Readers respond to an interview with David Olusoga and notions of history
I spent much of my working life as a psychologist and psychotherapist, helping people come to terms with the uncomfortable and often painful realities of their lives and personal histories. I was therefore struck by parallels with the attitudes to our national history as deftly described by David Olusoga (‘My job is to be a historian. It’s not to make people feel good’, 7 June). The defences are similar: suppression, selective memory, denial, delusion, distortion, myth creation and, for a number of people, grandiosity. In the end, perhaps we as a nation can learn from the experience of individuals who find themselves liberated by finally facing up to difficult realities, past and present.
Nick Barton
Henstridge, Somerset
• David Olusoga says “my job is to be a historian. It’s not to make people feel good.” My grandson, aged 13, recently told me he’d studied the British empire at school. He didn’t like it much: “Too many atrocities!” At least his school is getting it right.
Nicholas Lescure
Headley Down, Hampshire
