CONNECTING WITH THE PAST

I’ve been reading a novel located in the late 1940s and early 1950s*, the era when my own parents were starting out on their adult lives and the era into which I was born. I remember the cold, harsh living conditions, frumpy clothes, threadbare carpets, cheap toys and foggy streets of my 1950s London childhood. I also recall the things that couldn’t be talked about: war experiences, money, sex, emotions, desires - all of which made conversation with adults rather stilted. Other families will have had different experiences in different cultures and different places, but reading this book tells me that my family was far from unusual. The post-war era was for many a grim period in British life - a sad time for parents and a difficult time to be a child.

It’s a bit of a cliché that we older people like talking about our past, but I think there are several good reasons for this. The obvious one is that there is simply more of the past to talk about, and less of the future to wonder about. For some older people, living in the past is an attempt at escape: preferable to visit past moments of glory than live in a blighted present or a dreaded future.

Sentimentality and nostalgia are other reasons to connect backwards: at best, an inner TV screen of warmth, comedy and happiness even if there's some self-delusion there. Similarly, the re-working of painful past experiences can lift burdens off old shoulders. Why not reimagine past foibles with a happier ending? For me, reaching back into the past is usually about discovering the path that has got me to old age, wanting to join up the dots like those puzzles in children’s magazines that reveal a recognizable picture in the end. At this age, some kind of linear biography feels important, even if some of the story is more an emotional truth than a factual one.

And yet “the past is a foreign country” as has famously been said. I look back as much in bewilderment as joy. Was that really me? Therapy has done a great job of connecting me with unfinished, incomprehensible, aspects of my past but I’ve done enough of that kind of connecting. I want to join up the dots now in a more detached way – trying to gain a sense of being part of the bigger picture, not just for my own life but as a very tiny part of the history of humanity.

There are now ways to reach back further than we ever could before, through genealogy and genetic heritage tracing. Any of us can trace our history through easy-to-navigate websites or, if digitally challenged, get someone else to do it. Who knew that two of my Victorian ancestors would turn out to have died in the workhouse (a discovery that made me cry). Or that my genes belong to a haplogroup migrating from East Africa to Arabia 35,000 years ago (I had to look up what a haplogroup was). It makes a difference to be able to see my own small life in historical context, just as it is good to know that those same genes have a future after I am gone.

I’ve recently had the experience of being around young people in their first years of parenting. So many things have changed for the better. Furnishings, toys and clothes are a-plenty these days; warmth happens at the touch of a button; air is (relatively) clean and it seems there is nothing that cannot be talked about. Current parental preoccupations include juggling childcare with work, keeping physically and mentally fit, managing cars, houses, health and education for the whole family, including a generation needing elder care, and finding the money to do this. A more materially prosperous existence, but with its own concerns. These young people did their best to connect with me across the generations, and I could easily relate to all that is eternal about childcare. My inner 30-year-old self marvelled at, and remembered, the abundant energy, excitement and love that surrounds friends, partners and children at this age, even if I also recollect the weariness of sleepless nights, monotonous play, endless cleaning and shopping. I listened with warmth and appreciation, but inside I was also connecting to my 70-year-old peer group whose different histories, both economic and psychological, give my own generation very different stories from very different times.

The Jewish people say “Never forget the past”: keep the learnings from history alive. But I wonder whether older people always need to keep their individual pasts alive. It may not be the holocaust, but I remind myself to respect those who went before: don’t forget the previous generations who had it tough; don’t forget cold and hunger; don’t forget senseless cruelty towards children. I don’t want these things to be remembered with a sense of grievance, simply that it’s important to know where we’ve all come from. The current generation of young parents can absolutely have their age of prosperity, with my love and with my blessing, and it’s good to feel that we had a part in creating that prosperity. But reading a book about an earlier time makes me realise that honouring the past and connecting it to the present, is as important as enjoying a good meal with a friend or climbing a mountain.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies: John Boyne