It’s been a long and wearying day, not horrible in any way, just wearying. So, as they said on Blue Peter, ‘here’s something I prepared earlier’:
In junior school I was taught history. It would seem very simplistic now, but it started with what was then thought to be the birth of ‘civilisation’ in the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates (how wonderful and magical those names sounded to me) As far as I remember the next step was the Roman Empire which we were taught reached Britain and discovered there was a small settlement at a crossing place on the River Granta. The Granta still flows (its lower stream is called the River Cam) and the bridge over it gave the settlement its name Grantabridge – which morphed into Cambridge. Cambridge was also at the crossroads of two Roman roads: Akeman Street which led out into the Fens, and Ermine Street, the road to the north. When I was a child, I would cycle along Akeman Street – never realising this narrow urban road was the footprint of the Romans.
I went on to take exams in history, and then to Manchester Polytechnic and got a degree inn English and History – in part thanks to the way I was taught it when i was a small child!
Lois Elsden 