Our education system is/was appallingly England-centric, a.
Utterly agree - I went to school in Wales.
This is the extent of what we were taught about "Wales" in the 5 years I was there.
"in AD 60, a Roman General came up with a cunning plan, and was thus able to invade Anglesey" (the Teacher didn't even have in her text book, or apparantly, the capacity to research what she was blankly droning out at us and make it more interesting - like for example the fact that the proper modern name for the island is Ynys Mon, and in Roman Conquest times, it was known as "Mona")
ooh, she also forgot to mention that Mona was the Vatican of Britannia, the religious centre of Druidic / Pagan Britain, and the Romans were so desparate to invade it, because it was the last Druid stronghold, and as the Druids were inspiring British Warriors into remarkable actions, and causing major damage to the Roman War Machine, they were determined to exterminate them. This is likely why we have all these claims of mass ritual sacrifice, mass murder, etc for death magic, sacrifice to the Gods etc, yet no such ritual site, which would surely contain hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies in mass graves have been found - one would imagine such rituals would take place in an important Place of Ritual, not at random parts of the countryside
That was it - a Welsh classroom, and that was the only bit on "Wales" we did, and it wasn't even Wales back then.
No mention of sources of pride, or our remarkable history of course, like the fact that William the ******* and his Norman Chaps pretty much took the entirety of the Kingdom of England in 1 battle, but took over 200 years to fully invade, defeat and occupy tiny old Cymru.
No mention of Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) and that that even around the 9th century, Hywel codified the ancient Celtic/British laws, and creating fair legislation - Women in Wales, as were Women in Eire under the similar ancient Brehon Law, were treated better and fairer under the justice system, than Women in many Countries of the world right now, such as Saudi Arabia.
No mention of the Last Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndwr and the Welsh War of Independence, which with more help from France, and the lack of certain bad decisions later, maybe some better timing and he would have been successful.
Glyndwr and the WWI seem to be pretty much ignored by most fiction and non fiction writers, even in Wales, yet it's hell of a tale, the Lord who rebels, declares himself Prince, due to his royal blood, and right to be King of Gwynedd, smashes 3 English Armies which hugely outnumbered him, and brought the King of England to the brink of bankruptcy, utter ruin, and quite possibly all sorts of civil unrest in England, had the last major battle failed, then that is what would have happened.
The thing that I love about the WWI also, is it's connections to other major events of the time period.
After Glyndwr was defeated, the King offered all Welsh War Bowmen Pardons if they joined his Army to go to France, which many accepted. Had they not been offered that, or if enough had refused, could it have affected the outcome of Azincourt? since that famous battle would be depleted of a great many Welsh Archers, who had just spent the last several years waging a Guerrilla War, and thus it seems fair to assume they were incredibly well experienced, and good at their job.
Then there is Sir Dafydd ap Llewelyn ap Hywel (Who is better known as Dafydd Gam, & I think is mentioned by Shakespeare as "Davy Gam".
A lot of historians dispute the Story - citing a lack of Sources, but pretty much every single one of those Archers, formerly fighting for Welsh Independence would have considered Sir Dafydd to be utter vermin, a vile Traitor to his people & his homeland, so they are unlikely to have made up stories of alledged bravery. Sir D, was a Welsh Lord, who was asked by Glyndwr to join the WWI, but refused, as he was a man who kept the Oaths he made, and he had made an Oath of Loyalty to Henry V. According to the stories, at Azincourt, a French Noble, The Duke of Alencon, and his Men, made what was effectively a suicide attack, charging their Cavalry into the English Lines, smashed their way through, the Duke got within inches of Henry V, swung his weapon, and would have landed a mortal blow on the King had Sir D not lept to the King's defence, and took the mortal wound himself.
There is also talk and dispute that Sir D may have been Knighted as he lay dying.
That's just a tiny piece of fascinating Welsh History, that connects into wider British, English & European History, the same is true for the other Home Nations, stories and times we never heard about, except for the odd, random documentary on BBC4.
Instead in School, what we got for literally the whole of the 5 years after Agricola was WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2, WW2.
And not even anything particularly interesting - It's hard to recall back 27 years, to when I was 11/12, but ISTR that it was pretty much exclusively the Holocaust, and the A Bomb. I had a massive, ridiculously heavy Tome at home, the "Readers Digest guide to WW2" full of colour pictures, photographs, maps and so on, and I learned far more from that book, than in 5 years of school - IIRC, in School, despite doing Hiroshima etc, we didn't even get told that the plane to drop the first Atomic Bomb was the Enola Gay.
School Lesson never even mentioned anything the crew of the Enola Gay may have said.
Yet, from my huge book, I discovered the Pilot made a famous quote. "My God, what have we done!!!"
