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?

Well said , a lot of selective memory syndrome on here.

Although have to say, Dunkirk was an amazing movie - felt like I was there in the trenches!

YANBU

I'm a care worker, and this is something that's been on my mind for quite a few years now.

When I first started in care work, 28 years ago, it was commonplace for me to look after elderly people who had direct experience of both World Wars.

As time has gone on, those elderly people have now passed away - there is now nobody left who can give first hand experience of WW1.

I have known hundreds of people who can give first hand experience of their time in WW2, but this has dwindled down very quickly over the past ten or fifteen years.

During the Spring of this year, I contacted the HT of a local primary school and asked if the Y6 cohort might enjoy a visit from Jean.
Jean is 102, born in 1921. She is sharp as a tack, and was herself a HT at a primary school.
It was my thought that this might be the last chance we get for clear minded old people like Jean to be able to come into a primary school and share her experiences first hand.
Jean was incredibly keen to get involved with this.

I got a reply from the HT saying that Jean would need to have a current enhanced DBS check in place before she would be allowed to enter school premises.
Ok, I understand the rules. But Jean didn't have any utility bills in her name, as her 81 year old son dealt with this online - and he struggled to know how to forward these on.

What a missed opportunity.

My children have their great grandad who was very much involved in WW2, who was taken to a labor camp, escaped and then joined the Army. They've all had a chance to hear his stories and they have all used his story at school. We also have letters that his wife wrote to her brother who was serving in France during WW2 but sadly died in a car accident after the war ended. I have experience from my own dad who served in the British Army.

I'm 42 and my grandparents were around 10-16 during the war, so had a few stories to share but didn't fight in it. For our ww2 project people brought in their grandparents rations books , and the remembrance parade still had many old vetrans.

My grandfather wasn't a child during WW2, my Nan was maybe 10 when it started and my grandfather was in the war, he lost his brother in the war. My grandfather passed away some years ago but my nan is still alive and my children know her and she was still old enough at the time to have memories and stories to share. I think there is still a generation to go yet before no-one in that generation has any connection with anyone who lived during WW2. I admit I don't know much about WW2 and have no real passed down direct knowledge on it, I recall a little story about my grandfather having bumped in to his brother on his birthday (my grandfathers I believe) and having had a drink with him to celebrate whilst abroad, which as his brother didn't survive it is kind of bittersweet.

A) why would she. It was over 65 years ago. Of course things have changed.

B) That's usually code for "there's too many brown people now".

I want whatever you're smoking, OP. The Irish war of Independence? The Irish Civil War? The war which was later called 'the troubles' but was actually another civil war? What are you on, love?

We are on your doorstep, are we not?

Really? What about grandparents?

You’ve basically deleted all British people of colour by that comment. My children and my grandchildren will have direct experience of war because of the arbitary lines on a map the British Government drew to spite India.

Yes, it will feel to them like the Victorians feel to us. I suppose just as the Georgians felt to the Victorians, and how the kids of today will feel to those born in 2100. It's all relative isn't it.

I think people reading the OP in a very literal sense is what's causing some of the misunderstanding. The OP later did talk about the nation, grandparents and great grandparents as a direct connection to wartime stories and shared experiences. There are entire generations of British families whose histories, traditions and shared unities resemble nothing that the OP is alluding to, including my own. So if you accept the OP's perspective of British history and indeed why other wars are not in this context as significant then it makes sense. Sort of Rule Britannia IYSWIM.

The level of ignorance in this post is beyond words but predictable all the same.

@ell87 It’s not that surprising to not know grandparents and/or not hear war stories from them. 3 of my grandparents died when I was a kid and, while the fourth is still alive, she lives too far away for us to have had much of a relationship.

Depending on who you ask, the Troubles is seen as a war but I get OPs point. I think my generation will be telling our grandkids about the pandemic and lockdowns instead, but it won’t have the same impact as the war did.

Sure it's the generation before this current one?

I'm 30. My grandparents were born after WW2, my nan in 1948. The average age a woman became a mother in the 60s was 23, and then around 25 in the 80s so I'd assume on average most 20-35 year olds don't know anyone directly from the war.

Could have put it better myself .

Being an older parent and the younger child or parents born the younger kids in large families, my grandparents were born in the 19th century. I only knew 2 of them. One was sole survivor of several brothers who fought in WW1 and the other a refugee from the area now known as Ukraine. My mother and father had many stories about growing up during WW2. My father was a Wartime Apprentice in the RAF. He talked about this to our son when they studied WW2 in primary school.

It’s very true that these links to the past are coming to a close.

Speaking of horrific ,your ignorance and lack of education considering your claiming to be half Irish is utterly shameful. No need to ask what other nationality your claiming .

I said it "really only affected people in NI" I grew up in Glasgow never been involved in a bomb practice ever. I only recall one IRA bomb scare in Glasgow around 1993.

It's a bit like Ukraine today, you know its happening. Pray it doesn't escalate.
And it's caused cost of living increases but really it's not affecting peoples day to day life. You still are working your normal job, kids aren't being shipped of to the country side, or needing a ration coupon as well as cash to go to the corner shop for a sweetie.
The World Wars affected everyone on a day to day basis.

Right. I remember a primary school homework that was to ask your grandparents about WWII. I guess that wasn’t ideal - there was at least one Polish girl in my class, and many people will have had grandparents like my grandfather who would never talk about it. But pretty much everyone knew people who had lived through it at an age they would remember. My dad lived through it but was only a few months old at the beginning of the war. He mostly remembers the party for VE day and the great excitement when sugar rationing finally ended.

I'd agree with that.
WW2 ended in 1949, so to have been an adult in 1949 you must have been born before 1931 so you'd now be 92.

Really that great grandparent sort of age. How many kids have Grandparents?

I'm in my late 20s and don't know anyone from the war era. My grandparents were born after WW2.

My parents were born in the 1930s and remember very well what it was like as children in the war - evacuation, air raids, the bombed sites, the Anderson shelter in the garden, the blackout curtains, the tape on windows to hold them together in case they got broken, the taste of their first banana after the war. All their grandchildren are in their 20s-30. There are two toddler great-grandchildren -so, yes, these children do know people from WW2. I would think that reasonably common still. It needs another generation for there to be no direct connection.

Bloody hell, yes really! I didn't know my grandparents.

Did you think I just suddenly forgot about their existence?