There will be those that see the past as something to be shunned, that the world they live in has no connection to anything that may have happened when their grandparents were children or indeed when their great-grandparents were able to fight in wars beyond their comprehension; it is their right after all to believe such things, just as it is the right of all us to think in comfort that the Spanish Civil War was just something that happened and could not have been avoided.

It is in the person’s right to believe such things but they are missing out on such much untapped knowledge of why, like The First World War, The Second World War, The Cold War and everything in between, everything we are now is connected to that moment in time and how we, as citizens of Europe, are still paying the price for it.

One of the most interesting speakers on the subject is David Ebsworth and as the rain soaked streets of Waterloo shuddered at the cold and unwelcoming end of April stance, inside Write Blend, the mood was unquestionably warm and the disposition of the audience was one of almost astounded glee and intellectual delight at the information that was passed from the author of The Assassin’s Mark as he regaled the crowd with five facts about the Spanish Civil War.

It is almost a moment of shame when you realise just how little you know about the war that was effectively a trial run for the Nazis and the horrors of Fascism as General Franco systematically, and with Hitler and Mussolini’s aid, destroyed Spain’s flowering democracy and with it market towns such as Guernica and the people of Alicante. Everybody in some way is aware of the International Brigade and writers such as George Orwell and Ernest Hemmingway’s part in the Republic’s fight against Franco. What comes across as a surprise is what can only be described as split personality, the tale of two countries within one land mass; the language of the time dividing and the politics tearing apart a nation.

The big surprise was how assumption of myth and thought can be dispelled. Mr. Ebsworth showed how there was only two papers that willing to report the truth of the war and even the contempt they felt for Neville Chamberlain’s disgraceful backing down and armed with a piece of paper worth nothing, symbolically starting the lead up to World War Two. One of these papers being a Sunday paper called Reynold’s News, a newspaper of integrity but to whom modern audiences would be hard pressed to recall.

If you are going to have a festival of words, a season of talks on the beauty of the written word and the romance of literature to the depth of learning, then Write Blend’s owners and supporters have hit the perfect note by asking Mr. Ebsworth to talk about the Spanish Civil War and implications on today’s society.

An evening of absolute thunderous education and rememberance of a largely forgotten and perhaps ignored war, one that bears repeating over and over again; Mr. Ebsworth captures the point of connection wonderfully.

Ian D. Hall