What fresh hell is this? National VE day

[wetpants]

This has popped up on my local FB page, villagers are all up for it too. Apparently it’s a nationwide incentive??

The thing is, most front gardens are tiny or non existent here. There’s no way you could be 2m away from your next door. Also these villagers who are up for this are the same people who few weeks ago cried about a lone bloke sitting on a crass verge, well away from any pedestrians. How is this any different?

I’m not British (have lived here a long time though) so maybe I’m just not getting the fervent VE day misty eyeness

And don’t get me started on 9pm nationwide singalong WHO comes up with these things???

There seems to be quite a lot of people in my village, who are , and organising the VE celebrations. All my immediate neighbours, are about 30 years younger than me, and it's probably just going to be a chance to get outside and see people.

I am 78 now, and live alone,but I won't be joining in at all. But I do very clearly remember the day, when I was just over three years old, and we had a fantastic street party in 1945, in the road where I then lived, up in Cheshire. Magically, all the Mums and Grans, managed to get some basic party food to bring out for all the children, despite all the rationing. Sadly I don't have any photo's of that day, as nobody in our street had a camera of any sort at all.

Did I go back in time? This sounds like a 50s thing to do. Are we little women meant to be baking in the morning too? Well I don't remember anything like it in the 50s. Remembrance Day parades were a thing but they weren't about tea parties and to be fair I suppose November wouldn't be the ideal month for an outdoor celebration.

'Anke Frank' is part of the national curriculum, I believe. So pretty certain kids nowadays still hear about Bergen-Belsen, Peregrina.

We've had this out go in our local Facebook page and it's made me a bit cross, basically around here are planning a 'socially distanced' street party (yeah right!). There are still 600 odd people dying every day at the moment and I think it's a pretty disgusting and disrespectful time to be throwing street parties regardless of the occasion. Maybe have a bit of thought for those who might be mourning their family members, shift workers who are being disturbed from sleep that they need to go and treat seriously unwell people or people who are at home sick with this virus? Nah.

Am not against remembering the war dead or VE Day celebrations in general. I have huge respect for those of that generation (it so wasn't the 'glory days'). This celebration could have been moved to VJ Day, or just put on hold until a more appropriate time in general.

All this doorstep nonsense is driving me mad. No one round here would normally celebrate VE Day I bet most people don't even know when it is. They're just using this as an excuse to post stupid pictures on social media.

Bah fucking humbug!

Dear god there are some truly miserable bastards on this site. I don’t understand why so many people are so quick to pat themselves on the back for being so militantly anti-social about everything. We get it, you are far superior to the rest of us. God what miserable lives you must lead!

Nope. I lead a busy happy social life. And I answer the doorbell, and don't mind getting texts overnight!
Not the slightest bit anti social, completely the opposite in fact.
However, I don't think this is the right thing to do at this time whilst we've got 700 people dying every day, we're in the middle of the pandemic, we're suppose to be not mixing households etc. Some will keep to their front gardens, there will be many that won't.
Not miserable. Just realistic.

You give over @Rousette, you know perfectly well that was tongue in cheek - unless you’ve turned your irony detector off.

I have no idea with you Alsohuman ... anyway, let's leave it there, for the sake of harmony.

I don’t hate my neighbours. They are all rather nice and we go out to Xmas meal every year. I just don’t want to do this with them. Or with anyone.

Then don’t

jas, people will never forget WW2 , it’s not living in the past, it’s remembering and honouring the people who give lives, their health and their youth to overcome evil, that thankfully most of us can’t comprehend.

@alsohuman ooh biting sarcasm there, I'm so wounded 😂😂😂😂😂

Wasn’t sarcasm.

That's why I think Armistice Day is important.

We're doing it in our street, we've got bunting, flags and balloons, we've got lots of tea and gin, we're making scones, we might even have a bit of Glenn Miller playing in the background, we're all staying in our own front gardens and we're all really looking forward to it. Most of the time we don't see each other from one week to the next, but seeing as we're all here, we thought why not.
As, you know, 75 years since VE Day is something to celebrate, and we're all really looking forward to doing so, to having a laugh and a chat, to having something nice to look forward to in this shitstorm.

Tea and scones (or coffee and cake)

Idk if the latter is a reference to the German tradition of coffee and cake. However, if it is, I see no shame in the German people wanting to mark the passing of an evil time in their history. There are but scarce few are still alive from that era.

I’ll be doing an interpretive dance on my front lawn that signifies the inhumanity of British government policy when they chemically castrated Alan Turin.

Fuckers.

Bringing up the OP's nationality is a shitty thing to do.

I won't be celebrating on Friday. I'm sick to the tits of this country's obsession with WWII and the 'blitz spirit' which was propaganda.

*Turing

people will never forget WW2 , it’s not living in the past, it’s remembering and honouring the people who give lives, their health and their youth to overcome evil, that thankfully most of us can’t comprehend

So what? we don't remember them when they are alive though do we? We let them come from war, discharged from the services and forgotten, reliant on charities like the British Legion... set up because we didn't give a fuck.

Are you really suggesting that having a cuppa is going to make anyone more aware of the horrors of war???? it's just an excuse to enhance the belief that the british are somehow unique.

Most people think the Battle of the Bulge is something from a slimming world advert or El Alamein is an Islamic terrorist news outlet.

I just watched Odette, the film about Odette Churchill who was an SOE agent in the war. She was captured, has her toe and finger nails pulled out, had red hot irons held on her back and her feet, was beaten and was nearly shot in Ravensbruck, but she didn’t betray anyone and she was lucky enough to live and spent the rest of her life honouring the memory of the others of the SOE with her story. We should never forget.

It would have been my mums birthday. She was a child living in London on VE Day and used to joke that she thought it was celebrations for her birthday. I’ll think of her and my grandpa - a soldier, and my grandma - a nurse. I’ll tell DS about my grandpas war stories and my mums old memories.

@MaryBerrystolemyflour, could you video that and put it on YouTube? I'd
love to see it.

I was thinking about trying to create a son et lumiere to show people that more people died of hunger during WW2 than died because they were fighting.

I'll be having a celebration because I want to. I like baking and I think that remembering the end of war in Europe and the defeat of Hitler are important. Fortunately, thanks to the defeat of Hitler, we live in a world where we can choose to celebrate or not. So if you don't want to, don't, but don't try and dictate what other people choose to do.

T,s meant to be bringing communities together. I won,t be joining in, certainly won,t begrusge those that do. this programme is abit much I have just seen things saying 4.00 have tea with neighbours type thing. Same distance as when clapping but I didn,t do that either. Do you.

I think it feels very much forced to be honest. I was also sent a letter in the post with a full days schedule attached. Now I stand and clap for the NHS but I think it's more of an opportunity for certain roads to brag about how great they are. I will celebrate and show my respects but inside my home. I was told on one facebook group to go and live in another country, as I'm half English with a foreign surname I suspect they were trying to be racist towards me

So if you don't want to, don't, but don't try and dictate what other people choose to do
I don't think anyone is dictating what others should do. And those that want to do it shouldn't be shaming those that don't. It works both ways.