‘History… stumbles along the trail of the past’

Dear Editor,
I have been reading the comments on that 1953 telegram from the late Mrs Janet Jagan to her parents: “Cheddi, myself and party won an overwhelming victory” (Gitanjali Persaud Sunday Stabroek, May 17, 2009 and the earlier Guyana Review article). I noted the spin put on by both writers.

I understood the telegram to simply mean – Cheddi won his seat, I won my seat and the party won an overwhelming victory.

Under the first past the post electoral system, the party could have won and either or both candidates could have lost their seat.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill commented somewhat expansively on what the passage of time does to the reputation of people and the analysis of events.

“In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong.
Then again, a few years later when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting.
There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.” (House of Commons, November 12, 1940 in a tribute to the memory of the late Neville Chamberlain)
Yours faithfully,
W Moore