The Unknown King of Dumb Britain

[callmemadam]

A few weeks ago there was a question on University Challenge: which king was the father of the present Queen and Princess Margaret? No one knew. I related this in horror to a highly educated person who also claimed not to know. This afternoon I heard Steve Wright, obviously reading what someone else had written, declare that in the late eighteenth century King George VI popularized Brighton as a watering place. Words fail me.



King George VI 1937 – 1952

Here he is with Prince Charles. This is said to be the Queen's favourite photograph.

Comments

[aellia.livejournal.com]

How strange that they didn't know!
I think that would be one of my favourite photos,too.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Lovely, isn't it? Especially as the king died so soon afterwards.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Well, well. I never knew the old King was a time traveller.

Sounds like it should be the plot line of new Hollywood sequel-to-the-franchise "The Madness Of George 4"...

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yes, I remember reading that. Saw the play with Nigel Hawthorne, BTW, very moving.

[cornflowerbooks.livejournal.com]

How could they not know? By the way, I'm looking forward to the film "The King's Speech".

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Incredible, isn't it?
Me too. Colin Firth!

[(Anonymous)]

I truly cannot believe it, though I recently read a piece on how young Brits don't know a lot of history. It's odd because I always thought that the education system was so great over there, and that especially history and literature were known by everyone.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

History teaching seems to be all about the twentieth century. Young people know more about Hitler and Stalin than they do about their own country.
You can get a brilliant education here - if you pay for it. Literature known by everyone? *hollow laugh*.

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

It was the same when I was doing my O Levels in the mid-80s - I wanted to do history, but it was all WWII, so I did geography instead.

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's always possible that Steve Wright just can't read Roman numerals....

But I was amazed that no one knew that on UC too.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! I switched off soon afterwards so I don't know if there was a correction. Doubt it, as Wrighty is a bit touchy.

I'm constantly amazed by the things they don't know on UC and it's not just because I'm so old; these are things I would certainly have known at their age.

Nice icon!

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

That's why I listen to Ken Bruce but not Steve Wright - Ken laughs at himself pretty much constantly.

I didn't have a Brighton one!

[(Anonymous)]

The lack of knowledge saddens but doesn't surprise me.
The teaching of history is one of the casualties of modern teaching methods - if it doesn't happen in the two world wars it barely gets touched on, so unless a pupil is either interested enough to read further themselves or gets information from elsewhere, there will be huge swathes of history that are almost completely unknown to them.
Not entirely the problem of the state system though - I have a nephew and niece who were expensively educated and are still thick as bricks - and a client who was involved in a development project in York which necessitated a lengthy archaeological dig was absolutely insistant that the Romans came after the Vikings! Not sure what the history teacher at his VERY BIG NAME public school would have made of that!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Good grief!

[susievereker.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

How appalling. Had better test my own offspring. One of my favourite books as a child was The Little Princesses!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Is that the one written by Crawfie? I did read it once, but not when I was that young!