National Heritage Week lessons

More than 500,000 people are expected to take part in one or other of the 2,000 events to mark National Heritage Week which begins today.

These range from a recreation of Traveller life in the 1950s to a “bee smart” pollinator party.

Chairman of the Heritage Council, Michael Parsons, points out that Sunday, August 26, will be a celebration of our most precious natural resource in all its forms, from the sea to rivers, lakes and garden ponds.

This is an entirely commendable exercise and it would be even more so if it helped inculcate a new and badly-needed attitude to protecting a resource that all life depends on — water — right across society.

Our history is such that it draws us to look backwards more often than forward; to languish in the past rather than imagine what the future might be, could be.

National Heritage Week is one of those exercises that reminds us all of how today is framed by the past and how tomorrow will be framed by today.

Recognising this must encourage an awareness about how our behaviour is just part of a cycle that will eventually become our legacy. Let’s make it a good one.