LIKE IT USED TO WAS

Who remembers sweets called Spangles? And did you ever get mumps? How about being belted in the shin by your bike pedals? And remember school dinners with. . . ok, enough already. Countless silly prompts like this pop up on social media sites dedicating themselves to “British Nostalgia”. “Do you remember tape cassettes?” Of course I dowhat am I, a toddler? Fond memories are one thing but this fetishising of all things past leaves me cold.

I recall a TV programme years ago in which Americans who had chosen to settle in the UK discussed the differences between the two countries. Someone cited the British love of nostalgia, noting the successful “Memory Lane” brand of cakes and the ‘just-like-the-olden-days’ tone in much of British advertising. It was suggested that such campaigns would be less successful in the US where customers tend towards what’s new and exciting rather than emulating what their grandparents had.

The thing is, though, when we eulogise a past era we can be sure that those who lived at that time were doing exactly the same thing concerning their own ‘golden’ period, a few decades earlier. TV shows like Downton Abbey (and its forerunner Upstairs Downstairs) rhapsodise the elegance of the Edwardian period - all silk parasols and Hugh Bonneville in a teagown (don’t ask me, I never watched it). But the sumptuous era portrayed in these programmes was actually a time of acute anxiety (not to mention appalling poverty). Much of Edwardian art and literature romanticised instead the preIndustrial age when life was essentially rural and perceived as simpler.

We’re all partial to wistful recollections, since remembering past years and those who populated them gives warmth to our lives in the present. But like scurvy and the Carry On films, not everything should be welcomed back. Fixating on how life once was doesn’t only let in the cake sellers, it also presents a tantalising mirage of a time we didn’t witness but of whose appeal we can be persuaded.

This matters because therein lies today’s ‘populism’, demanding a return to an era (always one not too long ago) before things went off the rails. Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra would have been no more than a vacuous slogan without the ignition of that fourth word. To today’s millions struggling financially, a return to some unspecified shimmering age is a seductive proposition. But it’s an implanted memory, an illusion.

Brian White lives in south Indre with his wife, too many moles and not enough guitars

Similarly, seven years ago Britain’s exit from the European Union was achieved largely by persuading millions of voters that the past was more illustrious and it was imperative we “take back control”. Paradoxically, this strategy relied on many people having scant knowledge of the history they were being urged to defend. The endless regurgitating of World War 2 references evoked ‘the Dunkirk spirit’ and the Battle of Britain despite neither event seeming to support the Leave campaign’s message. The evacuation of British troops at Dunkirk was greatly aided by French forces and – despite the many myths woven around it since – represented a humiliating defeat. Conversely, the Battle of Britain, with some 16 nationalities among the pilots, was a powerful endorsement of international cooperation, (although this didn’t stop prominent ‘Leave’ figures posing in front of a Spitfire). I also recall a voter lamenting to a TV reporter, “We used to have an Empire!”. This was the Union Flag as comfort blanket and – to me - made Britain sound like a country obsessed with its own past.

Whether you believe Brexit to be (a) a glittering step forward (b) an opportunity mishandled or (c) a ruinous fiasco, is beside the point (spoiler: it’s ‘c’). My contention is simply that tapping into a peculiarly British nostalgia was decisive in getting the ‘Leave’ vote over the line. Forward to the past!

Obviously, those social media sites I mentioned are just sentimentality - all gobstoppers and Enid Blyton - but nostalgia can be much more potent and easily weaponized. George Orwell (of course) warned that he who controls the present can shape what we believe about the past in order to determine our future. Every society has those who agitate for a return to an imagined time when the solutions to life’s complexities were more straightforward and the future could be reached through an idealised past. However, it’s a fantasy and often simply a licence to scapegoat minorities and launch an assault on individual rights. A country’s self-image can sometimes be built on an illusion and the fake allure of days gone by. Tragically, in this eternal tug-of-war, although the past can no longer defeat us, we can still lose to it.

And surely that really is something worth remembering.