I am a graduate of [Lancaster University] England, where I studied ancient and medieval history. I have a Bachelor's degree with honours in Ancient and Medieval history, with a one unit minor in the study of myth, and am awaiting the results of a Master's degree in Historical Research. My Bachelor's degree covered topics from the fall of the Roman Republic right through until 1500 AD, though I specialised in Imperial Roman history in the Julio-Claudian period. However, I also have a great interest in Celtic, Roman, and Early Medieval Britain. My interests also include early medieval Scandinavia and spent three months studying it at the University of Copenhagen, where I wrote about the political place of pre-Christian Scandinavian religious practice.

I am very interested in the place of religion and spirituality within ancient and pre or early Christian societies, but am not religious myself. I do not look at these religions from a modern or post-reformational Christian viewpoint, but try and view them with the intellectual integrity and independance of the culture in mind, tying to get into the world view of the period, a method which can certainly provide different perspectives if used successfully.

I am interested in the teaching history to schoolchildren, and feel it is one of the most important areas of the curriculum. I am, however, increasingly frustrated at governmental use of history. Governments like history which reaffirms, or justifies their policies or position. But I feel that being a historian is a more than that, it is opening our minds to the past, it is charting the pathway - the map of our existence, and the discipline of history teaches one to explore, analyse and communicate clearly.

To my mind what school history seems to be about cataloguing the events that whichever political party in power considers its legacy to the nation. It covers power and leadership, in much the same manner as the German 19th century school did. Whilst understanding political change is important, so is social development, and although much of school taught history covers such events for the lower age groups, by the time young people are about to leave school they are being taught mainly political and economic history. I believe what is more important is the ability to treat the past in equal terms and importance to the present. I find that today's society is constantly looking forward to where it is trying to get to. It has little interest in where it has been, my question here is: how can you go forward - without knowing where you have been?

It seems like we are burning all our bridges behind us, no return, no looking at the mistakes or successes of the past and learning from them. I sometimes feel that historians have a similar role to that of an elder within a traditional tribe, the repository of a knowledge that is dying! I see all the traditional societies around the world that are suffering this same malaise, and think, 'there's us in another ten generations'. I find it all a little scary and not a little depressing.

I am also of the belief that access to history and historical monuments should be inclusive and that efforts should be made to widen the accessibility - physically, sensorially, academically of historical monuments and artifacts to as wide a group as is possible, regardless of disability or age etc. The question has to be asked, if access is denied to these areas, who's history are we preserving - and why?

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