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Visits to and Thoughts on History, Heritage, and the Future

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I recently visited Nor wich castle museu m, the first time in over t wo decades, and the first time since the extensive refurbishment and "true-to-Norman-lifing" of the castle keep. The first pertinent aspect of the refurbishment is the prominent addition of a collection of mid-late t wentieth century teapots in the "teapot gallery", which has al ways displayed Georgian and Victorian teapots, including a collection of Lo westoft teapots, which are my particular interest, as I collect Lo westoft porcelain myself. This addition is exactly what, from the perspective of this blog, I want to see in history and heritage - the communication that "these things are still relevant, we still use them; and, in fact, the change in style is because art, including the practical art of porcelain, has al ways been a way of communicating key ideas of their culture; carefully elaborate, highly ornate porcelain speaks of a culture which values femininity, a culture in which weal...
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Touch Rock, Not Grass: The Mental Health of Heritage and Heresy

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Heritage might not seem to offer a logical link to  World Mental Health Day. Heresy certainly doesn't. But I'm someone who is actually diagnosed as "insane" - I have schizophrenia. That was diagnosed in 2007, and I had 12 years of various forms of prescription medication until, in 2019, circumstances sa w me studying for a degree in naturopathy and natural medicine ( which, like so many people with degrees, I have, but don't use); ever since, I've been managing my symptoms through naturopathy, up until the last year or so, when I've had to begin bringing prescription-e quivalent over the counter medications into the mix, because the disturbing, problematic symptoms were significantly escalating. Schizophrenia, for me, means I see patterns where, perhaps, they shouldn't be, rather than where they aren't . They're there, even if only because they're there for me . And I see links to mental health in both heritage and heresy, when the t w...
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We Can't Save Everything (and we shouldn't)

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  "Heritage".  It's one of those  words that is held to be "intrinsic to Britishness". It's what a wide range of people, from completely opposed parts of the socio-political spectrum, claim to be "passionate" about. Most recently, it's found itself caught up in increasingly unhinged screaming matches over " woke-ness." People cry that we're "losing our heritage" to building, including necessary infrastructure and future-resilient development. They react against "progress" as something that is inevitably and unavoidably worse than "our history!" Often, they feel very sensitive if that history doesn't sho w the communities and cultures they feel strongly connected with in a good light, or excludes them entirely. Yet volunteering is in sharp decline in the UK - and heritage has one of the largest dra ws on volunteer labour. Heritage is both criticised for being too narro w in its focus, but al...
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