In my grammar school days, Ancient History, with it’s epic battles and larger than life characters, always had more appeal for me than the serious, grown-up Social and Economic History from 1750-1865 that we were obliged to study for our O-level with its sober politicians and reformers and its Corn Laws, Factory Acts and Reform Bills.
I couldn’t remember the litany of dates, I still couldn’t tell you when the Metropolitan Commissioner for Sewers was appointed and despite my enthusiasm for history in general, it turned out to be the one subject that I failed.
In Ossett we were surrounded by the tail end of the Industrial Revolution with plenty of textile mills, steam railways and coal mines with five miles of the school but there was no hands-on element to the course it was all classroom based and all taking place elsewhere than on our local patch, which actually had its own local luddites, reformers and innovators.
Unfortunately, to judge from the length of my school exercise book, we got just one term of Ancient History with our class teacher Miss Eaves. I’m still enthusiastic enough about the subject to have taken the University of Reading’s FutureLearn course on Ancient Rome twice, once before our visit there three years ago and, again, to recap after.
