I once asked Nick Garland, the Daily Telegraph cartoonist from 1966 until 2011, what it was like living through a golden age, writes Harry Mount.

He had worked for the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square in the early 60s, when it was at its height. Then he worked at the Establishment, Peter Cook’s Soho club that sparked the satire boom. He knew Jeff Bernard, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud – everyone, basically. And then he met, and illustrated, half a century of politicians.

But, when I asked him about these golden days, he said, you never realise at the time you’re in a golden age. You just get on with your life.

And it’s the same now. Not that we’re living through a golden age. But last year, 2016, will be a date that children will learn by rote in a century’s time – if they learn dates then, which maybe they will; maybe they won’t.

But it was utterly extraordinary if you happened to live through it. That’s why I’ve written a book about the referendum – even though half a dozen other people have written Brexit books.

I read history at university and was deeply impressed by people like Disraeli and Gladstone. But, of course, I never knew them. Suddenly I happened to have known the people who were in power at this hinge in British history, through accidents of birth, education and employment. David Cameron is my second cousin. I was at university with George Osborne. And I worked at the Daily Telegraph with Boris Johnson. I no longer looked at the past through rose-tinted, remote specs.

It was extraordinary to live through a year that, I think, will rank alongside 1066, 1485, 1914, 1918, 1939 and 1945 as a date to remember – and to have seen what really went on.

Harry Mount is editor of the Oldie and author of Summer Madness: How Brexit Split the Tories, Destroyed Labour and Divided the Country. Harry also teaches our Latin, Classical Civilization, Punctuation and British Buildings online courses. He is speaking on Brexit at an Idler event with Joy Lo Dico of the Evening Standard, Wednesday 19 April 2017.