When the historical past trainer Michael Davies, who has died aged 65 of most cancers, took a gaggle from Lancaster Royal grammar faculty on a subject journey to Israel and Palestine, for the primary half of the journey he plunged them into the story of Israel, visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and studying about Israel’s background. For the second he took them to Hebron and Bethlehem within the West Financial institution, the place they performed soccer with boys in a refugee camp and listened to their story.
Michael, a buddy of mine for nearly 40 years, might see how completely transformational the journey was for the group. The next yr he wrote an article for the Guardian arguing that reasonably than ignoring contentious historical past, a “twin narrative” strategy was the one approach to totally perceive why any battle endures.
On studying the piece, the hi-fi retailer and philanthropist Julian Richer bought in contact with Michael and supplied him a monetary lifeline to construct his imaginative and prescient. In 2018 they launched the tutorial charity Parallel Histories.
The essential thought was to immerse the scholars in a single aspect of the narrative, getting them to look at the sources and argue for it. The method was then repeated for the opposing narrative. It taught the scholars to not steadiness rights and wrongs, however debate and suppose, however not what to suppose. With the assistance of his headteacher, Chris Pyle, Michael made history-learning participatory and gave kids entry to subjects that have been beforehand thought-about too sizzling to show.
Parallel Histories has enabled Muslim and Jewish religion colleges to debate the battle now happening in Gaza. It has introduced collectively Catholic and Protestant college students to debate the Troubles in Stormont. And it’s now being rolled out in America, in each Democratic and Republican states, to show the historical past of the civil rights motion.
The Parallel Histories organisation has a employees of 5, and 1,200 colleges are downloading its financial institution of assets, predominantly main sources equivalent to letters, official paperwork, posters and cartoons, with some passages from historians’ arguments. Hundreds of younger individuals throughout Europe are concerned in debate conferences, each in particular person and remotely. The previous Labour authorities minister Invoice Rammell has succeeded Michael because the organisation’s CEO to make sure its continuity, and Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s adviser with a key position in negotiating the Good Friday settlement of 1998, serves as its patron.
Born in Windsor, Berkshire, Michael spent a part of his childhood dwelling in a battle zone. His father, John, a Welsh Baptist administration guide, moved with Siobhan (nee Bailey), an Irish Catholic nurse, to the Lisburn suburb of Belfast together with Michael and his sisters, Rosamond and Geraldine.
It was 1966 and the Troubles have been evident throughout them within the smashed home windows and the brick-strewn streets. Amid the mayhem, Michael was despatched to a Pals’ faculty, a Quaker institution, in Lisburn. He remained a Quaker all through his life.
When the household moved again to England he went, in 1970, to Dulwich school, south-east London. He then studied historical past at Christ Church, Oxford (1977-80), and as a rower took the place of stroke, setting the tempo, within the school first eight. At college he met Carys Bowen-Jones, a contemporary languages scholar; after their marriage in 1985 she went on to write down novels and quick tales as Carys Davies. They’d 4 kids, Celia, Gabriel, Basil and Abigail.
Michael’s first job was with Procter and Gamble, promoting cleaning soap to shopkeepers. He drove an organization Cortina with a boot stuffed with promotional Daz oven gloves. He by no means forgot being greeted at some point by a grocer who stated “Fuck off, Procter”. He quickly bought out of detergents and into Frosties and Bran Buds, working for Kellogg’s in Manchester.
In 1988 he was supplied work on the Michael Peters design company in their New York workplace. He moved on to Christopher Bielenberg’s REL administration consultancy, establishing their Chicago workplace in 1995. He and Carys cherished the US, however his ardour for historical past was unfulfilled. So he returned to the UK and did trainer coaching at St Martin’s Faculty, Lancaster, and in 2000 went to Lancaster Royal, then an all-boys faculty, on the age of 41.
Enjoyable was his methodology. He taught feudalism by getting the 11-year-old boys to pile up chairs and desks and kind a social pyramid, the serfs groaning on the backside. He recreated the Battle of Hastings (even the employees dressed up for it and a horse was concerned), now an annual occasion on the faculty. He organised journeys to Paris to review the French Revolution, and to Northern Eire the place he organized for the group to satisfy former IRA starvation strikers and Orangemen alike. This finally led to his breakthrough journey to Israel and Palestine.
In the summertime holidays he and Carys travelled round Europe in an previous camper van. After giving up his Lancaster job, in 2018 they moved to Edinburgh, the place he ran Parallel Histories. Michael was identified with a sarcoma in his leg in August 2022 and it was efficiently operated on. Nevertheless, when the most cancers returned a yr later, it was discovered to be untreatable.
Michael’s ebook, The Parallel Histories of Israel and Palestine: Every thing You Wished To Know However Have been Afraid To Ask, is to be revealed this autumn.
He’s survived by Carys, their kids and his sisters.
