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Original poster

What fresh hell is this? National VE day

842 replies

wetpants · 03/05/2020 10:07

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 Confused

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

What fresh hell is this? National VE day
OP posts:
Roussette · 05/05/2020 07:38

theincredible bit like the manners shown to the countless health workers from other countries who died nursing people on the frontline. Those sort of manners you mean?

Mascotte · 05/05/2020 07:46

It's just a feeble attempt to distract from keeping the country imprisoned for longer.

salsmum · 05/05/2020 07:50

Misscharleyp there was dance music in the 1940s in fact big band music was very popular and my late mum and her friends in the WRAF used to love nothing more than getting ready for the dance... look up Glen Miller. Dance did not just start in the 90s/00s you know. Hmm

Alsohuman · 05/05/2020 08:03

Bloody hell @theincredible, I thought that sort of nonsense was dead and buried. How depressing to find people still trotting out that kind of bigoted shit.

MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing · 05/05/2020 08:16

"30 million Russians died in WW2"

30 million citizens of the USSR, comprising 17 republics only one of which was Russia. Stalin wasn't Russian.

And there certainly was dance music. When the English girls danced with the Black GI's, their attempts to dance boogie-woogie were so bad, the Americans said, "You're jiving me," meaning you are taking the mickey. Blissfully unaware, the British girls called it jive and the name stuck.

salsmum · 05/05/2020 08:17

It's funny how peeps have said 'it's a glorification of war' why can we not see it as a celebration of freedom??? to be able to live without the constant fear that you or a loved one would lose their lives, not hearing the air raid sirens every day/night and waiting to see if that next bomb was going to land on your home, queueing for hours for your weekly rations and trying to get back to some sort of normality after 6 long years of war... we've been in s i now for 6 weeks I cannot imagine living with the restrictions and fear that comes with war for 6 whole years. I will remember those who celebrated their freedom and those who sadly never saw VE day as I support all the casualties of war.

chomalungma · 05/05/2020 08:49

It's funny how peeps have said 'it's a glorification of war' why can we not see it as a celebration of freedom

I don't think its either - at least not in the way that it's being presented.

I am very impressed with the Dutch attitude towards this - especially the text I saw about their views - probably down to the fact they were occupied.

www.4en5mei.nl/english/5-may

We celebrate the absence of war, the restoration of the constitutional state after the Second World War and the fact that it enables us to live in freedom. Festivities are held throughout the Netherlands over the course of the day.

At 14 Liberation Festivals held throughout the country, we celebrate both our liberation and the freedom we currently enjoy, but we also pay attention to the presence or absence of freedom in the rest of the world. After all, freedom is not always a given for everyone.

At the Liberation Festivals, young people are reminded not to take their freedom for granted.

ballsdeep · 05/05/2020 09:33

We are having a party in the back garden with my household.
A family member is having a huge street party where they're all sitting in gardens and her daughter who works in a red hospital for covid, with patients, is going over too. 😡

Sooverthemill · 05/05/2020 09:50

It's not English. I was once on an early spring holiday in Greece ( Symi, beautiful island) and on 8 May was very surprised to be woken by a parade from outside our apartment which took up best part of an hour. The Mayor, soldiers, old chaps all parading up and down with us having no idea wtf if was about. My mum was furious I didn't know it was VE Day when I told her, back home. Greece was liberated from occupation as were others. It's important but to me, not street worthy stuff ( mind you, I also didn't do jubilee stuff).

Peregrina · 05/05/2020 09:55

queueing for hours for your weekly rations and trying to get back to some sort of normality after 6 long years of war...

Then they would find they were waiting for the better part of a decade. Rationing got worse after the war. Bread wasn't rationed during the war, but was put on the ration afterwards. Rationing didn't finally lift until 1954, although gradually eased off before then.

chomalungma · 05/05/2020 09:58

I do wonder what messages will be put out by the politicians and the Royal Family on the day?

Will it be about celebrating freedom, remembering those who died, fighting the rise of fascism and working together as a world towards making the world a better place?

Peregrina · 05/05/2020 10:03

It's not English.

We have changed and become more Continental in our displays. Before Princess Diana was killed we had never seen the outpouring of spontaneous public grief that happened then. I am sure that VE day was a genuine outpouring in the same way. The celebration which was planned had the air of being a very forced jingoistic celebration. So now we have a watered down bastardised version which isn't likely to fully satisfy anyone.

Peregrina · 05/05/2020 10:05

On VE day itself, the RF appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Not quite so easy to do this time when they have all bunked off to their second homes.

Soozikinzii · 05/05/2020 10:09

Not for me either . All this glorification of war is definitely not my bag . Our neighbours are ok to say hello but not like our best mates or anything.

PhilSwagielka · 05/05/2020 10:11

@Mumteedum I can't remember the exact details but I was in Year 6 in 1995, and I do remember doing stuff for the 50th anniversary at school. I think we had a themed lunch or something, there may have been flags up. I know I took part in a WW2-themed piece at the Dome where I played an evacuee boy who got rejected (my best friend was a girl who got picked) - it was one of those things where loads of different primary schools get together and sing songs, do little sketches etc., I'm not sure if they're still a thing. Though I can't remember what year I was in for it.

wherestheweightlosspill · 05/05/2020 10:15

All happening on my road including singsong of wartime tunes, can't bear it, makes me cringe but I think I''ll be the only one sitting it out.

Terralee · 05/05/2020 10:21

Well I got a note through my door yesterday inviting me to the neighbour's bbq, I know the woman next door is going to great efforts to make homemade bunting.
I would actually like to go as I like my neighbour but I'm working.

However my sister lives in a small block of flats in a street of mainly single large houses & flats. The whole street is planning to get wrecked. Social distancing will be fucked I should think. She's a bit nervous.

majesticallyawkward · 05/05/2020 11:13

@Mumteedum I remember, and have a lovely home video of, a street party for the 50th anniversary (have confirmed with DM it was that as I was 6 at the time). There was a marque in the street, music played, games, a buffet- and I vividly remember the blue, white and red toffee cakes!

Everyone was out, it's an odd designed estate I lived on then, more like a collection of 6/7 smallish 'streets' grouped together with various open spaces than one street as you'd think of it so it was massive. The estate as very 40/50s in feel even then though with no one locking doors and everyone knew each other.

The video is really sweet to watch now, I do miss that time. But to do it now would be awkward and twee, it's just not the same culture.

PhilSwagielka · 05/05/2020 12:06

There were more people alive back then who remembered WW2 as well. My grandparents, for instance - one of my grandmas was a child during the war, and the other one was in the WAAF.

Roussette · 05/05/2020 13:20

The whole street is planning to get wrecked. Social distancing will be fucked I should think. She's a bit nervous

Exactly. And that's what I've been saying the whole thread.

No one can tell me that everyone will social distance. Tables out on the road with booze on, telling Tom opposite to come over and have a beer, children running around with each other, then wanting a go on the trampoline in a back garden, bbq doling out sausages etc. I think it is all very short sighted indeed.

Alsohuman · 05/05/2020 13:48

Talk about catastrophising!

LonelyFromCorona · 05/05/2020 13:53

Thanks but no thanks.

RufustheLanglovingreindeer · 05/05/2020 14:05

We couldnt do it anyway

Could only sit on the drive, so we would have to move all The cars to the street

Couldn’t see neighbours to the right cos of the hedge, neighbour to the left has been dead for a long time

And weve got a small green in front of Is so neighbours are too far away

With out lockdown we would have met on the green

PhilSwagielka · 05/05/2020 14:32

Can't people just have parties in their gardens? Why does it have to be out in the street?

chomalungma · 05/05/2020 14:33

Can't people just have parties in their gardens? Why does it have to be out in the street

If you have a drink with your family in the garden, is it a party?

When does a party become a party?