Kids today won't know anyone from the war

[raindropbox]

Our grandparents or parents were children during the war, and they had stories from their parents or grandparents, who had lived experience of WW1.

So we had a direct connection with somebody with first-hand experience of the world wars. It just occured to me that babies born now won't have that.

Does that mean WW1/2 will feel as distant to them as the victorians do to us? Will it have some kind of subconscious impact on society?

Surely this is why we learn about history? It’s history. I don’t understand the need to bring it in to a third generation?

I am interested....in what way?

War only has a lasting impact on the general population when it involves conscription and danger to civilians in your own country. Like the blitz.
Also, the sheer number killed are not comparable. Less than 500 uk nationals were killed. An utter tragedy for their loved ones but not on a scale to impact most people.
The best part of 2 million uk citizens were killed in ww2, and the population was smaller.

So @NumberTheory do you agree with this statement:
Basically the babies being born now will be the first generation ever to not have a living history of war

No living history of war. The entire generation. All these other wars, even the ones that occurred inside the U.K. were nothing and affected no one. There is no memory and no living history whatsoever, anywhere in the U.K. of war.

Because it looks like you are agreeing with it. This isn’t a debate on which war had the greatest impact.

But history is (in theory) how we learn not to repeat the mistakes of the past. And therefore avoid ww3.
In reality human beings are crap at learning from other peoples mistakes.

Well that’s not true for the people of Northern Ireland, is it?!

Britain invaded Ireland and years of war and conflict followed. British troops only left NI in 2007!

3500+ people killed during this war, so unfortunately lots of our kids & future grandchildren will have first hand stories to hear

My grandad and parents went to see it opened. A lovely thing I believe. He only died 3 years ago at 100.

My daughter has a great grandmother still alive who was a teen during WW2
She has shared quite a lot with my DD.

I have a massive interest in my grandparents role in WW2 They had both passed away by the time I was born sadly.

One was in the ATS and the other in the army, he was part of the group that liberated Belsen.

I was born in 1965. Growing up in the late 1960s and 1970s all the kids played on derlict land which were still known as the bombsites, pre fab housing was still in use at the bottom of my street until the 1980s, I remember a lot of the kids were quite jealous because the prefabs had proper gardens. The bombed out church in town is still a landmark.
I live in Coventry now. A huge part of the housing stock still shows marks of the blitz. In my first house, the stone lintels of every single house had an identical crack - the houses basically lifted up during the bombing and cracks resulted when they settled.
My current house has visible shrapnel damage to brickwork. Only 10 years ago a house was built in a gap in the terrace -it replaced a house that was destroyed as a result of a direct hit. The owners have researched the people who lived there.
Our Cathedrals stand as memorials. Every tree in our local park is dedicated to a fallen soldier, with a plaque telling you who they were and when they died. It includes memorials to forces people from present day conflicts.
If you look for it, the history of our conflicts is all around us.

@raindropbox No, I'm not assuming that. I too, am trying to understand the nostalgia behind it. My initial post mentions the British psyche being wedded to tradition and ceremony which might go some way to explain what you're describing because its memory doesn't evoke the same sense of 'togetherness' or nostalgia within me as it does in you.

I'm 54 and my father was a German PoW. He never spoke about the war. My mother was nine when it started and she's often talked about it, to us and her grandchildren. My grandfathers were on opposing sides but never met.

Does that mean WW1/2 will feel distant?

No. There are plenty of books, films, documentaries and recorded testimonies of those wars. I personally feel that as the time gap gets bigger, the more those wars get more fetishised and co-opted by the media and politicians to basically shut people up.

All this clap trap about the ‘Blitz Spirit’ to dismiss concerns about quality of life or public services. As if that generation were practically waltzing through the bombings, no acknowledgement that people suffered and died during the Blitz.

Or Holocaust memorials while demonising refugees. And don’t get me started on Poppy Watch.

I was born in late 80s and 9/11 and Iraq War / War on Terror has personally had a bigger impact on me. Especially growing up seeing politicians lie and sexed up dossiers.

I do find the reconstruction of the UK AFTER the war quite interesting, as well as how the British Empire crumbled post-war. I know very little about either topics.

There are 11,500 WW2 veterans left in the uk.

I worked in education a few years ago and I went to have a nail appointment and was chatting to a girl in her early 20s about a trip we were taking to a WW2 museum.

I am not sure how we got into the topic of the holocaust but she had never heard about it!

I strongly feel that humans need to know about these things to stop such atrocities happening.

Exactly.

OP that's a really shockingly ignorant statement when there was a civil war IN the UK that only ended 25 years ago.

The worrying thing is if children don't grow up being taught about genocide, about how such evil begins with everyday acts between neighbours, with racism, with vilification of the less well off, the disabled, anyone used as a scapegoat as disabled people and immigrants are currently in the UK.

Also, how extraordinary a pinnacle of human endeavour were the post war achievements of the welfare state and the NHS and how beyond terrible and devastating their destruction by the current government and those who vote for it.

Of course, children today are growing up with the horrors of climate change and the wars (including the 90s oil wars) connected with it.

@DojaPhat
I think all national psyches are wedded to ceremony and tradition aren't they? It's not a specifically British thing. In fact ceremony, tradition, history and shared languages ARE "the national psyche". You wouldn't have the concept of a nation without one, you'd just have a state.

I wish it would mean that people in England stop banging on about it but sadly fear that won't happen. Chatter about it seems to be steadily increasing the further we get from WwII.

I don’t agree with such an extreme interpretation, no.

I do think that culturally, it’s reasonable to talk about the impact of WWII as affecting generations as a whole and I don’t think that applies to the other wars mentioned in the post I responded to (though arguable on NI).

May patents were both born after the war however although it had ended after they were born, there was lots of after effects taken still being felt. There was the tail end of rationing, large derelict bomb sites that people were still living in, austerity but optimism for the future as there was lots of rebuilding. They had parents that were directly affected by it (one of their parental had malaria for example, one probably had mental health problems from being imprisoned) So although they didn't live through the war they were indirectly affected by it to a big extent.

And yes I agree that every generation since has been more removed. That's the way of things and it's good in some ways that we are approaching a generation who don't know such horrors. There are some things that we should never forget as a society but ita difficult to make it sound relevant when to them, it sounds like it was happening to people in history books.

I'm in my 40s, and don't feel I had any real family connection to the war. The men in local area were miners or farmers, so didn't have the large numbers of soldiers that other areas would have had. Also, there was no bombing anywhere near.

My grandparents didn't talk about it really, even when asked. They said it didn't really impact them. I am sure it did, in reality, but they didn't want to make it "their" story.

Possibly the number of films about WW1 & 2 will make young people more aware than say the Boer or Crimean wars?
I was born in the 60's, so both my parents had grown up in the war, and several primary teachers had fought in it (remember one of them breaking down on remembrance day, which was always observed with a mid morning assembly).
Didn't get taught anything about the war though - mostly Romans., neither set of Grandparents ever mentioned it, my Mum would occasionally talk about watching the fires of the blitz - she grew up in North London, born 1932.

Banging on about it🫥

Fair enough if your not interested but this is a bit disrespectful. How often are people banging on about world war 2, realistically? November, maybe. Hardly banging on.

Are you kidding? It was all some people talked about during lockdown.

I am 33 and I don't know anyone from the war. My grandparents were born in the 1940s.