To not understand the whole "war time spirit" thing

[lockitdown]

I am trying my best to word this the correct way but will probably fail as I have never been good at expressing this.

AIBU in thinking the UK's "obsession"? with deferring to "wartime spirit" is somewhat odd considering the majority of the country most likely have never experienced it? People who were born the year WW2 ended, for example, will be 75 this year. Many of us don't even have parents who experienced wartime or this "wartime spirit" that we are all supposed to be falling in to as a nation.

I am NOT suggesting that we shouldn't honour the people involved in these wars, nor am I suggesting that the wartime spirit at the time wasn't amazing......just that its a rather strange point of reference for a population who may have never experienced it.

Is it not just that we are living in exceptional times?just.like.people who lived through th e world wars must have ,I know what you are saying though I saw something on Facebook about selfish people clearing all the shelves in supermarkets so that the elderly can't shop you know those elderly that fought in two world wars for us,too have been just about old enough to have fought in the second world war at the end of it someone would have to be 93/94 and if there's anybody alive today who fought in world war 1_I would be gobsmacked.

Lots of people have no idea when WW1 & WW2 were and think that everyone over 70 fought in them both. Concerning.

History is written by the victors. I would be willing to bet during WW2 there was just as much murder, robbery, violence and anti-social behaviour as before and after. People snitching on others breaking the blackout, buying and selling on the black market, looting bombed properties. It's just that the war eclipsed everything else and afterwards...well...we won didn't we? So everything was justified.

I knew I had read a book about this very subject: www.amazon.co.uk/Britain-Second-World-War-Contemporary/dp/0719044936?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Sorry not hijacking the thread but it will be really interesting to read future social commentaries on the current times. I bet there's a PhD or two in the making.

I read most newspapers, including broadsheets and tabloids.

Nearly every day the Daily Mail has a war time analogy that many readers (see the comments) seem to lap up. It makes me cringe. I'm also bemused, for reasons outlined in your OP.

So far we've had "this is our Battle of the Somme" Blitz spirit, Dunkirk spirit, endless references to the PM and Churchill.
The commentators do seem to like this, even though many will have been born post war.

Not forgetting the PM's "fighting spirit" and the "We'll meet again" song.

We are living in extraordinary times. However, it cannot be compared to those who did live through WW2: 32k civillian lives lost during the Blitz - 9 months of continous bombing - and a loss of UK life for example in the D-Day landings of 2,700.

The Blitz Spirit actually included some very dark times and I'm not sure it wasn't a myth, when you read some of the stories behind that.

Squashyhat has it!
There was all kinds of nefarious activity during wartime but that's not what people want to think about.

I agree. We are awful for romanticising the war.

And this isn't a war - it's a pandemic. The two are fundamentally different and I am very cautious about the use of comparisons.

This obsession is so damaging and used by huge sections of the press as an alternative to actual journalism and reporting.

My parents were kids during the war and my grandparents fought/nursed during it.

There was good and bad but the whole common enemy did make people look after each other a bit better (and it got more as the war dragged on). It was very different times though - back then if people were acting like idiots (for example) not observing a curfew, there would be enough people telling them off and they’d slink off rather than get defensive and aggressive.

It was a grim time (years remember) even kids were aware of the reality of fighting, death and POW camps (mums neighbour was released from one and she was fascinated by his story).

I heard an elderly lady in waitrose say quite loudly when she was at the till "at least you could see the bloody Germans"

I agree OP- I find the comparison to the war incredibly jarring. Yes, this situation is shit and it’s like nothing we’ve ever lived through before but it’s a hell of a lot easier than living through continuous bombing and sending loved ones off to battlefields.

And as for the comparisons between Boris and Churchill...

I lived with grandparents who had been through 2 world wars. My parents were children during WW2.
There is no comparison. Yes, social distancing is hard but not as hard as being sent away from your family and friends to an unknown destination, for an unknown time.
Not as hard as having bombs falling around you.
There is the same fear of the unknown, the same fear of loss of life.
What we do have are multiple ways to keep in contact with people. Not one letter a week.

My dad was in the war and mum was a teenager during it.
I always felt like they were very hands off parents with me and just sort of let me do what I wanted. I've often wondered if that was because of their war time experiences, nothing I did compared with what they went through and it made them very laid back with me. Or maybe it was just different times.

I'm glad to read views above. I feel the same about the romanticism. My MILk is in her 80's and was sent away from her city as a child, to the country. It was NOT a good experience for her.
So interesting @squashyhat

Exactly lock my uncles were evacuated.
My dad's family (10 of them, widowed mother) were genuinely impoverished and had little food.

Also, my kids are on their videogames, Netflix, Tesco shop.
Now if I compare that to say Anne Frank's life, it's an insult.

My grandmother (97) and I were chatting about this yesterday. She has always lived in the West Midlands so a target during WW2. She actually thinks having to stay in the house now is worse than the wartime horrors. She says yes there were bombs but there were always shelters and you just accepted that some of the men had to go away and were not going to come back. She is definitely finding this isolation harder, even though my uncle lives with her. She does normally have a lot of family contact. Sadly I did wonder if she is finding this harder because she was an "indestructible" teenager in the war but is now very conscious that she needs to make the most of every minute she has.

It's not even like I am young. I am in my 50's and neither of my parents had an experience of the war/war spirit.

Dh's dad was in the war too. We were watching "Return to Belsen" on TV the other night. Dh's dad was in the first wave of British soldiers who liberated the camp. We worked out he was 22 at the time. My ds is almost 22. I can't get my head around what Dh's dad seen at 22. It's unimaginable.
Maybe an experience like that is in the meaning of blitz spirit. Living through times without a choice and coming through them.

My parents were ‘older parents’ (I am the very youngest) so my parents were kids/teens in the war. I’m 50 now.

Something I read on another thread which made alot of sense was that the media and politicians are using wartime terminology as propaganda. Therefore the HCP on the front line will die as heroes fighting a war as soldiers do. Not as everyday people going about their job, scared they will bring the virus home, underfunded and dying because the government haven't provided basic PPE. The terminology makes it feel like if you decide not to pull your weight on the front line (perhaps you want to quit as you have vulnerable family members) then you are a deserter.

Get people to embrace wartime spirit and distract them from the many ways the government has totally fucked up.

Ssd - mr grandfather was there too when the camp was opened. He only ever mentioned the smell of burning.

My father grew up overseas and so doesn't really have any memories of Ww2 but my mother was in London and wasn't evacuated, she has awful memories of it and I'd say that this comes nowhere near close to them thank goodness.

@HPandTheNeverEndingBedtime, I agree with you there. I hate this talk of heroes. Most people are doing their jobs as they have no choice. They haven't been furloughed as their jobs need done. And they need to do them to pay the bills. They must be utterly terrified and feel their backs are to the wall.
They are heroes but not in the sense the government are trying to make them.