How the fuck did they get through the war??

[ssd]

If it was 6 years...

This hasn't been a year yet and were all losing the will.....

I think the only benefits people in 1939 had were no 24/7 telly and no social media

But 6 years....OMG

They are, of course, entirely different situations that you can't compare.

Because were together. We are struggling with being apart. It’s very different.

Plus, do you think people didn’t moan in the war? Do you think they felt like they were coping? I bet after the first 9 months a lot of people were going ‘omg I can’t take another 6 months of this, I thought it was meant to be all over by Christmas?’

Probably because people could see each other and get support. They got through it together, they weren't isolated.

Should say ‘they were together’.

Why do you think people got through it better then?

DM got through the war by moving house to house through her family, particularly when bombed out twice.

She wasn't blackmailed about "murdering granny" for it.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

Because were together. We are struggling with being apart. It’s very different.

Plus, do you think people didn’t moan in the war? Do you think they felt like they were coping? I bet after the first 9 months a lot of people were going ‘omg I can’t take another 6 months of this, I thought it was meant to be all over by Christmas?’

Absolutely

I really don’t get this rose tinted view of the past

Durin’ the war people complained, they broke rules, they broke laws, they cheated on the black market etc

They also pulled together and did heroic things

People are just people

The war was hideous and people moaned continually about the government, shortages, not being able to do anything fun. Lots of people had MH problems during the war and afterwards. But it ended and one day this will end too.

They weren’t together if they were at the front.

Social media has a lot to answer for.

Oh and her father committed suicide 20 years after his life changing injuries.

Should we accuse that generation were snowflakes for not dealing with the trauma?

My grandmother was evacuated aged 6 and by the time war had finished had only spent half her life with her parents. They got on with it, were scared shitless and took comfort where they could.

They didn’t, they hated it. My grandparents were all alive during WW2, two of them through WW1. They didn’t have a single nice thing to say about the war, other than that it was nice when it was over. One of my grandmothers developed lifelong depression and anxiety as a direct result of being the wrong age (late childhood) during WW2. She was a Londoner and hated the fear of the bombs at home but hated too the terror of being evacuated to strangers. She’s never gotten over it. Remember we view it now as something they got through and the happiness of Vera Lynn and coming together for “our boys” but for all they knew the war was never going to end.

So basically everyone in the war felt the same as we feel now. 100yrs from now this will be painted as something we got through and there was positivity at the end of because that’s how humans work: we create pleasing narratives.

Back then we had a common goal, now the country is divided over COVID, Brexit and the North and South divide thanks to the Tories

They also had lower expectations and much harder lives than our spoiled and pampered selves, and were raised with an ethos of “stiff upper lip” and “mustn’t grumble”.
For many from the slums, they were better fed, clothed and housed when conscripted into the armed services than they were at home.

It is a very different situation. However, they weren’t all together though.. lots of the men were off fighting, and quite a few children were evacuated. I suspect people either just had a more stoic attitude then OR moaned just as much as people do now, but we don’t hear about it because the press would have had a ‘positive stories only’ propaganda approach..

If they were at the front they were with their fellow soldiers. If you’re not with loved ones you build bonds with other people, it’s human nature. There are people now struggling because they haven’t hugged another human being since February and I don’t blame them one iota for finding it hard.

Different situations. The blitz wasn't contagious therefore it was dealt with in different ways. It pisses me off no end how the two keep getting compared.

Just because something was (or could be seen as) more shit years ago DOES NOT make what we're experiencing now any better, nor does it make our feelings any less valid.

End. Of.

I suppose they got through the war the same way we'll get through this. Some whinged, some were stoic, some were helpful and kind, some revelled at dobbing in neighbours.

OP - what makes you think they coped any better or worse in general than we are coping with this?

Oh dear god you can’t blame the tories for everything.

Many of them didn’t. Many of them had MH problems. But like now, there was no choice.

Also people are fundamentally tribal. Having a defined, fightable enemy to unite against helped. As did cups of tea, shoulders to cry on and acts of kindness.

Yeah. A year is nothing, to me.

Some people are having a really tough year. Some people really aren’t, but are whinging so much.

I spent 3.5 years caring for my family and working knowing my DH was going to die if his terminal cancer (my youngest was one when he got sick), I did his end of life care alone as no hospice space, I’ve been bringing up my children alone since.

I worked hard through lockdown with both kids in the house and no one to help with anything but 2020 doesn’t even make it into my top 5 worst years.

I don’t want to hear it when so many people’s biggest complaint is that they’ve seen too much of their loving DH as they’re both working from home or they’re missing someone who’s at the end of the phone, not dead.

I guess I need to have a word with myself about empathy...

During the war people moaned mostly about the food, which as well as being in short supply was generally very nasty, the lack of petrol (heavily rationed), the general uncertainty and difficulty of planning, and their inability to enjoy holidays on the continent.

There was full employment though (in fact major labour shortages due to so many people serving in the armed forces), so I guess the economic uncertainty was not as bad, though most people were not at all well off.

I was raised in a community where lots of people who lived through the war were part of my parents babysitting circle.

Most of them report the horrendous nature of it, the crime, the looting, the despair, the “can’t even be bothered to hide under the table for air raids, if I die, I die”.

The only person who enjoyed it was my gran, she was 17, her mum went to the countryside and she managed to get herself into nightclubs 😂

@ssd

If it was 6 years...

This hasn't been a year yet and were all losing the will.....

I think the only benefits people in 1939 had were no 24/7 telly and no social media

But 6 years....OMG

Because if you refused to participate in the blackout because you didn't personally know anyone who'd been bombed by the Luftwaffe and "99% of bombs didn't hit their targets" the local likely lads would have paid you a visit and adjusted your attitude.

According to my great uncle.

I'm reading a great book just now written in 1947 called the Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton. It's as semi comic novel set in a boarding house outside London, the type of place where single people ended up to escape from the Blitz. The boarding house occupants are all quite lonely, bored and fatigued by the monotony of their existence and awake daily to the realisation that war is taking place all over the world. The main character a 39 year old single lady, ends up working from home which I thought amusing (she is a proof reader) and she ends up snogging an american serviceman so that relieves some of the tedium. So appears that whilst some people had a terrible time, others where just in limbo for long periods. And they got through however they could.

Another interesting parallel was the public information notices saying that 'careless talk costs lives', similar to our need for caution. It's a great book actually and I found it reassuring in some ways to relate to the situations and gain some perspective.