Will we ever look back with nostalgia?

[Christinaismyperson]

I was just thinking about how the pandemic and lockdown are often compared to WW2 and I was wondering if one day we will ever look back with nostalgia? And if so what will we be nostalgic about?

It also got me thinking how strange the nostalgia for WW2 is, surely living through it would have been far worse than the pandemic? Husbands, sons and brothers being shipped overseas to fight. Rationing and going without food, the real possibility a bomb will drop on your house killing you and your children. Seems mad people look back with such fondness? Is it a survival technique or is it mainly people who were children in the war who didn’t understand or weren’t even born?

@TempsPerdu Its likely your parents are just nostalgic for their youth.

I am nostalgic for the late 70s/early 80s but my Dad was in and out of jobs, parents heading for divorce and grandparents died so not a great time but youth is youth !

Nobody looks back at WW2 with fondness. The nostalgia is more about it being a time when people were brave and selfless and we all pulled together. Which is likely the same way that people will look back at the pandemic in future.

NO.
NO.
NO.
NO.
NO.
NO.
NO.
NO.
And Saint Boris must never, ever, be knighted, or decorated; he must shuffle away quietly, and suffer the ultimate fate worse than being talked about: NOT being talked about.

No I feel like I'm drowning in hell.
The wartime jingoistic nonsense has to end.

We don’t need to go back to WWII for how people can have nostalgia for bits of a very traumatic time.

I think sometimes we have to re-frame traumatic times by remembering/emphasising any good bits at all and almost congratulating ourselves for having gotten through the worst times.

I consider it a coping mechanism that, provided the trauma is recognised and addressed, we can move on with any good bits and leave the worst behind us.

I agree its not helpful to compare, do ‘top trauma trumps’ or use our luck/ability to move on to berate those who are still suffering the effects and/or need more help to move forward.

We will have all experienced this in our own way as well as collectively and if reframing helps some move forward more easily then crack on, with usual proviso of not using that to hurt or demean others.

Yes there will be a certain amount of “in my day we weren’t even allowed to leave the sofa. All you got was one walk a day and we didn’t even have any toilet roll!”. To be fair though, I already look back to March with a certain nostalgia; when it was warm and a novelty and we had no idea that it would go on this long.

I think a lot of WW2 nostalgia is driven by people who weren’t actually there and have romanticised it. Women swooning over men in uniform. Women tying their hair up, rolling their sleeves up and mucking in with land work while having the time of their lives (and a “holiday romance” with an American GI), smartly dressed evacuees waving to their parents at the station as their stream train puffs away, all the old men doing their bit in “Dad’s Army”, patriotism and flag waving.I’m sure the day to day reality wasn’t so quaint and certainly not the reality of actually fighting in a war!

In a very blinkered way, I already regard lockdown 1 as something I miss. We are privileged to be in that situation - DS turned 4 and hated his nursery so being pulled out meant he returned to the happy little boy he used to be instead of the stressed anxious child he’d become. I was furloughed completely so could spend all my time with him. DP was at home too so we had a lovely time as a family. The weather was great and we live in a tourist hotspot at the bottom of the mountain so had plenty of beautiful views and walks to explore. Normally as soon as the weather gets good, we are swamped with tourists so it was nice to have the village to ourselves.

That lasted around a month or two and then the realisation of what I’d really happening kicked in.

Outside of that, I hope, like other PPs, that DS remembers it with fond memories. I’m trying so hard to keep things happy and fun for him but it’s difficult.

On a wider scale, no one should remember this time fondly or nostalgically. We as people need to use this as the stark reality of voting in successive governments that are all about money and nepotism and could not give any shits about the vulnerable and our children. By rights, once this is all over, this should be seen as the great wake up call the U.K. needs to sort its shit out.

No. This is going to have a negative impact on many many people for a long time yet. There isn't going to be any nostalgia.

People don't have any nostalgia for the Spanish flu pandemic. There are very few plus sides to things like this.

No. There'll be a bit of salute-the-heroes stuff about the healthcare workers who did double shifts and held the hands of the dying, but for most people this is a passive, sedentary and boring experience. There is absolutely nothing glamorous about it.

I'll look back with boredom. Can you imagine the poor kids having to study this in future history lessons. Although it might not even be worthy a subject.
I don't actually agree with this, though. The experience of the pandemic will be deeply boring to most of us, but the politics going on are actually pretty dramatic!

I do think to some extent it depends on circumstances if you lived in London during the war and were in constant fear of your home being bombed and your children were evacuated ,than obviously it's a completely different to living in a village or the countryside ,my Grandma had evacuees rather than having to send her children away to be evacuated .

@OldPervsWithNoFannyOfTheirOwn I do think there is something in nostalgia being a coping mechanism, and maybe a form of denial?

When we look to the past we often see the rose tinted version. Our national imagery of Victorian Britain is that of a great era when the reality was much more grim full of terrible living and working conditions, epidemics and death. Infant mortality and an endless grind (yes I am watching Victorian Slum on iPlayer!).

Not one bit.
My grandma worked making aeroplane parts in the war & she had the fondest memories, it was the camaraderie they had & being together in the worst of times. This is so different for all of us as it's been such an isolated time. Isolation is not good for most people & I'm sure it's a time most want to forget.

@Aimee1987

I'm sorry who looks back with fondness at WW2? it was a very sad and trying part of history. I dont know anyone who has any positive thoughts of it and the people I did know who lived in that time ( grandparents who have since passed away) certainly didnt retain any sort of longing or fondness towards it.

I disagree.

My Mum was a young woman in WW2 who joined the WRNS in WW2. It gave her freedom from her oppressive home and she had a bloody marvellous time. She was in danger too.

Conversely, my dad was a CO and never mentioned the war once.

I'm reading a book about "London and its Dead" at the moment and I'm on the chapter about the 1660's plague outbreak and the 28 day quarantine. It crossed my mind that apart from the internet and not having a running sewer outside the front door, nothing seems very different at the moment

I might have looked back fondly on the initial lockdown and the spirit of togetherness etc if that had been it, but this time round it's bloody soul destroying.

No

Never
But will it ever end?
And will we be locked down again and again for every new variant, every new virus?
Yes of course because we bought into the fear and were complaint to our civil liberties being removed overnight

Not from anyone with any shred of intelligence. For the rest of our, and our children's, lives we and they are going to be paying for this shitstorm.

@PicsInRed

I think a lot of people will be traumatised, much like the war, and smells like hand santiser, sights like masks will trigger them, crying etc.

Those with nostalgia for the war likely weren't that close to it (or weren't separated from family).

I have nostalgia for Christmas/NY 2020.

If people are traumatised by these things then I think they've had a very good life on the whole. People need some sort of a grip if you're actually suggesting they're going to be traumatised by hand gel

Absolutely NOT!

I think a lot of people will be traumatised, much like the war, and smells like hand santiser, sights like masks will trigger them, crying etc.

@Beaniecats

Never But will it ever end? And will we be locked down again and again for every new variant, every new virus? Yes of course because we bought into the fear and were complaint to our civil liberties being removed overnight

Totally agree @Beaniecats. The most chilling thing I have heard for a while was Matt Hancock saying "the variant I am most worried about is the one we haven't discovered yet". What in the name of all that is holy does that mean? We're going to be locked down forever for something that may or may not exist?!

We have sleep-walked into a complete erosion of our civil liberties. The government are not going to give that level of control up easily. Way to go everyone.

Yes, definitely for lockdown 1.
I have also worked hard to make life fun for the kids - we managed a brilliant English summer holiday, a half term away in October, day trips such as to Harry Potter world and walks with family etc... I'll look back fondly on all of that.
Hopefully when we emerge into spring, things will feel better again 😢

You mean if there's an even worse pandemic we might look back nostalgically at this one?

@lllllllllll

I think a lot of people will be traumatised, much like the war, and smells like hand santiser, sights like masks will trigger them, crying etc.

WTF? Do you not know of a very real mental health disorder called PTSD?

@Yohoheaveho

You mean if there's an even worse pandemic we might look back nostalgically at this one?

When 😨😂

There were certainly lots of people publicly sharing lots of photos/ rhetoric about living their best life/ family time through the spring and summer, so a lot will feel nostalgic unless they were lying or presenting a charade.

I'm not a lockdown fan, they damage society as a whole. Many days have been a succession of grinding, tedious existence with no punctuation from one day to the next. We need external stimulation. However we're lucky to be secure through this, have a comfortable home, heating, plenty of food- millions are not, and have had a decline in their situation.

As at any time, there have been pleasant moments. We certainly took advantage of the decent weather for much of April- late October. We didn't need a lockdown to get those moments though. One lovely moment was to go on a star-gazing walk as the skies were so clear... but it wasn't possible to repeat stargazing at a little campsite in our county like we did a few years ago.

This has limped on with little punctuation and it's already hard to remember the details through 2020 as they fuzz more than a usual year.