Day 73: ‘What we’re missing out on’

I WENT to Newark today for a press meeting to talk about one of my clients’ work restoring the Magnus Buildings and building the brand new National Civil War Museum.

For two reasons I found this trip particularly interesting. 

Firstly, Newark is frickin beautiful!

It was a gorgeous Spring morning to be making the trip anyway, but the approach into the town from the A617 is idyllic. With Newark Castle on your right as soon as you get there, and then the old pretty buildings, nice little cafes, the Palace Theatre and the quaint little shops. 

It’s the perfect place to go and have a stroll and some lunch at the weekend, and it’s not so far away. 

Now I’ve been to Whitby, Harrogate, Cheltenham and Derbyshire towns like Bakewell and Matlock a number of times in the past ten years, so why on earth do I miss these local gems? 

I was speaking to someone the other day who has lived in Nottinghamshire almost all their life, but never been to Newstead Abbey or Nottingham Castle. Is that strange, or is just complacency?

I’m guessing most people who live in London have, at some point or other, popped down the road to see Liz at Buckingham Palace, or shimmied on over to Madame Tussauds to have their pic taken groping David Beckham’s wax butt cheeks. So why do we sometimes ignore what’s around us?

My second observation today came from speaking to the marketing manager from the National Civil War Centre. He was telling me how significant Newark was in the English Civil War, in fact it was sieged three times, with one in six homes being destroyed by the conflict. 

Now I was doing a lot of nodding and smiling, and I have some basic understanding of the English Civil War - you know, the Roundheads and Royalists etc, but I could have told him significantly more about the family history of Peppa Pig! 

Embarrassingly for our education system, I’m certain that will be the case for so many others. Surely our own civil war should play a key part in the National Curriculum? 

Maybe it’s a part of our history that has traditionally been suppressed by those in power, but from what I have learned just today, there’s so much we don’t know about our own history, that perhaps we should.