History?

[chickenfeet]

This is a post that has been kicking around in my head for a while but has been dragged kicking and screaming to the surface by this post from the lovely and thoughtful frumiousb. My reaction to the post was that it was curiously detached. It could have been written about the Peloponnesian War. I couldn't write with that kind of detachment about the Somme or Ypres. It's too close. My grandfather was there. The chapel at school was filled with tablets commemorating the Old Boys who died there.

So, my broader question is "when does history start (or end, if you prefer)?". Is it a matter of time or more to do with some sense of personal connection? There's certainly a sense in which, for me, the Vietnam War is "further away" than WW1 So what says the blogosphere?

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

You realise many of the restaurants quoted in the 1939 Michelin had been reduced to rubble by the time the Allies landed, right? For instance, the Malherbe at Caen (Spécialité: Tripes à la Mode) had completely vanished.

And me Dad wasn't with the 2ème DB but with Patton & the Big Red One.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

My knowledge of which restaurants had stars in the 1939 Michelin is very limited. After all, I rarely say to myself "Oh my God I'm stuck in Caen for the night in 1939, where shall I go for dinner?" Big Red One should have been safe from the lures of Michelin. I don't imagine it covered many hot dog stands.

Oddly enough I think I've only eaten in Michelin starred restaurants in two cities; Geneva and Preston.

"Oh my God I'm stuck in Caen for the night in 1939, where shall I go for dinner?"

[shezan.livejournal.com]

... and how Doctor Who is that, I ask you? *g*

Granted, I was showing off. I specifically researched that when I wrote a piece about that same Michelin Guide for the 40th D-Day anniversary hoopla in the Sunday Times... entirely too long ago for comfort.

From me Dad's account, Patton was not the George C. Scott caricature we know. They got along very well, and he would not have liked a brute; he was himself very quiet & soft-spoken & diplomatic.

Now which Michelin-starred restaurants in Geneva and Preston???

Re: "Oh my God I'm stuck in Caen for the night in 1939, where shall I go for dinner?"

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the name of the place in Geneva. A client took me there.

The place in Preston (just outside actually) was Heathcote's. I've eaten there twice and it really was very good.

Patton seems to have been a bit schizophrenic. Obviously he came from a very wealthy background and had been about a good deal in West Coast society so one assumes his drawing room manner was polished. OTOH the hospital incident is well documented and Marshall came damn near to having him cashiered over it.

Re: "Oh my God I'm stuck in Caen for the night in 1939, where shall I go for dinner?"

[shezan.livejournal.com]

And Patton's wife was apparently absolutely brilliant. I don't know a lot more and alas, my father died in 1987. (And he had Alzheimer's for close on 5 years before that, which was horrible.) There are many questions I wish I'd asked before, and couldn't. He saw the movie when it came out (1971, I think) and the horrible thing is that I don't remember a lot of what he said, except that it was "amusing". At any rate, the incident happened in Sicily in 1943, so well before Patton got to France.

(Looking up things on Google, I see that Patton attended the Ecole de Cavalerie at Saumur. That would have made him a francophone & possibly even a francophile; no hot-dogs for him...)

Re: "Oh my God I'm stuck in Caen for the night in 1939, where shall I go for dinner?"

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

He also competed in Modern Pentathlon at the Olympics. By all accounts Mrs. P was brilliant. His ADC wrote some quite interesting memoirs which are full of stories about Mrs. P. I imagine she had rather a lot to put up with. I'm really not sure what to make of Patton as a man or as a general. It's a pity he never commanded in a situation where he didn't have overwhelming superiority in men and materiel. One might have a better idea of whether he was really good or just lucky.

Re: "Oh my God I'm stuck in Caen for the night in 1939, where shall I go for dinner?"

[shezan.livejournal.com]

The Internet being a quicksand for the Born Procrastinators wonderful place, I found a story in which she went after him with a saber, chasing him around their rooms, when he asked her to unpack their cases to fit said saber after she'd been at it the whole morning (http://www.pattonhq.com/unknown/chap03.html). My kind of woman.

Re: "Oh my God I'm stuck in Caen for the night in 1939, where shall I go for dinner?"

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

My kind of woman.

I can see that