FOMO: the new podcast which doesn’t gloss over the ugly side of British History

Jesse: The way that the series came about was through a lot of conversations with people around the fact that the national curriculum doesn't equip us properly with the tools that we need in order to critically engage with Britain's past. We started this series to be another tool in people's toolkits to think about what's happening now, in a more informed way. And also, to kind of think about the fact that history is still storytelling and can have an angle, it's not always objective. I was just trying to think of something that sounded cool, that would be relevant. We’re missing out on being equipped to deal with what's happening in the present, because we're not properly taught about the past.

Atlanta: I think the first moment of realisation for me was prior to doing the podcast. In a textbook, you’re just taught what is in front of you. I’m a curious person and I’d ask questions but never really get an answer, they just all kind of silently abandoned it and moved on. This podcast allowed me to ask questions so that I, as well as anyone else who is listening, could understand things that they might not know.

Jesse: I used to live in Glasgow, which is where Atlanta lives. When I moved from London to Glasgow, I met a bunch of Scottish and Irish people. We started having conversations about the history we’d learned concerning Great Britain and the United Kingdom. What we’d learned at school was so different and what really struck me was that I had not learned any Scottish or Irish history. The national curriculum first came into being in the 1980s, which is when the Troubles were happening. That feels to me like a really intentional political choice, to not include learning about the Troubles or Irish independence and England's colonisation of Ireland. I also had some amazing teachers at university who did a really good job of being like, 'it's not about knowing everything, it's about your approach to knowledge'. That was the first time that I felt that I was taught that it's okay to question things. 

Jesse: We wanted to have six episodes that are representative of six different parts of British history. We intentionally put Atlanta’s episode first, as she questions who's telling the story and what it means. It set the precedent to our listeners that everything we're thinking about surrounds questions such as ‘where's the power in storytelling?’ which I thought Atlanta did really well. 

Atlanta: It can give us a sense of confidence in ourselves, as well as the confidence to be able to ask questions. I feel like if we get more confidence to ask, the more we'll know and the more our knowledge will expand. It will just feel like a better environment for a lot of us, a better society to live in. Somewhere where you're not going to be scared to ask questions about something that happened in the past, just because people don't want you to be talking about it.

Jesse: I actually think that it’s everyone [not just young people]. That's something that I find difficult about the Britain that we live in now, a lot of what's happening is either designed to make us apathetic or disengaged. There’s little evidence that anyone in power cares about us and it can feel like there's nothing we can do about that, which is really hard and scary. Anything we can do to counter that is really important. There’s also a real energy at the moment and people are questioning what communities and lives we want to build. If this podcast can be a small part of helping people get there then that would be a huge thing for us.

Jesse: Listen to FOMO and look at our resources! This kind of learning is already happening in communities all over the UK. People are already doing it. What do you care about? Get involved in local community activism! Speak to your parents, speak to your friends, talk to people of other generations who’ve lived through stuff, do your own research and ask for help when you need it.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Listen to the FOMO podcast here.