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Original poster

Nick Robinson on the Today programme said that people affected by withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance were "the wartime generation". AIBU to think he's wrong?

288 replies

HauntedBungalow · 25/09/2024 21:53

Also, I am genuinely bored of this British obsession with referencing World War II when talking about unrelated random subjects.

World War II ended 80 years ago. The "wartime generation" don't need a Winter Fuel Allowance because they're all already dead, barring the odd 97 year old who is still living at home and paying all bills themselves.

OP posts:
bookwormcrazy · 25/09/2024 22:12

My grandad is 92 and still lives on his own in a park home with storage heaters which are the worst. He is definitely panicking about loosing the allowance. And yes, he remembers that later stage of WW2.

HoppityBun · 25/09/2024 22:11

I’ve read this sort of thing so many times but Nick Robinson is old enough to know better, just about. He will be 61 on 5 October. The arithmetic is strange. It’s a sort of archetype, perhaps? If you’re over 65 then definitely you lived through WW2 whether you were actually alive then or not 🤷‍♀️

JoanOgden · 25/09/2024 22:10

Yes, how ridiculous. The vast majority of pensioners in this country won't remember WW2, because they were young children or (in most cases) not born yet. Only a tiny number of 95+ year olds will have served or worked during the war.

FifiFalafel · 25/09/2024 22:10

My friend was 10 when the war ended. Does wartime generation just mean those who fought in the war or those whose early years were hugely impacted by the war?

OhmygodDont · 25/09/2024 22:10

My father in law uses his for an air bnb in Spain every year since he retired to add to his extra few holidays. His certainly not some poor post war gentleman 😅

ForPearlViper · 25/09/2024 22:09

Yes and no. There aren't many people who were adults during the war left with us but there plenty who were children and it left a mark. The war left a long shadow of rationing and frugality for a couple of decades affecting the children of the time. There a lot of older people who are terrified of debt and over-economise on things like heating to stay in their small budgets.

Doggymummar · 25/09/2024 22:09

1948 for my parents, so wartime generation

JennyDreadful · 25/09/2024 22:08

My parents are affected. Born in the fifties, the music of their youth is Motown and Fleetwood mac, not Vera Lynn!

GreenShady · 25/09/2024 22:08

If you were born in 1940 you'd be 84 now. I'd call that the war time generation!
They may not have fought but they lived through a period of hardship and deprivation for sure. Years of rationing.

cheezncrackers · 25/09/2024 22:07

YANBU - I thought the same. My grandparents were 'the wartime generation' and they've all been dead for some time at this point.

GinBlossom94 · 25/09/2024 22:07

They mean those that were born during/just after, like my DF who is 78

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 25/09/2024 22:06

You ANBU at all.

I think the phrase is still in common use by people who grew up with parents and grandparents who were indeed a "wartime generation", but these people have forgotten that they themselves have aged, their grandparents are long dead, parents likely also, but they still view all older people in the same way they did decades ago.

So the context has been forgotten and it's become conflated with people who are simply "old", even though they are far too young to remember WWII in the vast bulk of cases.

Evilartsgrad · 25/09/2024 22:02

Perhaps he meant born during/ just before the War? Many of those are still alive and well, and some will be disadvantaged.