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.

and she is also really missing her hard won "freedom"

I’d think that those involved in the fighting would beg to differ.

I hate that one about "being sat on the sofa". Its not really though, is it? People crave human contact and the folks at home still got that in the war, plus you'd usually live close to your family. Children still want to school etc.

My Granny was in the Land army she joined at 16 and her sisters were WAAFs and my great-grandma who I spent time with as a child worked in the factories during WW1. Then my mum was born after the war but still remembers the rationing and of course things were hard financially. So knowledge of the war is in our family but I don't think it was a rose coloured glasses thing, it's more about doing your duty, working together and keeping your spirits up because that's how you get through hard times.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52248189/coronavirus-the-99-year-old-war-veteran-raising-money-for-the-nhs
This man has raised 100s of thousands of pounds for the NHS.

My mum told me about them drawing a line up the back of their legs with a pencil to make it look like stockings as mentioned above.
TBH I wish I'd asked mum and dad more about the war, especially dad who was in it. He suffered with a dodgy heart so I knew asking him too much and him getting upset was not a good idea. He was diagnosed with PTSD in his 70s. He seen stuff I can't imagine, as a young man again. He always said those who go to ceremonies and parade with medals seen nothing, the ones who seen it all don't talk about it and want it forgotten.

Anyway, back to blitz spirit. As soon as I see that mentioned I stop reading. It's all propaganda. Bit like in the first world war when the working classes were cannon fodder. The low paid are cannon fodder now.

Good on that old guy raising money for the NHS!!

Cant bear it and my dad fought in it, my mum was evacuated in it and my grandma delivered babies burning the blitz in London.

In many ways, losing was better for Germany and Japan. It made them examine their collective national psyches. We've forgotten that we are the people that invented concentration camps and have a delusional view of our power and importance in the world.

The whole "war time spirit" thing is a bunch of jingoistic balls. It'll end up getting spun as another "we stood alone" piece of rubbish before it's over. It suits the dominant political narrative and the country's view of itself as exceptional.

The German President had it right in his address to his nation over the weekend - it's not a war, it's not country against country or soldier against soldier, it's a test of our common humanity. If only we could be so lucky to have a head of state that can set the right tone like that.

Don’t they just mean it’s British culture to go into a stoic war time spirit?

I don't understand your point OP. We have had to adjust our lives quite a bit. People are dying and it's terrifying. There are people literally fighting for every breath. Communities are coming together and people in essential services are risking their lives. I think society will be changed by this event for the good.
Every primary school child in the country learns about WW2 from the point of view of the 'Home Front'.

I'm a great fan of Foyle's War. I realise it's fiction but it depicts human beings with all their frailties, faults and their heroism.

I'm a great fan of Foyle's War. I realise it's fiction but it depicts human beings with all their frailties, faults and their heroism.

I'm a big fan, too.

The Spirit of the Blitz was largely propaganda anyway. If everyone pulled together why would there have been a black market, why would there have been so much looting?. I'm sure there were random acts of kindness and that people looked out for those they cared about but there was an awful lot of trying to make your own life slightly less bad than your neighbours.

In many ways, losing was better for Germany and Japan

Yes.

@derxa my point is that it's silly romanticising about and asking people to copy "wartime spirit" when few have actually experienced it.

By the way, Foyles war was written pretty much by someone who didn't experience it either...and got his stories from his nanny :)

Sure, we should pull together and be supportive and decent as a nation but can't we just "move on" from the war as our example?.

Don’t they just mean it’s British culture to go into a stoic war time spirit?

My point exactly.
Is it?
The population has moved on and developed into a very different set of people with very different lives.

My grandparents although they did have fond memories of war time because that's when they were young, dating and got married, were mainly of the opinion that blitz spirit became very rose tinted. There was selfishness, stockpiling (within what could be done) and greed. People broke the rules and came up with excuses to do so. Neighbours snitched and spied and gossiped. A national crisis brings out this side to people regardless of when it was/is.

The population has moved on and developed into a very different set of people with very different lives. A bunch of selfish arseholes it would appear going by the behaviour in the countryside thread.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3877894-Please-use-the-countryside-responsibly-so-fed-up

My parents experiences of the war:

The Germans came into my DM's house and shot people while they hid. Her mum was taken into a prison camp. When they were reunited after the war, my mum didn't recognise her - the years they spent apart had an impact throughout her life. While her mum was in prison, my DM was malnourished and developed rickets.

My DF was evacuated away from his parents, they couldn't cope and took him back. He went back home, was bombed out and his schooling so disrupted he went to 10+ schools. He left school with no qualifications. Also while being left alone on bomb sites for long periods of time he was sexually abused. Older male family members came back from the war with what we would now recognise as PTSD and proceeded to abuse their wives.

I don't think remembering 'the war time spirit' as we do in this country is helpful at all. A lot of people just are remembering being children, which is generally a nice thing to do.

Apparently 'Keep Calm and Carry On' was not a successful wartime slogan as it pissed everyone off. It's only our rose tinted glasses that have made it a marketing success.

By the way, Foyles war was written pretty much by someone who didn't experience it either...and got his stories from his nanny I don't how to reply to this without swearing.

i think there is a comparison with the first few weeks of Ww1 when our troops were sent out on horses with swords into machine gun fire...

we know boris, the cons and the tabloids are obsessed with ww2- they have been invoking it a lot in brexit. its obvs meant to suggest plucky little england, pulling together, all alone, against the world - um thats not how it happened at all but people buy it coz it makes them feel all fuzzy and special.

english exceptionalism is a mistake.

in the first few months of ww2, so many pedestrians were mown down that one mp said the black out was doing the luftwaffes work for them.

Just from this thread you can tell that there are many of us who are one generation away from experiencing the war and certainly grew up with people who did.
Yes, I am one of these. I was born in the 1950s and everyone talked about war, their experiences all the time - our comic stories were mostly referencing the war/had war heroes in them - our parents spoke of it daily and my grandparents (both sides) would talk about it throughout their lives. The "Blitz spirit" lived on and we were brought up to put a brave face on and just get on with difficulties in life without moaning about it in the same way. The 1950s were a time of great deprivation - Britain was skint and food was a bit short - we had the necessities of life and that was it - many of us wore hand-me-down clothes and had hand-me-down toys because most people were short of money. We did not go out much, except to each other's houses for tea or walks, as we had no money for meals out/cinema, etc (cinema outings were a special treat - we went once or twice a year). We spent most days, when not at school, indoors or playing in the garden and we, like quite a few people still, had no television so we read a lot of books and talked to each other a lot more than I think people do now. I am very glad I grew up then - it taught us how to manage on very little money and not waste food and still have fun and be happy and also that doing without things for a while is not the end of the world. This seems to me to be the "Blitz spirit" living on and I don't see why we can't adopt it again now.

It was towards the end of the 1950s that things improved and by the early 1960s most people had televisions and refrigerators etc and we became more affluent and less worried about money as things generally picked up again.

I have been heartened by my very good neighbours in my cul-de-sac, who are of all ages, who have remained cheerful and very helpful to each other. I live alone and two separate neighbours have contacted me since this began to tell me that they had managed to get a slot the next day for the supermarket and did I want anything? That is the sort of Blitz spirit I think people are talking about - a generosity of community spirit and here, at least, there is plenty of it still about. (Mind you, many people in my suburb are old Cockneys, who were always the best people to have around you in times of trouble).

english exceptionalism is a mistake. I'm not English. I'm Scottish and British. Why are you talking about 'english exceptionalism' when discussing the 'Blitz spirit'?

believe it or not, i wasnt addressing you, derxa!