THERE are history groups in Ludlow, Tenbury and the Teme Valley and is our other market towns.

Interest in tracing family histories has perhaps never been higher and there is a fascination with looking back. Photographs from a bygone age attract a huge amount of interest as do old documents.

An issue almost certain to attract much debate is when does history start, does history repeat itself and can we learn from the past?

There are regular activities in Ludlow and Tenbury linked with the 100th anniversary of the First World War and the middle part of the 20th century surely qualifies as history.

In the decade following the Great War there was a period of considerable growth and increased prosperity in some parts of the world, the United States in particular.

This was unfortunately driven in part by recklessness from people involved in the financial services sector.

The culmination of this was the Wall Street crash and a prolonged period of economic downturn that affected the whole world.

In the United States the reaction was for the major global economic power to look inwards, become isolationist and largely turn its back on the rest of the world.

In Europe increasing desperation and impoverishment provided fertile ground for political ideas offering simple answers and pointing the blame at others.

It happened in the UK with the growth of Sir Oswald Mosley and the fascists.

In continental Europe far-right movements were even more successful with Franco in Spain and Mussolini in Italy and, of course, most pernicious of all, Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany, where there was also huge resentment at the crippling burden imposed by the settlement at the end of the First World War.

All of this ended in the catastrophe of the Second World War.

But after 1945 there was a different and more internationalist and collaborative approach including help rather than punishment for the defeated Germany.

The United States was outward-looking and engaged with the rest of the world. It was also a period of increasing co-operation with the establishment of international groups like the United Nations and the institution that became the European Union.

While the Cold War was always a threat throughout much of the globe, there followed a prolonged period of economic growth, prosperity and comparative peace, especially in Europe.

Fast forward to the birth of the new century and a time when things looked to be going very well.

However, we were to discover that, unknown to most of us, a lot of this apparent prosperity was being fuelled by irresponsible and, in some cases, criminal activity by the world’s financial institutions.

The consequence was the great global economic downturn that continues to affect our lives and will for many years to come.

In the backwash, we now have an increasingly isolationist and inward-looking administration in the United States.

Meanwhile in Europe we see the rise and rise of the far right with UKIP in this country, the Front Nationale in France, Five Star Movement in Italy and even the Alternative for Germany, a far-right group with growing support in Germany.

The recipe is the same as it was in the 1930s, simple answers to complex questions, crude popularism, narrow nationalism and intolerance.

All of this is a very long way from the local history group that meets regularly in Craven Arms to help people make their family trees.

But it is history and shows that, at least in terms of general themes, history can repeat itself. As to whether we learn from history, contemporary events would suggest not.