The story so far

I'm setting up this blog to chart the development of the charitable trust I am setting up to carry on the memory of my husband Gareth Butler who died on February 29th 2008.

The idea for the Trust came suddenly to me in those indescribable weeks following Gareth's death when there was a strong feeling that I had to put something in motion that could carry on Gareth's tremendous interests and love for life. Initial suggestions focused on setting up an organisation to support cricket, given the inordinate amount of time Gareth spent every summer Sunday on English village cricket fields. But I felt that a) there were many cricketing organisations that do a sterling job already and b) I wanted something that united Gareth's strong intellect with his sense of fairness.

So here is the start of the Gareth Butler History Trust. Its simple aim is to help fund school history trips for lower income students in state schools. Gareth's day-job at the BBC may have focused on politics, but his passion was for history, particularly the social history of the First World War. And with two children in secondary school, Gareth was keen that all young people had access to education which brought history to life and made them think about the impact historical events have on our lives today.

The school trips budget is often one of the first to be cut when schools face a financial squeeze because trips are seen as an add on - something outside the normal curriculum which is nice if the parent-teacher's association has had a particularly active year. But we know from the Commons Education Select Committee's report on 'Education outside the classroom' that school trips have a real value in raising not just attainment levels, but also helping build pupils' social skills and self confidence. Sadly because of rising transport costs and mislaid fears about health and safety, school trips are on the decrease.

Meanwhile, there is a decline in pupils taking history at GCSE. Britain is almost alone among developed countries in that history is only compulsory up until age 14, and only a third of pupils persist with the subject after this. If they can see history “brought to life” on a school trip, pupils may be persuaded to continue studying it at GCSE stage and beyond.

Given these two facts I went looking for other organsations which might fund history trips in schools, but despite searching on the internet, various charity search engines and asking organisations such as the Historical Association, there were no dedicated funding bodies prepared to support those pupils whose parents cannot afford to pay for them to go on the trips that schools offer. It struck me that there might be a case to answer here and I asked a few history teacher friends whether they had experienced difficulties with pupils unable to afford history trips and found they were very concerned that they were faced with a choice of taking only a few better-off students on the trips, or cancelling the whole idea.

A few weeks later, and now we have our trustees lined up, a pro bono solicitor providing great support on the trust deed, and the first supporters lining up with endorsements. Our first fundraising event is a quiz - a fitting tribute to Gareth who put the fear in other quiz teams: I can't remember the number of times we walked away with one of the prizes due mostly to his encyclopedic knowledge. The event is hosted by the Young Fabians and will involve nearly 30 teams at the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club on June 4th. I think all places have now been taken.

There's a long way to go before we can make this trust really work and get those first trips off to the battlefields of Northern France (our first funding objective), but I intend to chart the ups and downs of the journey on this blog, and hopefully keep Gareth's unboundless spirit alive along the way.