Years & Years

[unique1986]

Starts tonight 9pm
Family drama that flashes forward into the future.

I’m 26, took history at A -Level and we covered the Boer War. Hasn’t even heard of it before that.

God this is good . Just binge watched all weekend

I think the nuclear scared me the most , as like many people I have the odd nightmare about it happening . Seeing that cloud
Shudder

And the boat scene . My partner is from a place where a lot of the boats end up . Wrecked and empty

It’s very very clever and imaginative writing

My only query was seeing bethan hacking the system for her aunt . She is SO going to get caught isn’t she

And love the relationship between the (G) DIL and the gran , how she cares for her whilst disliking her . So true and so lovely

They have a lovely family bond despite all , I envy them their siblings !

How many more are left ?

Last episode tomorrow @Pikapikachooo

I have binge watched this over the last few days after a colleague recommended it.
I’m presuming that it’s meant to be warning how close we are to slipping into the same kind of events as happened before and during WW2. Most people are tolerating awful events happening in the world unless it’s happening to them/their loved ones. Then the cycle gets worse with those events helping to turn ‘normal’ people into monsters.
Knew that the Boer War happened but didn’t know about the concentration camps until Jacob Rees Mogg defended their use on Question Time a few months ago:
www.heraldscotland.com/news/17438410.is-rees-moggs-claim-that-the-death-rate-in-glasgow-was-the-same-as-boer-war-concentration-camps-true/

Place marking

I didn’t know about the boer war
Despite being fairly well read (albeit not a historian )
Reminds me
Of when I learnt about the allied firebombing in WW2
That was atrocious and whitewashed from history too

Just had a call with some
Colleagues from a developing country and their president has been undemocratically put in post

This programme has really messed me up

I think it's clear RTD has had quite enough of the tubthumping Brexit bullshit. And so have I. It's sending us all back to the bad old days and it's only been possible because we're so ignorant about our own history. It's not just the Boer War. How many Brits really understand what we did in India or Palestine? Or what we did to the Irish? So much of the news is presented without any context or key information. Makes me so cross and I'm as ignorant as the next person.

@RuffleCrow

I’m Pakistani, it’s amazing how many people don’t know about involvement in WW2 or partition. My family were from Bangaluru in India and were not pro-partition, as a result there was extreme brutality and my Great Grandmother was raped by a British officer. She was lucky that my Grandad passes as Asian, otherwise the whole family would have been ostrasized.

Never heard of the Boer war camps.

I’ve just caught up.

I knew about the camps in the Boer War but I didn’t know about them being run to cause disease.

SimonJT i'm so very sorry to hear what your family went through. Especially your great grandmother.

Sadly the only reason I'm more aware than most Brits is that, by horrible coincidence, my grandad was actually an officer in India in the 1940s. Of course he never really talked about any of it. Just went around quoting Rudyard Kipling a lot. But reading your post and learning of so many atrocities makes me feel deeply ashamed that he was part of that. Not only that but he was in a position of authority.

and yet in my family we were all brought up to think of those who served in ww2 as 'heroes'. No doubt some were, but i suspect many more were not.

I didn't know much about partition either, I agree, except where its come up in fiction.

Which is shocking really. So sorry to hear about your family's experience @simonjt

My family is from NZ which probably has one of the best starts of the commonwealth countries, in terms of how local people were treated when the west turned up. It was still awful.

All of this history is so recent, and we have a curriculum that allows children to stop learning about it before they learn anything truly critical about the country they live in. Even though we know how important it is that children learn how to recognise and assess sources in order to fight fake news. Something that is helped imo, by learning about things that you would rather weren't true but are.

I find that mad.

I knew about the Boer War, Partition and allied bombing in Europe but I am in my 60s. Maybe a reminder is now overdue for younger people.

In terms of WW2 I am amazed how silly propaganda films skewed the perspective of it. It was clearly no fun and games, but some people get very angry and defensive if you mention mass rape or people burning. No one else in Europe has this rose-tinted memory of the Great Wars.

My dad was in the RAF towards the end of the war (wireless operator not bomber pilot) and was posted to Germany afterwards. He was warned that they might be hostile to the British but he found they were relieved it was all over and very friendly. He saw first hand the terrible destruction there so I have always known about it. I have also read about it including well researched fiction.

To be honest I don’t think there is a country, anywhere in the world , that doesn’t have blood on its hands, to a greater or lesser degree in the way the indigenous people were treated and exploitied over hundreds of years, or the way “conquered “ people were treated.

We have visited the magnificent Boer War women’s monument and it is very moving. The Boers were treated in a inhuman way by the Brits, however it doesn’t justify the way the boers and British went on to treat the black, coloured and indigenous people they stole the land from. We British tend to always think we have the moral high ground in everything and that simply isn’t true.

No one else in Europe has this rose-tinted memory of the Great Wars.

Exactly. All this carry on about how great the war was is what has led us to the shit show of Brexit.

I suppose Britain didn't experience fighting on their own ground, or occupation.
'Home' was always a place removed from the absolute horrors experienced elsewhere. (Not belittling the Blitz etc, or soldiers who never came home)
But psychologically, it's a different experience, I imagine.

From The Guardian today:

Russell T Davies unleashes the full range of his TV box of tricks in a finale to his dystopian drama so grand it will echo for days, as he delivers a devastating polemic via the characters of Muriel and Edith. Landmark television – don’t miss it.

Looks like it's going to be a worthy end to such a great series.

I never did anything about the Boer War either! In fact I think most of my history is self-taught (and something I hope I've made up for in years since!). I did 'O' Level in the 80s... we did the dropping of missiles on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (referred to a the Nuclear Holocaust - which confused me for years thereafter as I thought that's what the Holocaust was!) Also the History of Medicine and the Chinese Cultural Revolution... all so totally random and modern! I've never met anyone who covered the same content! Perhaps that was 80s Birmingham for you!!

so excited for the finale tonight

This has been one of my favourite pieces of TV viewing in years. I actually felt bereft at the end of Ep4, which had had me on the edge of my seat - I literally stared into space in shock after it had ended.

I'm really looking forward to tonight's episode, but also a little scared of what our future might look like, and a little sad the series will be over - definitely all signs of a great tv show!

I never learned about the Boer War and I did GCSE History in 1993. My children have only heard the words Boer War when learn g about Florence Nightingale, nothing about the war itself to the point they had no clue where in the world it took place! I only know more because I read about it as an adult.

Didn't learn about Irish history either. The poster who said we get the rose tinted view in the UK curriculum wasn't wrong!

DH and I binge watched over the weekend and are both looking forward to watching it tonight. Well not quite sure that looking forward is the right phrase as it is also frightening. Will be sorry when it is over.

2029...

Ironic that Stephen is paying for a lawyer to help find Viktor.