been presented as ‘a long list of things Plattie didn’t know about her own country.’

Amongst the many, many things I did not know are facts like: in 1947 we almost starved to death, en masse; we only paid off our war debts to the American government in December 2006; we had food rationing until 1954; the Marshall Plan was directly involved in enabling us to set up the NHS; and, in the years immediately following the war, London was ‘rife with armed gangs and feral children.’ Feral children!

What I love about this programme is that it is full of interesting little details like this. It’s not just a dry recitation of historical facts and dates, but a lively and enthusiastic examination of what life was like for people in our very recent past. In North Korea, our army was so badly supplied that they had to throw tins of processed cheese at approaching North Korean troops, in the hope that they would mistake them for grenades. That’s the sort of fact that would have massively enlivened history lessons for me, instead of having to draw endless diagrams of Motte and Bailey Castles. Plus, Andrew Marr scatters these gems of historical insight throughout his narrative in a way I find endlessly engaging.

Next episode we’re into the 1950s, and I am looking forward greatly to finding out yet more stuff I didn’t know about my own country. Join me in a magnificent journey of discovering our own expansive ignorance.

A History of Modern Britain airs Saturday night, BBC2, 8pm, or on the iPlayer any time you fancy it.