The other day, I was relaxing and listening to some music by one of my favourite artists, Sting. One of the songs was called “History will teach us nothing” which I have always found to be an interesting title, open to more than one interpretation.

In the sense that he meant (and I’m sure he did) that future generations of human beings should not copy the behaviour of their forbears and repeat some of the dreadful mistakes made by them who could possibly disagree? However, it would be wrong to think that we can learn nothing from history per se.

History is actually the best teacher of all since we can learn a great deal from not only our own experiences but also, of course, from the experiences of others. Any responsible parent will tell you that. Don’t touch that hot pan, it will burn you.

We can always learn from others and we can undoubtedly learn from history. This occurred to me a couple of days ago when, in the company of a group of Germans and French, I thought back to what we would have been doing to one another a hundred years ago, and again just thirty years later.

We can learn, thank God, but we need to remember the words of philosopher, George Santayana, who said “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it”.