Andrew Marr's History Of Modern Britain-2007

Post-War Britain is about to come dramatically to life in a major TV history by Andrew Marr.



There is no unbiased history; or at least no history that is both unbiased and interesting. History is always written, or filmed, from a standpoint.



Any historian is affected by their time of birth, geography, education, political prejudices and temperament. This is particularly true for a contemporary history, such as my new History of Modern Britain, the BBC series and the fat book with it.

I\'m a BBC voice and I try very hard, therefore, to avoid party political bias. More than that, I wanted to tell the story of this country since 1945 in a way that was open to as many viewers as possible - asking questions, reminding, provoking, rather than laying down the law.



This is history, but it\'s only just history. I was acutely conscious that almost everything I talk about was lived through, up close, by people who will be watching or reading. It\'s their story.



My job was to weave countless \"theirs\" into one \"our story\", which is bound to be contentious, and should be.So, to take some examples, I talk about the disgust many people felt for the post-war diet, particularly the unpopular imported tinned fish snoek; yet there will probably be people still alive who thought that actually, snoek was rather nice.



I talk about a country brimming with hope in 1945, which seems to me a reasonable summary of all of I\'ve read. But lots of people will have been grimly pessimistic. The nearer you come in time, the more contested every statement is bound to seem.

Who was really to blame at the Orgreave confrontation between police and miners?



My take on the Bloody Sunday shootings will inevitably infuriate some people, including people who were there, either in the army or on the streets.



Then there are the less thunderous questions. Was David Bowie really a gender-bending revolutionary, or do I treat him too seriously?



And is it fair to mock Eighties big-hair music quite as aggressively?



Everywhere I go to film, from the awful murder of James Bulger in Bootle, to the ships of the Falklands task force, or the control room from where the 7/7 London bombings were dealt with, or Alexandra Palace, where the 14-hour technicolour rave erupted, I\'m stepping on people\'s memories and lives.



This isn\'t medieval history, or Tudor history. It\'s us.



Andrew Marr- 18 May 2007