History of the 1970s

But historian Dominic Sandbrook is dismissive: “People like that line because it sounds clever. But it is never too early to come to a conclusion about the recent past. After ten years, it’s perfectly reasonable to take a view, as long as you realise that there will never be a time when there is a definitive answer to historical questions.”

He first started studying the recent past as a student at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was inspired by his tutor, Martin Conway, to delve into some of the 20th century’s defining moments.

His PhD at Cambridge focused on the USA in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by nine years as a lecturer at Sheffield University, after which he got itchy feet.

“I had a contract to write a three-volume history of modern Britain, and I was tired of the bureaucratic demands of university life. So I chucked in my job, moved to London and tried my luck as a professional writer.”

His first book, Never Had It So Good, covering “Britain from Suez to the Beatles”, came out a year later and he has never looked back, with three more door-stopping histories of 20th-century Britain, columns in the Daily Mail and other newspapers, radio and a TV series on the 1970s based on his latest two books.

He had hot-footed it home to our interview in Jaffe & Neale bookshop in Chipping Norton from Germany, where he was filming a TV series about Britain in the Cold War.

He has also been to the Mini plant in Cowley, filming another documentary comparing Britain’s car industry with Germany’s, in an attempt to throw light on the disappearance of our manufacturing heritage.

Seven years ago, he moved to Chipping Norton, where he will be joining a panel discussion at the town’s literary festival later this month to talk about his most recent book Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974-1979.

He loves Chipping Norton,, saying it is “just the right size, friendly but big enough for anything you need”, but he is emphatically not part of the ‘Chipping Norton set’.

“When we moved here, we never anticipated we would get such grief. The thing is, none of them actually lives in Chipping Norton. Cameron lives in Dean. Rebekah Brooks lives in Churchill, Jeremy Clarkson lives in the middle of nowhere. And Matthew Freud and Elisabeth Murdoch live in Burford, a quarter of an hour’s drive away.

“Peter Oborne wrote in the Telegraph that it was full of 'louche, affluent, power-hungry' people. There speaks a man who has never been to Chipping Norton.”

Despite this, he loves newspapers.

“People who read newspapers are not the same kind of people who read a 900-page book. You use a different part of your brain when you write for a newspaper, but you can reach people who would not necessarily be interested in history or politics,” Dominic explained.

“You get lots of feedback and you feel you are really interacting with people. As an academic, you might spend years slaving over an article that is only read by four or five people.”

And he loves the way old newspaper articles can throw light on ordinary people’s lives.

“It becomes incredibly addicitive. You get a sense of what people would have been talking about in the pub. It might not be about the election; it might be that Rod Stewart has a new girlfriend, or what the Sex Pistols were doing.”

His books are a dramatic mixture of history and popular culture. He creates the drama by delving into documents to unearth details that take us into each intense moment of change — civil servants asking Margaret Thatcher on the eve of the cliffhanger election whether she would sleep in Downing Street that night if she won, for example.

Dominic’s latest history is dominiated by the Winter of Discontent, and he disagrees with historians who downplay its significance, insisting that it was indeed a grim period in Britain’s history.

“Reading the Downing Street documents, you do get the sense of paralysis and confusion, and a total atmosphere of depression,” he said.

But above all, he sees in the late 1970s the seeds of a move by young people away from any kind of collective identity.

He uses the word ‘individualistic’, but corrects himself, saying: “That sounds judgmental — let us say they are more ambitious. They are not going to be swayed by people who say you should vote this way because of your class.”

His introduction promises an ‘even-handed’ approach, and he tells me several times that most people are not interested in politics. He reports the mainstream press's depiction of the 1970s protest leaders as comic characters, but leaves unanswered the question why they scored so many victories over women's rights, homosexuality and environmentalism.

He does not believe “ordinary people’s” disdain for politics is necessarily a bad thing.

“It means they have more important things to think about, like what is for dinner and so on.” It is here that he finds the core of British identity.

“It is an established part of life since the Second World War. People muddle along with their own lives. They are becoming steadily more affluent but not getting caught up in great passions. Churchill used to say ‘keep buggering on’. I think that has been an important part of our national experience and it is even more evident when you are writing about the 1980s, which was a divisive era.”

But his next major project is the fifth book in his British history series, covering the period to 1984.

Aged 48, he feels he is able to offer a fresh view since he was not even born during the eras described in his first two books, and too young to remember much of the 1970s. His next book, about the 1980s, presents him with a fresh challenge.

He said: “So many people write about the 1980s who have fierce views. I was talking about Star Wars to my friends. We didn’t talk about the miners’ strike — my parents were not political. I think it is possible to be objective.”

He added: “There is a tendency to divide the population into Greenham Common women and Thatcherites, but of course most people were neither.”

Expect another readable doorstopper, with grim fights between police and flying pickets, interwoven with Adam and the Ants.

* Dominic Sandbrook will chair a discussion at Chipping Norton Literary Festival on Living Memory with fellow historians Clive Aslet and Richard Davenport-Hines at the Crown and Cushion on April 20. The festival runs from April 18-21 and speakers including the creator of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, gardening writer Ursula Buchan, biologist Richard Dawkins, politician Jack Straw, plus novelists Jojo Moyes and Lionel Shriver. Call the box office on 01608 642350 or visit the website: www.chiplitfest.com