BBC programme Blitz Spirit wow

[Anna12345678910]

On tonight.
The lives of 6 people who lived through the Blitz... the suffering 😫😢 awful

12,000 diaries of people during the Blitz kept
Made me feel humble

I just watched it too. Very powerful.

@Topseyt

I just watched it too. Very powerful.

I know, the end where they mentioned the individuals made me feel tearful. I am usually as tough as old boots.

Made me think before moaning so much.

Amazing programme!

Brilliant programme

It was brilliant. Reminded me of my mum who grew up in London in the blitz. I still have her diaries where she recorded the bombs falling. She was an incredible person and I still miss her very much.

I imagine it will go onto iplayer for anyone that missed it and wants to watch. Not sure if straight away though.

@elastamum

It was brilliant. Reminded me of my mum who grew up in London in the blitz. I still have her diaries where she recorded the bombs falling. She was an incredible person and I still miss her very much.

How amazing to be able to read her diaries of that time. I noticed that 12,000 diaries have been kept for record

I generally loathe Lucy Worsley’s programmes, but I thought this was riveting. Not that much of it was unfamiliar — though am I the only one (I’m not from the UK) who didn’t know about the pet cull? — but the footage and the actors’ performances of the diaries/Mass Observation journals was powerful.

@Tureen

I generally loathe Lucy Worsley’s programmes, but I thought this was riveting. Not that much of it was unfamiliar — though am I the only one (I’m not from the UK) who didn’t know about the pet cull? — but the footage and the actors’ performances of the diaries/Mass Observation journals was powerful.

I didn't know about the pet cull...

..I've not seen lucy worsley programmes before

She usually does a lot of irritatingly fey skipping around in period costume — like there’ll be a programme about Elizabeth I and Lucy flitting about dressed up as a lady in waiting — but that was thankfully absent tonight.

@Tureen

She usually does a lot of irritatingly fey skipping around in period costume — like there’ll be a programme about Elizabeth I and Lucy flitting about dressed up as a lady in waiting — but that was thankfully absent tonight.

She's in 40s dress throughout the programme.

Would it be ok for an 11 year old? DD's class is doing 'war' at present.

There's a mass observation journal you can buy called something like "Housewife 59" Very good. They did a TV adaptation with Victoria Wood as the main character.
My late Aunt was a teenager in WW2 and the rest of the family apart from her and her dad evacuated. Her dad was a policeman who'd often be working overnight and when the sirens went off she'd have to go into the air raid shelter on her own at 15 years old. Terrifying!

Yes, @Silvergreen, but it’s unobtrusive, and she wasn’t sitting in it in a tube station during a raid or sitting in an Anderson shelter,, or for that matter dressed up as an air raid warden.

I don't mind Lucy's immersion in the history. She's passionate about her subject & I guess she's being asked to provide dumbed down edutainment for modern public appetite.

@WeirdlyOdd Our son (11) is doing WW2 and watched some of it . He was transfixed (or maybe just practicing his rock technique to avoid being sent to bed).

But some of it was very shocking for adults even and not at all appropriate (eg stories of babies being blasted out of windows, horrific injuries etc).

I love Lucy Worsley. tonight’s programme was no exception the images so powerful, you really got the sense of fear as the bombers came over. I found it very emotional at the end.

One of my earliest memories is coming out of the Anderson shelter in dressing gown and slippers on the morning of my third birthday, and walking up the garden path feeling excited because I was going to have some presents.

@eddiemairswife

One of my earliest memories is coming out of the Anderson shelter in dressing gown and slippers on the morning of my third birthday, and walking up the garden path feeling excited because I was going to have some presents.

Awww...

@SnowdropsCrocuses

There's a mass observation journal you can buy called something like "Housewife 59" Very good. They did a TV adaptation with Victoria Wood as the main character. My late Aunt was a teenager in WW2 and the rest of the family apart from her and her dad evacuated. Her dad was a policeman who'd often be working overnight and when the sirens went off she'd have to go into the air raid shelter on her own at 15 years old. Terrifying!

I think there have been a couple of books produced using Mass Observation Diaries. I have one called "We Are At War" which covers August 1939 into the autumn (though it is a mix of people rather than one diarist writing for years as in the case of Housewife 49). It is very interesting reading the differing attitudes as the start of the war unfolds. I was reading it last spring and thinking that the lady who went out and stockpiled a slightly random selection items would probably have been on MN these days.

I have another book of extracts from children/teenager's diaries from across Europe which still haunts me.

@Silvergreen

I don't mind Lucy's immersion in the history. She's passionate about her subject & I guess she's being asked to provide dumbed down edutainment for modern public appetite.

What I mind about her is that she has this incredibly important and demanding full time job in the heritage sector, yet is always making TV programmes. I just do not understand how she can do that job justice - she can hardly ever be there. If she wants a TV and presenting role then she should give up the day job - Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces.

So yes through gritted teeth I will watch the programme - it sounds very interesting. But Lucy Worsley again just puts me off.

I hope we can see it here in Canada soon. DH was born in London in 1942 and his Mum had to shelter with him in Sloan Square underground station. Then they were evacuated to the North. His father was in the Scots Guards and fought in North Africa and Italy.

I can't image how difficult and stressful it must have been for MIL during the bombing, alone with her first baby. She was one tough woman who took no nonsense from anyone!

Fascinating programme made all the more powerful by drawing implicit comparisons on how we're coping with the pandemic now and how people coped with the blitz then.

I really enjoyed this.
So interesting to have real people’s actual stories to use and draw upon. And I found the final segment really emotional.

Didn't see it.

Wanted to say, last Feb went to Berlin and there's a museum on the site of the old SS headquarters called (translated as) the topography of Terror.

If you go to Berlin ever it's really worth a visit.

I thought I knew about the Holocaust. I didn't. I had to leave. I had no idea. It was the photos of ordinary people happily burning the contents of a synagogue in the middle of the street. It was seeing a line of men with their hands behind their heads. It was the measuring of traveler people to see how substandard they were. The photos and statistics of what happened to disabled people.

A quote. Everyone must contribute to society. If you don't contribute why do you deserve to eat. Disabled people.

The photos of it all.

I didn't get as far as the later stuff at all.

Anyway if ww2 is of interest and after covid, Berlin is the place to go.