Schama asks if future historians will judge us by Olympics or Brexit
HE IS arguably the country’s most watched historian, but as he collected his knighthood yesterday, Simon Schama was turning his attention to the future.
How would those who followed in his footsteps on TV programmes yet to be made classify the present chapter of British history, he wondered.
“I do hope in a hundred years this won’t be seen as the moment when it all broke apart,” he said.
“I don’t think it will, but it just really shows the unpredictability of history.”
Sir Simon, who is 73, was named in last year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to history.
The Columbia University professor is known for his BBC series A History Of Britain, among numerous other documentaries and books.
After his investiture by the Duke of Cambridge, he said: “We’re going through a very awful period which could conceivably put huge strain on the United Kingdom, particularly on Scotland.”
Comparing the current political climate with the success of London’s Olympic Games in 2012, he added: “If you take as the revelatory moment the Olympic Games just seven years ago – we had a flourishing economy, we were a light to the world. We had gold medallists in every religion and skin colour.
“Odd moments of dysfunction or manufactured political rhetoric can undo that.
“This moment will be a test of those two versions of Britain: the Olympic Britain or Brexit Britain.”
Sir Simon was joined at the Palace by Rosemary Johnson, executive director of the Royal Philharmonic Society, who collected an MBE for services to music.
Leading Seaman Simon Wharton of the Royal Navy was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his daring role in a sea rescue.
He had entered a pitch-black upturned boat to retrieve the body of a fisherman killed when his boat capsized near Plymouth in 2017.