We've heard a lot recently about "sexed-up" dossiers, but should we really be worried about "sexed-up" history? Andrew Hitchon thinks we should.

PICTURE the scene - a TV researcher and an assistant producer are getting excited because they are about to debunk yet another British national myth.

"You see, the British didn't win the Battle of Waterloo."

"You mean the French did?"

"No, no. But we have new evidence that shows Napoleon almost certainly would have won if the Prussians hadn't turned up in the nick of time.

"And a lot of the soldiers in Wellington's army weren't even British. There were Belgians, Dutch - and Germans. So the battle was really won by the Germans!"

"Gosh - so Waterloo Station should be in Berlin."

"Yes, and the Kinks would have to re-record that song in German ...."

It's not happened yet - at least not quite like that. But Waterloo is surely a prime candidate to become a victim of "sexed-up" history.

The BBC has a drama-documentary on Dunkirk coming shortly to our screens. It will be interesting to see if its makers avoid the "sexed-up" approach.

A Sunday newspaper recently quoted someone saying the film would knock some of the "propaganda" surrounding the evacuation, which is enough to set alarm bells ringing.

My contention is that "sexed-up history" occurs when makers of TV documentaries pull out all the stops to "reveal" to a modern audience what "really happened" - possibly upsetting a few cherished views of the past in the process.

This is, on the face of it, a noble aspiration, and at least the British avoid the Hollywood approach - which would have Waterloo won by the US Marine Corps.

But too often the Brits push their case too far, either by presenting "new" evidence which has been around for years, or by finding some genuine new fact, but then crediting it with far greater significance than it is worth.

They can rarely resist this approach where the Royal Family is concerned.

Let's take last month's double whammy fronted by Tony Robinson on Channel 4, which started off investigating whether Richard III was the monster portrayed by Shakespeare, and ended up revealing that the "true" monarch was living in Australia, not Buckingham Palace.

Its prime evidence was a document backing Richard's claim that his elder brother, Edward IV, was illegitimate.

This certainly put Richard's seizure of power in a different light - but was used to support an extra programme based on the premise that the Royal Family's claim to the throne is false.

That was all good knockabout stuff, except that the throne was seized from Richard by Henry Tudor, and the documentary's key evidence was simply irrelevant to his, distinctly dodgy, claim.

True, Henry married Edward IV's daughter to cement his position. But the fact is that the royal line of descent goes back to the wily Tudor, who took the throne by force and kept it mainly through fear - facts known for centuries.

One of the classics of the genre was a documentary "revealing" that a more recent Royal, Edward VIII, was a traitor to Britain during the Second World War.

What emerged from the programme was a man, who certainly did his country a great service when he abdicated - but a traitor?

People are entitled to their opinions, but my objection to this programme was its claim to back this with new evidence, when most of the incidents and angry letters it referred to were already in print - for example, in Martin Gilbert's multi-volume biography of Winston Churchill.

Almost anything that makes British people more aware of their history must be a good thing - but must we distort the past in a bid to make it more exciting for the small screen?

Updated: 09:47 Tuesday, February 03, 2004