Eighty years ago

Two years ago I wrote the following on my blog, and bearing in mind that at 11.00am eighty years ago today Britain declared war on Germany, I thought that it was worth revisiting.

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I was born in 1950, less than five years after the end of the Second World War ... and it is somewhat sobering to think that as far as the United Kingdom is concerned, that war started seventy eight years ago today.

I remember my relatives talking about what it was like during the weeks and months leading up to the outbreak of the war. They all seemed to express two emotions; one was regret that, regardless of what the politicians did, war seemed inevitable ... and the second was a sort of relief when it actually started.

My father's family lived in the East End, and he was attending East Ham Grammar School. He was not evacuated, and his education sort of petered out once the Blitz started, and as he was old enough to leave school, he went to work during the day in an office in the City and became a Home Guard (and later a Fireman) at night.

My mother's family lived in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and my maternal grandfather travelled from there to his job at the De Havillands aircraft factory. Because he was in the Territorial Army, he had been mobilised just before the war started, and soon afterwards he and his unit were on their way to France as part of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force). My grandmother did not like living in Bushey, and soon after the outbreak of war the family returned to the area of south London where the rest of her family. Like my father, my mother's education gradually came to an end, and she went to work, eventually becoming an airbrush artist for Warner Brothers.

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It is also sobering to re-read the words that Neville Chamberlain spoke on that morning seventy eight years ago.

'This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin, handed the German government, the final note, stating that unless we heard from them, by 11 o'clock, that they were prepared at once, to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now, that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently, this country is now at war with Germany. ... We have a clear conscience; we have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted, and no people or country could feel itself safe had become intolerable ... Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things we shall be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution—and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.'

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I think that my parents placed great store in getting a good education because theirs had been incomplete. For example, my mother was a very good artist, but because she did not get any qualifications, she was never able to progress further in her chosen career. Likewise my father had to strive very hard when he returned from his time in the Army, and I can remember him going to night-school to get the qualifications he needed to become an accountant.

Incidentally, whilst my mother was working at Warner Brothers she met one of their actors ... a certain Ronald Reagan. My brother has a photograph of the two of them shaking hands, and I understand that he took it with him to the US when he worked there during Reagan's presidency. He tells me that showing that photo to people was a great way to break the ice with Americans that he met.

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With the passing of each year, the number of people who lived through the Second World War continues to diminish, and in the not too distant future they will all be gone. What I can remember as being something that still affected everyday life (after all, some food rationing didn't end until 4th July 1954, when I was four years old!), is now history ... and seen as ancient history by some.

It is sobering to think that at a time when politics across the world seem to be moving away from the centre ground and towards the more extreme ends of the spectrum, we are remembering the outbreak of a war where people in the UK and elsewhere finally decided that giving in to the demands of extremist governments had to end. As someone who has studied history all their life, I am put in mind of the words penned by George Santayana.

'Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'

I recently read a newer version of the final words from this quote, which stated that:

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those who can remember the past are condemned to watch those who do not, repeat it.'

A sobering thought on today of all days.