What on earth is wrong with Ian Rankin's memory?

[tree_and_leaf]

It was fascinating to research the 1980s. I was at university then and thought myself political, yet I had forgotten so much: protests against US missiles on British soil; Greenham Common; animal rights; acid rain; global cooling; Reagan's star wars technology; the threat of nuclear attack; unrest in Ireland;* unrest in Scotland …

Or was he living under a rock? I remember all of that, with minimal prompting (certainly not research), and I was at primary school.

Although I'll admit I don't remember any unrest in Scotland comparable to the Troubles...


* How the hell can you forget the Troubles?

Comments

[coughingbear]

I am totally stumped at the idea of a reasonably aware person (which he says he was) forgetting the Troubles. But then I was also at university in the 80s and I remember all those things. Well, possibly apart from unrest in Scotland; I do remember arguments about devolution, and the constitutional convention being set up, but I don't know if that is what he means. Also of course resistance to the poll tax, which was introduced in Scotland a year earlier than in England and Wales and is just part of the 80s.

[liadnan]

The only way I can make sense of that one is some kind of distinction between remembering in an objective way that the Troubles were at their peak then, and remembering what it was actually *like*, how it felt and what it meant on a subjective level. Not that I've forgotten the latter myself.

[tree_and_leaf]

Possibly, but it still seems like an odd thing to say, even allowing for hyperbole. It certainly doesn't make me look forward to his book as a superb evocation of the past...

[tree_and_leaf]

possibly apart from unrest in Scotland

As someone who grew up in 80s Scotland, I can't work out what that means at all. The devolution campaigners certainly don't qualify as what I'd call 'unrest', because it was all peaceful. Bits of the poll tax resistance got mildly violent (in the sense of scuffles), but it wasn't exactly representative of the decade as a whole. Sectarian football violence?