To think that Children of the Blitz should be required viewing in these ridiculous times?

Actually didn’t realise this was a generational thing, I just thought my mum was a shit mum to be frank. I mean, she wasn’t the worst mum ever but she was (and still is) extremely detached and cold… I could quite honestly tell her I had found the Holy Grail and she’d just say “oh that’s nice” and move on.

I could just as easily start a thread title asking if knowledge of inequality - and the poverty levels of the poorest - should not be common knowledge op.

Get out of your comfy suburban homes and go and see the levels of squalor returning to this country now, along with the inability of work to provide a living.

Yes there are doubtless some people, young and old who need a wake up call and reality check of the kind you describe. There are many others who live with a very hard reality every day. Thats what inequality is.

People have always been unemployed due to boom and bust cycles in the business system. Have you never hears of the Great Depression? this is exactly what Keynes developed his theories to combat! The British Economy—whether there are jobs or not snd whether the jobs pay a living wage—is not the byproduct of sturdy yeomen who work without businesses or government to employ them. Where do jobs come from? People need to be able to afford goods and services (demand) and companies or organizations have to offer good jobs to fulfill consumer demand.

Brexit snd austerity destroyed markets snd jobs simultaneously. For whom is little Johnnie or Janie supposed to work?

Young people are stuck working in a knowledge economy, for which they or their families go into debt, and those jobs are being replaced by AI, off shored, deskilled, snd underpaid.

I want to know more about Jean…who looked after her after her adoptive mother died; did she keep in touch with siblings; where did her dad go…?

I fully agree with this, and am really concerned some people on this thread seem to think the main lesson from the Blitz is the benefit of suffering in silence.

Just because people during the Blitz were less vocal about their needs, it doesn’t mean they weren’t suffering. That era was a very different time to now, with much less awareness of mental health or emotional needs (e.g. trauma, SEN…) It wasn’t a good thing.

It’s all about the rise of Hitler and Germany. The social history of Britain really doesn’t get included at GCSE or in earlier years of education. You could literally learn just about Nazi Germany and know very little about what the UK was like in the 1930s or 40s.

Don’t they teach WW1 and 2 in history at all ? Covering all aspects ? We were.

I certainly think younger generations should learn about it.

I watched it and don't agree with this fully.

The woman who was sent away and went mute due to trauma and couldn't speak until 2018 is the example that demonstrates the point.

She needed a diagnosis and appropriate support. The problem now is using this as an excuse not to do anything. That doesn't mean there isn't an underlying problem.

In both cases untreated trauma may exist - it's just it's deal with in a wildly different way.

Maybe but that has something to do with the lack of ambition on the part of the parents where this applies. I'm referring to the people I know and not the general population. I don't know each, individual person, so not making sweeping statements. But, maybe others have similar circumstances and is something to consider for them.

They’re more likely to be unemployed

It was a splendid programme but should not be used as a stick to beat the younger generation with - that devalues it.

It brought back memories of my grandparents and made me think hard about what they must have endured. I also kept thinking of my young adult GC and the idea that these conscripted young men were a similar age. The thought of this happening to them is too appalling for words. I suspect that conscription, were it to occur now, would meet with short shrift - young people are more aware of what war means from their history lessons and also of the fact that wars arise at the dictate of flawed political leaders with their own agendas. I do not think young people are any flakier than they ever were - but the internet will have opened their eyes to much that young people were not aware of during the second, and indeed the first, world war.

In my experience, it's not the children now who lack resilience, it's their parents and their grandparents. Kids now are pretty smart and savvy and they are seeing where previous generations squandered knowledge and opportunity.

They seem much more keen to learn about history, cause and effect and the things the people who actually came out of the war (not their kids) knew at the time they were learning on their feet due to the great challenges.

I'm proud of this generation. They are rejecting a lot of things that make their parents and grandparents in the way you are describing.

We aren’t really discussing its content so much as the homily the OP and fern fairy are making of it.

Then after 2 terms, Labour were voted out, and the Tories were in power for 13 years. The silent generation were those born between 1928 and 1945. Voting age was 21, so the silent generation didn't vote the socialists in - none of them had the vote until 1949. It was the Great Generation who voted the Socialists in.

I'm not sure if all posters on this thread have actually watched this program. Please, could you state if you have. I think some who have not seen it may have the wrong idea about its content.

It sounds to me like Grapthar is saying the Blitz generation voted in a post-war Socialist government because they’d endured so much pre-war and wartime suffering and they really craved a better, fairer life and society.

Not sure how that suggests voting for a Socialist party makes one more likely to be mentally ill?

I haven’t seen this programme yet but my mum was a child of the Blitz and was evacuated. Unf it really affected her mentally and she had a ‘nervous breakdown’ after the war ended.
She didn’t get a proper education either as it was so disrupted during the war. I was always fascinated by her wartime tales but it sounded horrific.

I’m watching it and highly recommend it. I agree that people need to watch it - not just young adults, but all adults. It is eye-opening about just how traumatic and painful the Blitz was, and very moving.

I don’t agree though that it’s a ‘very positive illustration of the ability of humans to overcome and not just survive but thrive’. The film’s interviewees said they didn’t feel they could add to their families’ unhappiness and just had to keep going, which sounds like surviving - rather than thriving - to me. The Guardian actually said this film shows the “blitz spirit” as a sort of psychological crisis management rather than a strength.

Really. You embarrass me and you by posting that

Are you saying voting for a socialist party makes you more likely to be mentally ill?

The biggest clue that things were not okay for the Silent Generation was what they did after the war, which was vote in a socialist government for healthcare, housing, welfare because the suffering and the need of those who had survived the depression and a war told them it was necessary. They wanted a better society that depended less on class, on money, they voted for something far more radical and egalitarian. They knew what it was to suffer.

80 years later and people post romantic stuff about how good it was in the war and the sense of purpose. This is plain old rubbish, from people who were too young to understand much of horror and the desire for change. The war is reduced to scraps of patriotism, cheery propaganda moments and delightful memories, recycled in form that can be digested.

This “silent generation” fan has really just confused vague images of the late queen, royal and imperial propaganda, and cultural tropes around the war and its aftermath with reality. In fact the idea of British “stiff upper lip” and “Keep calm and carry on” etc… are all social constructs carefully pushed onto the population out of necessity. Calm, sober, hard working, C of E against loud/hysterical/ranting other Christian sects/jews/asians/carribean immigrants. Drill down and admit you don’t include in your vaunted silent generation the Irish, the Welsh, the poor/the windrush generation all of whom were considered troublemakers and unenglush. So race/class are embedded here in your assertions and assumptions.

You could read literature, watch movies, go to graduate school and study child psychology and sociology. I have.

What a ridiculous question. You know no such thing exists either way, just for starters because there is no set definition of the Silent Gen., Gen Z or even “stable”.

Yes, my measure of success is managing to really live a life outside of your trauma, not living in it and in/out of various therapies and facilities for life

That is so deeply offensive I don’t even know where to begin.

Would you apply the same metric to physical illness/accident recovery?