Sitting on a cornflake

Finding hope within the history books

Jun 15, 2025

This year the world has felt the most unstable I think it ever has within my lifetime - certainly the most in my adult cognisant lifetime. I am an eternal optimist, but as I read the news headlines day after day, sometimes I cannot help but despair alongside those that share my cosy liberal echo chamber while fearing for what our future generations will inherit. Even in the days it has taken me to get this essay together, I have looked on aghast at disasters, humanitarian crises and the increasing simmering tension of another potential full scale war. In the midst of what can feel like an ever darkening cloud, I found a silver lining somewhere I least expected.

Opening the History Books

On the drive back from a family party in Glasgow last weekend, with my crochet blanket finished and no more wool to occupy myself with, I asked my youngest daughter, Taz, if she wanted me to test her for any of her upcoming GCSEs (yes, I was that bored). These are the state exams in the UK at the age of 16, and she had 22 of them. Taz is extraordinarily self-sufficient and has pretty much motored through the whole thing so far by herself. My role has primarily been to fund the requisite stream of coloured highlighters and flashcards, to ensure she has a constant supply of mini-baby-bels, cereal and gluten-free hob nobs, to wake her up in time for her exams, and to check that when she disappears upstairs for hours she is actually doing some revision and hasn’t been totally swallowed by her bed. So far so successful. As a parent with a maths degree, I was hoping that I could actually be of help prior to her maths exam, and set aside the evening to go through past papers with her. That was going to be my defining parenting moment, but I actually ended up spending that night in A&E with my mum who ‘had a fall’. Classic sandwich generation.

Here however, in the car, I was presented with a golden opportunity to ‘BE OF ASSISTANCE’, which is what we (Mothers? Women? Humans?) are hardwired to do. Captive audience, captive teacher. Game on. The topic of interest?

History.

I never studied History. I wouldn’t say it’s a regret, more a huge gap in my knowledge arsenal which I have forever since tried to fill. I chose not to study it on the basis of all my decision making at that age – because I didn’t much like my history teacher. The way it was presented to me had seemed interminably dull, and I concluded that I had no interest in learning anything more about the Bayeux tapestry or the Tudor monarchs ever. And so that particular avenue of learning closed for me…until I became an adult. As an adult I have devoured history books, and historical fiction is my go-to genre. The likes of Jung Chang, Nyguen Phan Que Mai, Arthur Golden and Colm Tóibín have flooded my imagination with stories woven around facts (I find myself particularly drawn to the Far East or Ireland). I’m currently reading ‘The Making of the Modern Middle East: A Personal History’ by Jeremy Bowen and become gripped by historical accounts of anything from the World Wars to the Congo, the representation of women in Ancient Greece to the history of tea. I have so much to learn.

Taz passed me her revision notes, and the topics were juicy to say the least: The Cold War, Vietnam and U.S. Civil Rights. Wow. If that had been on my curriculum, I may well have studied it despite the teacher. Oh, and then she had Anglo Saxons - it seems we still cannot escape that darned tapestry and the only date I remember from my own school history lessons - 1066.

We started off with U.S. Civil Rights. As I began to read through the key moments – the challenging of segregation in schools and on buses, the world changing influence and subsequent assassinations of Martin Luther King and JFK, the brutal murder of Emmet Till and the murders of civil rights workers in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan, I read a streaming narrative of hate and polarisation, violations of human rights and violence…but also of opposition, protest, love, strength and change. Radicalisation gave way to landmark freedoms as actions began to have real consequences. People came together to fight for their rights and the rights of others, and (to an extent) won. In our current frame of reference of social media, proliferation of hate speech, trolling and, polarisation, it was strangely reassuring to see the extent to which it has happened before, and what followed. For a period of time, love even seemed to prevail.

As we moved onto the subject of The Cold War and the post WW2 events that led to it, Taz and I talked through a world on the brink of nuclear war, power crazed despots, uprisings and full scale invasions. Terms such as ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’, (literally ‘MAD’) and the construction of hard borders; policies based on fear and displays of might; threats, blockades, brinksmanship and imperialism. It felt alarmingly familiar. But again, history shows us that these cycles roll in, and they roll out. The Cuban Missile Crisis was averted, and that era of conflict ultimately passed. When I was Taz’s age, the news was abound with terms such as ‘Glasnost’, a word which symbolised openness, transparency and freedom. Shortly after I turned 17 I watched the Berlin Wall come down alongside the emergence of global peace movements, although clearly elsewhere [including domestically and in the country of my heritage (Ireland)] it was still a ‘troubled’ time. While my daughters are growing up aghast at much of what is currently happening in the world, history has taught them not to lose hope.

Sitting on a cornflake

I first felt this hopefulness myself a couple of years ago when I went to see a brilliant show called Sitting on a Cornflake by the wonderful performing folk and blues duo: Brothers Broke.

Brothers Broke are made up of charming and talented Irish twin brothers Tom and Hugh. The show is named after a lyric from The Beatles song ‘I am a Walrus’, and is a delightful journey through the songwriting styles of Lennon and McCartney, packed full of interesting titbits, anecdotes and of course, music. They play acoustically, singing in melodic harmonies and in between the songs, they cleverly weave in the stories of the times. What captivated me apart from the music, was what was happening in the world when Lennon & McCartney were composing these songs. The events Taz was studying provided part of the backdrop to world history in the 1960s, and her next topic, the Vietnam War, spanned the entire period between 16-year-old John Lennon forming a skiffle band called the Quarryman and inviting his chum Paul McCartney to join, to the dissolution of the Beatles entirely. A notoriously ‘unpopular’ war from the perspective of the U.S. being as it was rife with guerilla warfare tactics, massacres and atrocities, spurred on by the fear of global threat from ‘the Enemy’. There is always an enemy…but again, listening to the Brothers’ words felt wonderfully hopeful - a reminder of the millions of people who champion and fight for peace, as the zeitgeist is reflected in lyrics over time. One minute it’s the Cuban Missile Crisis influencing their writing, the next it’s the Summer of Love.

[As an aside we had a lovely beer with Hugh and Tom after the show and also saw their follow up When Judas met John comparing John Lennon and Bob Dylan. They are just the nicest guys, andare playing Edinburgh festival this year and if you can get in there to see them here or at any of their other shows - I highly recommend!]

I have always known that we cycle through periods of being at the whims of psychopathic and maniacal leaders, followed by periods of peace, yet re-learning how bad it has been, makes me feel so much more positive about what may come, even though it may not come for a while. Just this very morning I have woken up to missiles being fired between Iran and Israel, a desperate display of ‘might’ by Donald Trump, continued devastation in Ukraine and the most appalling ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but the flickers are there. Millions have gathered across the U.S. to defend democracy and peacefully protest the destruction of the values upon which democracies are built. Underneath the horrors there are perhaps indications of a turning of the tide. What will happen next is indeed uncertain, and can often feel frightening, but there is always hope.

And as for Taz? Well her exam went ‘ok’, and I’ve convinced her she needs to continue her education with some of my favourite films including Mississippi Burning, Platoon and the heart-wrenchingTill. Even though her ADHD presents a challenge to her sitting through an entire film, I think if anything will capture her, these will. What I especially love is that her history GCSE has opened up a thirst for knowledge and a passion for understanding how the way the world has been influences the way the world is now. She will take History into further education with an A-level syllabus that incorporates Mao’s China and the Lennin to Yeltsin period of Russia. I cannot wait to help her revise again.

Just don’t start me on the Anglo Saxons.