VE Day takes on a particular poignancy
Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of VE Day.
By the time World War Two officially ended, people had been struggling for years with food shortages and restrictions. Their love-lives had stalled and their careers had been put on hold. And many had lost family members and friends.
So VE Day marked a bitter-sweet occasion when some were able to celebrate the return to a new normal while others reflected on what they’d lost.
Sounds familiar?
It seems entirely fitting that we’ll be celebrating the 75thanniversary of VE Day in our own homes, under lockdown and with our careers and lives on hold. And weirdly, the occasion also happens to coincide with the expected easing of lockdown conditions due to be announced on Sunday.
Every November we observe a two-minute silence for our war heroes before immediately resuming our Sunday routines. We head to the shops, go to the pub or get together with friends. So until now we have had little in common with the wartime generation. But that has all changed.
On this VE Day many of us will have endured our own struggles. Loved-ones may have died of COVID-19 while we ourselves have been confined to the house, deprived of company and perhaps furloughed from our jobs. And there’s a general sense of lives being put on hold – just as they were during the war.
WW2 lasted for six years. We’ve been locked down for just over six weeks.
We’ll be watching tomorrow’s VE Day celebrations on TV with a new empathy – and with a frisson of excitement that things might soon be opening up. However, our own VE Day celebrations will be very different to those of 75 years ago.
There’ll be no mass gatherings in city centres: no heaving pubs, no street parties and no parades. But in their place will be a real fellow-feeling with the wartime generation and the privations they experienced. And perhaps we’ll shed a genuine tear for the strength with which they endured all that was thrown at them.
The powers-that-be have suggested some ways in which we could celebrate VE Day. They advocate that we watch the Churchill address at 3pm tomorrow afternoon and drink a toast to the fallen as we do so. We’ve stuck to the lockdown rules thus far, so who are we to disobey this latest government diktat?
It does rather put things in perspective. Perhaps not being able to get a Waitrose delivery isn't that important
ReplyDeleteWell, we're still permitted to complain about things I suppose. It's a shame, though, that most of the wartime generation will be stuck in homes without their families. Auntie Jean comes to mind. Have a good day drinking gin in the sun - sounds like a cracking plan. xxx
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