Historical and Revisionist

Well, it's been an amazing run so far, and it shows no signs of letting up. Yesterday I met the charming NMS coordinator who took me on a guided tour of the new museum and gave me ideas on what to say when I have to brief the docents later this year. She showed me how the museum now divides some of its exhibits into an Events Path and a Personal Path, thus covering both the macro-history of national and international events and the micro-history of personal triumph and tragedy. It's a lovely blend of two visions (or maybe, as Eliot would have said, 'visions and revisions').

Somehow, I have slipped into the family profession and am now some kind of historian.

At the same time, I'm digging up family history in archaeological style as I unearth treasures such as my male ancestor's first appointment letter from that creaky and venerable institution where he worked for about 45 years. Also the anniversary card that he bought but somehow forgot to give to my mother. Hmm.

It's things like this which remind one that official histories and personal histories may not always go together. Slowly, the web that is crafted may combine both, and they may join at points, but what comes out in the books about the big things is always not the same as what the diaries and journals and letters say.

I am fortunate, as they say, to have got my licks in before the bar came down. The official histories, to some extent, have my fingerprints on them. The subsequent revisionism cannot take that away. In fact, it is amusing to see the errors and inanities that crop up when the clumsy figure of the bumbling censor doddles and doodles its way across the ages of the pages as it tries to reinvent the truth. More on this later, I think.