In a piece published in the Telegraph in February 2024, former Master Chef and Inside the Factory Host Greg Wallace detailed some of the activities of his week.
One is playing a computer game set in a Britain (or more accurately an England perhaps) of 878 AD. Wallace declares himself an ‘amateur historian’. Perhaps the comment is a little tongue in cheek, but it was picked up by the media.
Its worth recalling that one of Britain’s most well known post-1945 historians E P Thompson who was born just over a 100 years ago in1924 also fits, for the most part, the description.
Thompson spent most of the 1950s and early 1960s working for the University of Leeds teaching evening classes for adult students across West and North Yorkshire. While he combined this with doing the research for what became the Making of the English Working Class, he was also focusing on English literature. His later work on William Blake and his published fiction and poems underlines the point.
He took up a post in the mid-1960s as the Director of the new Centre for Social History at Warwick and stayed there until 1971. These were the only years when he was employed full time as a professional historian.
After 1971 he did take up visiting Professorships from time to time,but mostly worked an independent scholar, writer and activist.
Its a world away from Gregg Wallace who said that he had overshared and was upset at the ridicule his daily routine had been subject to:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68227821
A reminder that we shouldn’t sneer at the amateur historians, whatever their interests.. Showing interest in any aspect of the past can add perspective and perhaps a degree of self awareness too. Unfortunately in the case of Gregg Wallace it hasn’t worked
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