A blast for the past

Crouching professorially over a lectern, Stephen Fry held forth last week on the subject of history. He was delivering a somewhat overblown dissertation to launch a campaign to "raise awareness of the importance of history in our everyday lives and encourage involvement in heritage in England and Wales". The campaign, with the oddly childish slogan "History Matters - pass it on", is sponsored by the National Trust, English Heritage and every other heritage organisation of note, and aims, among other things, to get one million people to wear a badge saying that history matters to them. "Some people sense in our world, even if they can't prove it, a new and bewildering contempt for the past," Fry said. "In the high street of life, as it were, no one seems to look above the shop-line. Today's plastic signage at street level is the focus; yesterday's pilasters, corbels and pediments above are neither noticed nor considered, save by what some would call cranks and conservationists."

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