Most of us celebrating VE day this week were born well after the war. We can only imagine the joy and relief that after years of death, injury and privation for our fighting forces,after years of blackouts, bombing raids and the terror of V weapons at home people could at last relax and celebrate the end of fear.
Imagine every night worrying that you might be bombed in your bed and need to rush to the garden shelter. Imagine life on rations as the Germans tried to destroy our food supply to starve civilians to death. Imagine like my mother taking night time turns to mind the roof of an important building in case of fire bombs. Imagine as a teenage boy thinking about where you would be sent to put your life at risk.
We owe the wartime generations a huge debt. They were prepared to suffer to liberate Europe and the Far East from German and Japanese cruelty and tyranny. They then rightly helped Germany and Japan begin again as democratic law abiding nations, so we might live in peace in a more prosperous world.
We can learn much from those who won the war. They developed crucial new technologies, expanded industry at an incredible pace, farmed far more land to grow more food at home, mined more coal to provide our energy. They helped invent and develop radar, the jet engine, the floating harbour and temporary bridges, better radio communications and much else. They stayed strong allies of the US whose industrial and military might was important to victory.
I will have in my thoughts my Dad who saw action off Norway and in support of our forces in the Med on the cruiser Royalist. I will remember my Mum moving from fire watching in Reading to the Wrens in Portsmouth supplying and supporting naval vessels.
May 5, 2025
Good morning.
Wars, as Ukraine is finding out, can cost you a great deal. Especially the price of peace. I mean, look at where we were pre-WII and post ? And then ask if you think we won or, indeed, if we have learned any thing ?
May 5, 2025
Expanded industry and innovation at a record pace…….
Only to be destroyed and dismantled by the uniparty in pursuit of Net Stupid
I fear our brave ancestors fought in vain looking at the state of Britain today.
May 5, 2025
Indeed can we please stop the mad war against CO2 plant food. The safe defence of the UK and the growth of UK economy depends on cheap, reliable and on demand energy.
Can we also get government expenditure as a % of GDP (largely wasted) back to below 20% please as it should be. See the effect of wars and malignant government growth over the past 100+ years. Vast efficiencies in increases in technology, engineering, farming and manufacturing but nearly all eaten up by parasitic and over regulating governments and wars often pointless and misguided wars like Blair’s and Cameron’s and Boris’s on Covid.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/GBR/SWE/ESP/ITA/ZAF/IND
May 5, 2025
Writing in The Times Louise Hague today calls on the prime minister to “rip up” Labour’s “self-imposed tax rules”, which prevent the government raising income tax, VAT or national insurance.
They have already done that dear and increase NI hugely did you not notice!
“This, she said, could allow a “serious programme of investment and reindustrialisation” that would show voters the government was “fighting on their side”.”
Great plan dear – so tax the voters even harder to show them Labour are fighting on their side! Stop them investing their money directly efficiently and let government invest it for them after collection and admin costs. Investing in lunacies like Net Zero, net harm covid vaccines, road blocking, HS2, carbon capture, rip off intermittent energy… great plan dear should go well!
Tax increases from the current position will raise less tax not more anyway Louise!
May 5, 2025
red-head Louise Haigh ? Breathtakingly economically and logically stupid.
Taken lessons from Diane Abbott?
May 5, 2025
You must compare what happened with what would have happened. Be in no doubt – we won the war – the Allies. The United Kingdom and it’s Dominions, the USSR and the USA. It took every last grasp from us all to defeat the 3rd Reich.
May 5, 2025
In this case I agree but we never really “know” what would have happened in most cases.
May 5, 2025
Speak for yourself. For instance Powell ‘knew’ what would happen if we allowed aliens to immigrate. He said, in the House that ‘Britain would become a place not worth living in’. He was derided by the House who could not see it.
I wish they were all alive today so that they could consider the situation of the rape gangs as an example.
May 5, 2025
@LA; Indeed, but only GBNI chose to throw away the peace dividend (twice), we can be stubborn fools at times…
May 5, 2025
Lynn Atkinson
Has Russia been invited to the celebrations?
May 5, 2025
They have their own celebration on this day. However France, Germany and Ukraine should NEVER be invited. Why would they want to celebrate their own defeat?
May 5, 2025
@LA; Strange comment! Both France (in the shape of the Free French & the internal Resistance), and Ukraine as part of the then USSR, played an important part in the defeat of the Third Reich.
“Why would [Germany] want to celebrate their own defeat?”
By that logic the UK should forget our celebrations too, or do you not count the Channel Isles as British, and what about Singapore, was that not part of the British Empire in 1942?
VE day, and VJ day, is about the return of peace, good over evil, plenty to celibate, even for the Germans and Japanese.
May 5, 2025
It was a Pyrrhic victory.
May 5, 2025
I was born in London in 1939, so I dont remember much about the War as I was evacuated to Norfolk at the age of 4, but I do remember rationing very well.
Many years later, when I lived in Cheshire, I met a lady in her nineties who lived In Liverpool at the time and remembered the War only too well. She told me, that on the first night of the Blitz, she shared her next door neighbours underground bomb shelter. However , she did not do it again, as she had to get up and go to work in Liverpool the next day. She told me that she never knew if she would be alive the next morning, as Liverpool was so badly bombed.
I cant imagine what that must have been like. That generation showed extraordinary courage, and we owe them so much. Its a debt we can never repay.
May 5, 2025
The wartime generation were special. They saved us from Nazi victory in Europe and all the misery and fear which would have happened thereafter. Indeed today we would we be living under the jackboot of Nazi authority and there would be Nazi surveillance everywhere. I will be reflecting on our wartime generation today and reaffirming how fortunate I am because of them. I just wonder if they would look at Britain today and be as proud of us?
I suspect any time prior to 2000 they would have been very proud of us. After 2000 I believe they would often be appalled by our decision making. One example is Woke-Marxism and what that has done to our country and our children’s minds. It should be utterly unthinkable yet we passively permitted it.
There is a list of things we need to rectify to get Britain back on track but I won’t let that obscure my thinking of our heroic wartime generation today.
May 5, 2025
VE Day is a very special day for me as it is my birthday. By one day, I have not experienced war in my lifetime (and hope I never do). I give thanks to my Dad, who was awarded the George Medal for his bomb disposal activities, and to the many other brave men and women, some of whom sacrificed their lives, so that we can live in peace.
May those who govern in various countries of the world pay respect to those who fought for freedom and do all they can to ensure our freedoms are not jeopardised by careless policies.
May 5, 2025
Whichever way you try and spin it, the local elections were an absolute disaster for the Conservatives. They lost 674 councillors, most of whom went to Reform, who gained 677. Labour lost 187, mostly but not exclusively to the Lib Dems. The Greens also did well, nearly doubling their councillors.
The huge swings involved saw Reform gains, while the Lib Dems took control of three councils. Labour lost the Runcorn by-election by the narrowest of margins
In a statement of unbelievable stupidity, Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said the party will use its new control of ten councils to use “every lever” available to block renewable projects. “We will attack, we will hinder, we will delay, we will obstruct, we will put every hurdle in your way” What a constructive policy.
This election was all about immigration. The Tories should recognise this fact and elect a new leader
May 5, 2025
If just one solar farm is stopped and reverts to real farming it will be worth it. For Lab/Con/Libdem councils to remove farmers and construct these monstrosities is ridiculous when they are made/transported half way round the globe using fossil fuels, and incorporate non-recyclable product. If you’re going to do this type of thing, a/ensure food security first and b/build them in the UK using carbon free energy and sustainable materials.
May 5, 2025
Even if the land could be turned over to woodland, the product stores energy that can be used in Winter and when the sun don’t shine.
May 5, 2025
@SG. You’re slightly off-topic today.
May 5, 2025
SG : “…..block renewable projects…”
Why shouldn’t Reform “block renewable projects” if this is what they’ve been voted into power to do? This is democracy in action for which so many people died to protect fighting WW2. Do you expect Reform to deny those who voted for them the very policies which gave them power as we have seen for the last fourteen years? Or is this only OK when the Far Left do it? It’s a very constructive policy as two negatives, whether in addition or multiplication make a positive. The trouble with Net Zero is that it is all based upon imaginary numbers.
May 5, 2025
You make some fair points.
I often catch the train between Portsmouth and Gatwick, getting a good view of solar-farms blighting the landscape and removing farmland from food-production. I’ll support a sensible energy-mix policy but what we have now, and had under the Conservatives, is a policy formed by zealots. So, I’ll be supporting Reform’s obstruction.
May 5, 2025
‘Global warming provides an excuse for Global Socialism’. Margaret Thatcher (scientist)
May 5, 2025
‘674 councillors, most of whom went to Reform’
Really? Evidence? or the simplistic comparison of numbers lost to gained from a zero base?
May 5, 2025
I am old enough to remember hearing the declaration of war on the radio, its end in Europe and later in the Far East. My family was lucky enough not to be bombed, but relatives in London and Swansea were bombed out of their homes. My wife’s family home suffered a direct hit; she and her family had to be dug out their shelter. It was a time of acute rationing, grow your own food as far as possible, make do and mend – the latter a habit retained to this day. Rationing did not end completely until c1953, eight years after the war. It was a time of striking contrast with today’s self indulgent world.
May 5, 2025
Rationing of bread was introduced after the war by the Labour government.
The Starmer Government is not the first to do the reverse of what they promised.
May 5, 2025
What else could be done rather than rationing? Starve?
May 5, 2025
Well we managed to provide bread throughout the war without rationing it. What happened after the war to threaten starvation?
Ah – I remember – Socialism!
May 5, 2025
@LA; Not entirely true; during WW2 bread was never rationed, it was banned, all but for the “National Loaf – being as (un)popular as dried eggs and tinned fish (Snook?).
May 5, 2025
That is untrue. Bred was plentiful throughout the war and was never rationed until after the war when Socialism bit.
May 5, 2025
@LA; Oh dear… That National Loaf was in no way what most people would have called Bread at the time, not even in the slum areas, apparently often causing digestion problems; ‘It is bread Jim, but not as we know it’, to miss-quote a phrase that would become popular 20 or so years after the war!
The post war wheat/bread shortage had nothing what so ever to do with Socialism, the same problems would have faced a Tory government had they won in 1945, if anything retaining a style of wartime central planning likely improved the situation, being able to direct available labour and supplies into agriculture or were-ever needed, something acknowledged in the Tory 1945 manifesto “war-time directions and controls will be progressively reduced as our food situation improves”, the loss of American assistance did not help such matters.
May 6, 2025
Much changed when the Chorleywood Bread Process was the efficient way to produce cheap fast loaves.
May 5, 2025
And today we seem to find every reason not to progress or innovate.
We have become complacent.
May 5, 2025
+1
May 5, 2025
I suspect our grandparents’ generation would be deeply disappointed at our dependency, laziness and having ceded control of so much that they fought for.
My grandparents’ view about us joining the common market was that, having intervened and won with the Allies in 1945, we were bound to end up running the common market. Thatcher, and more particularly Ridley, I remember, became suspicious about Germans running the outfit following reunification. I suspect they would have organised a departure post-Lisbon Treaty, and sealed a closer deal with Bush post 9/11.
The WW2 generation would be staggered that we, through our elected representatives, care so little about our children that we let undocumented aliens into our country. Perhaps we’ll eventually have a VB Day.. Victory against the Boats?
May 5, 2025
Nicholas Ridley, like his ancestor of the same name, was a great and classically Englishman. A Gentleman in every sense.
Thatcher was shocked by Maastricht. She would have withdrawn from the Continental disaster then I believe.
My parents would not believe that we have been reduced to the point where the Supreme Court had to rule on the question of what constitutes a woman. 😭
May 5, 2025
And after all that suffering, destruction and death to save democracy and our country. We now are handing it over to the ‘great replacement’
May 5, 2025
Various polls across Europe show that only a minority of citizens would, in today’s age, fight for their nation. A very recent poll in the UK suggested only 35% would take up arms in a time of war, and 50% would not do so “under any circumstances”.
I am proud of my parents’ actions in WW2 (RAF/chindit, and SOE operative) but would they have taken those risks for today’s Britain? They were both quite rational people. I’m pretty sure they would take stock of the state of Britain, and seriously weigh up what life might be like under the adversary before committing to fight. The decision would by no means automatically be the same as in 1939.
May 5, 2025
Everyone would still choose to fight for their own country and nation. During the war they were urged to look out for strangers.
How could we possibly report strangers today? I am reaching the point of having to acknowledge that I have no country and my nation is a homeless diaspora.
Although the (EU?) will crumble, I believe it has destroyed Britain. Even Starmer is getting the picture – they will not share criminal records of migrants to enable us to reject them.
We have a Princess of the United Kingdom – the 3rd Lady in the land, who is not a subject of the Monarch and not a citizen of the U.K. and who has never sworn any Oath of Allegiance.
It is all unbelievable.
May 5, 2025
the EU hasn’t and didn’t destroy Britain.
It was and is now even more being destroyed by the ruling classes who are hell bent on it, and the electorate is so ‘sleepy Joe’ that like the frog in the pan death is not far away.
Reform must sweep it all away – councillors, MPs, the Judiciary, the unions….the ones who preside over the wrecking ball.
Revolution!
May 5, 2025
The EU (German Europe) obliterated the U.K. for 47 years. We had no Parliament, it abdicated, we had no Monarch – a Suzerain instead. We lost the citizenship of our own land. We were attacked and reduced in every way, agriculturally, industrially, educationally and indeed I cannot think if a single aspect of the British pillars that were not hacked at.
We lost Capitalism and Democracy.
It’s is amazing that we managed to vote for Brexit under the vicious attack from all aspects of the captured elitist globalist class, if nothing else they have tenacity.
So weakened are we now that I don’t believe there are enough of us to recover. The whole of Europe will be lost.
The only question is whether a portion of the United States can be saved.
May 5, 2025
My war memories were of hurrying to get into the Morrison shelter under the bed when the air raid sirens sounded and the listening how near the bombs were. Intense relief when the All Clear sounded. Then, when the doodlebugs started coming, over our dash down to stay with a relation in Cornwall and going to the little school on the cliff in Port Isaac.
May 5, 2025
“We owe the wartime generations a huge debt. They were prepared to suffer to liberate Europe and the Far East from German and Japanese cruelty and tyranny.”
We need them now ….. to liberate us from a new type of cruelty and tyranny.
May 5, 2025
………….and never shall or should we forget!
May 5, 2025
It is wrong to be churlish on a day like today, but (here I go) the freedom most of us grew up with is being trashed by those that vowed to serve and defend democracy and freedom.
“Lest we forget”
May 5, 2025
I listened to the words of a 104 year old war veteran today, and was so enlightened by one of his comments. Everyone nowadays talks about their rights but never about their duties. If only the self-righteous recognised that. Let’s have a European court of human duties.
May 5, 2025
Let’s have no European Courts!
May 5, 2025
no thank you, no Europen Court on anything.
May 5, 2025
@Robert Mcdonald – we don’t need any court where the laws, are not created, amended and repealed by legitimate democratic means. To believe in the ECHR, the UN and all the other acronyms is to deny democracy.
May 5, 2025
VE day reminds us of how our corrupt Parliament stuffed full of WEF socialist disciples has become. It refuses to allow the UK to be in a position to defend itself, become resilient and self-reliant. It is just refusal as the people are willing and capable. The bulk of Parliament defies the notion of democracy, freedoms and service, instead it is about the personal vanity of the personal self-esteem.
The UK’s defences have been decimated by Parliament, the ability to equip our selves removed. Everything required for the UK’s survival, industry therefore earnings, its energy, its food and the rest of the massive list has either been forcibly removed or handed over to the political whims of foreign powers. There was never any economic, or logical reasoning behind this other than the malicious trashing of the UK. If anyone from Parliament or its civil service gets involved in celebrating our previous generation sacrifices – they should hang their heads in shame on how they disrespected those that fought tyranny.
As we know they don’t care, it is about them and ego – not service and working with.
May 5, 2025
Three (maybe four) of my surviving aunties can remember the war. Nights spent in their Anderson shelter. Days spent looking up at our pilots going in to attack Heinkels and Dorniers. Later, waiting for the engines of V-1s to cut out. And the emotional collapse of their mother when her brother, serving in HMS ESK, was ‘killed in action’ in the ‘Texel Disaster’. The lessons for today’s politicians? Be strong enough to deter your enemies. And be careful about taking on too many obligations and commitments.
May 5, 2025
+1
May 5, 2025
Russia which actually won the war against Germany has not been invited to our VE day celebrations. Is this because Russia is now governed by Russians instead of those that according to Neville Chamberlain pushed him into declaring war on Germany?
May 5, 2025
@Forthurst. Appalling if they were not invited. We lost 265,000 odd servicemen in WW2 (battle casualties), the Russians lost 5-7m. We should accord them some respect. I’m sure our fallen would have done so.
May 5, 2025
Russia? The Russia that carved up Poland? That one?
May 5, 2025
Yes, that one. The one we decided NOT to declare war on despite doing what the other had just done.
May 5, 2025
Just thank God that the Cenotaph is. Not draped in the Ukrainian flag!
May 5, 2025
I think you mean ‘won their war against Germany’ – certainly not ‘the war’.
May 5, 2025
No I didn’t; I meant exactly what I said.
May 5, 2025
then Trump’s claim that USA won both WWs is a better claim!
May 5, 2025
Then you are wrong. Britain won the war of the Atlantic alone. We won the war in the desert alone. We won the intelligence war alone inventing the computer (with memory) to do so. We stood alone for a year and we were the ONLY part of the triumvirate of Allies who fought without being attacked!
The USSR was attacked! They were invaded. The losses of civilians and forces were horrific – 26 million. If it were not for the unbelievable heroics of the men of the RN St Petersburg and much more would have been starved to extinction.
The USA was attacked. They fought only after they lost their navy. They had massive industrial capacity and sold the arms to us so we could confront the 3rd Reich.
It took all three of us to beat the 3rd Reich.
Now we confront the (EU? ed)Hopefully it will beat itself.
May 5, 2025
It was the slapped face of sleepy Americans at Pearl Harbor, but by the Japanese, that 2 years after we chose to defend Europe, they finally joined in the battle to stop Hitler, Mussolini and the Emporer. Our bill continued to be paid until 2006, to our special friend.
May 5, 2025
They did not ‘win the war against Germany’ alone.
May 6, 2025
Germany lost the war at Stalingrad and Kursk. you are regurgitating British war propaganda.
May 5, 2025
It’s important to remember the significance of VE day – It wasn’t just that so many good people who suffered daily from the effects of war were all pulling together in the same direction. These people were an inspiration
How different is our world today – the people are fractured and HMG works to control us, subjugate us and impose on us.
Worse still – in just two weeks, the UK Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, will travel to Geneva to sign away your freedoms forever.
The VE generation would not have stood for this – Why are we!
May 5, 2025
Let’s tell the government in no uncertain terms that they do not have our permission to sign off the WHO’s Pandemic treaty
May 5, 2025
We must remove the power from Government to sign treaties unilaterally. There is a House of Lords committe currently considering how to achieve this.
I believe the Royal Prerogative must be repealed.
Perhaps all treaties unilaterally signed by ANY government can be declared null and void?
May 5, 2025
@BH.+1. The Pandemic Treaty is a nightmare. There was a Parliamentary Petition a couple of years back, but it only got 156,000 signatures. Impressive, but not enough to stop the government swiping it away. It was Boris who kicked off our official enthusiasm for the Treaty…Labour are happily following his lead.
May 5, 2025
@Bryan Harris – the WHO has no legitimate standing in a free world only a communist, a dictator would afford them that position
May 5, 2025
@Bryan Harris; “The VE generation would not have stood for this”
Nonsense, the ‘VE generation’ were the people who saw sense in the CV19 Lockdown because, like 1939-45, they were the civilians most at risk – and still are!
I think you should listen to the full Declaration of War, as broadcast by the BBC on 3rd Sept 1939, and by that I mean the Govt. announcements that followed Chamberlain’s speech, the immediate imposition of restrictions, such as the closing of all (places of) public gathering other than places of worship or wartime employment – the people DID accept restrictions, whether they thought them personally necessary or not – of course some restrictions were later modified, just as some CV19 restrictions were.
Also, many businesses failed due to WW2, their owners did not bleat, they dusted themselves down, often making good once the peace came. War brings out the best in people, unfortunately it also brings out the worst in a small minority, the same was true during the CV19 pandemic…
May 5, 2025
@jerry Double nonsense back to you
Too many of the VE generation were duped and killed off by the moves following cv – they thought after their wartime experiences they could trust HMG – How sad that they couldn’t.
May 5, 2025
@Bryan Harris; Indeed you have doubled down on your nonsense, no one died because they stayed home during Covid, unless someone who did not brought the virus into the home.
May 5, 2025
That was because in WW2 we were fighting a real enemy that was a threat to everyone, young and old, those healthy and those already suffering ill health. Not like COVID-19, as anyone with a shred of honesty will now admit.
May 5, 2025
@R.Grange; If we are to compare the risks to civilians from COVID-19 and those from total war, as faced in Sept ’39, let’s not compare apples and pears, rather than comparing a virus to shrapnel and falling masonry, how about comparing the risks had Mustered Gas or worse been dropped on our towns and cities – much of the intimidate ARP regulations and restrictions were about the risk from (perhaps invisible) poison gas, not just the threat from high explosives.
May 6, 2025
Absolutely, let’s not compare apples and pears. So why did you?
May 7, 2025
@R.Grange; Only someone who failed to read the original comment from Bryan could claim my reply was out of context, or someone who has read far to many conspiracy theories and thus thinks the SARS-2 virus is only lethal to those with a (known) pre-existing morbidity.
Like WW2, the SARS-2 virus was a threat to everyone, and just like WW2 there was (and still is) a minority who thought the dangers didn’t apply to them.
May 5, 2025
Brian was talking about the current WHO treaty Jerry.
You gone off on to a different irrelevant argument.
May 5, 2025
@MiB; I am fully aware of what the WHO intends, and that Bryan was referring to current WHO policy; the fact is, any future unknown virus, or one with no known vaccine or treatment, will mean a country (or the world) will be in the same position as we were in Feb 2020 – hence why what measures worked and what failed during CV19 is relevant to any 2025 debate on such issues.
Whatever.
May 5, 2025
My father served in Greece and Italy and family were evacuated out of London because of bombing from an unexploded 1000lb bomb. As a young child I vividly remember damaged buildings and post war food rationing. We were fit and certainly not overweight! However, my concern is whether today’s political elites really understand the pivotal importance of diplomacy and negotiation rather than confrontation? Is this Labour government under Prime Minister Starmer is rather too keen on the latter?
May 5, 2025
Very true – our leaders have forgotten what diplomacy means.
As for our PM – He’s a warmonger, without doubt.
May 5, 2025
@Michael Saxton – 2TK has only one war and that is with this nation(the UK) and its people. He cant confront others as he has nothing to back him up, there is no defence of the UK it is mostly disbanded. Should any one involved in defending the UK under instructions from the PM, Government, Parliament they would have to endure punishment through the Courts brought on them by the very people that put them in that position.
May 5, 2025
We learn today, thanks to TPA, the enormous costs we suffer from quangos:
Parliament must get rid of quangos and actually do their day job! This waste is treacherous.
May 5, 2025
@Bryan Harris – agreed treacherous. The problem is we have a free-loading HoC that see they have personal aims of joining Quangos as it is even more free money but this time without accountability and responsibility – they are not going to kill ‘the gravy train’
May 5, 2025
And they want to create another QUANGO, only this time it is for football.
May 5, 2025
Thank you Sir John for your thoughts on VE day. IMHO:
Your parents must have really inspired and moulded you into the great character you really are today – A real Englishman for sure, always batting for our dear country, come what may.
Cheer and many Cheers to you and your family.
May 5, 2025
Whilst that generation were undoubtedly brave, the original war aim was to preserve Poland’s independence. That aim failed…massively.
Britain was bankrupted and became a vassal of the US Empire. Socialism took hold on the basis that “war socialism” had worked (completely ignoring the fact that it was US money which allowed Britain to continue fighting…), markets were lost, and productive capacity turned to armaments rather than goods which could be sold abroad.
After the war our competitors Germany and Japan were given assistance and protection. Britain was saddled with huge debts. As Macmillan said “we are defending them while they steal our markets”.
The true lesson to be learned is not to get into wars which don’t affect our national interests but which will impoverish us.
May 5, 2025
and take a long hard look once, twice, three times at those you think are friends.
May 5, 2025
+1
May 5, 2025
I whole heatedly agree.
May 5, 2025
Your article today Sir John should be the single front page article printed on every national daily. Time for (quite) reflection, not a national jamboree…
May 5, 2025
Memories of WW2.
At 3+years in 1942 being taken to fathers home built air raid shelter and witnessing the red glow in the sck as Coventry was bombed for two nights.
The Ack Ack at the end of our drive and the corner of the lane and being detered from picking up the shell fragments. What goes up comes down. The smoke making machines lining our ditches. A german bomber at very low level over our house being shot at by a chasing fighter. My father , a part time special constable having to attend the wreckage. Our house becoming a de facto police station because we had a full size snooker table.
Probably in 1944, being taken to Castle Bromwich to sit in a Spitfire on the production line. Father was one of the engineers responsible for its production. Remembering the edge of the bucket seat under my knees and the towering control column before me. In reality a small aircraft.
The American soldiers heading south for DDay throwing gum to us at the school gate. The VE day celebration bonfire. A few years later as a CCF Cadet exploring Wellington bombers, parked and awaiting the scrapyard, having done their bit in the historic event. Finally doing an 8 hour practise bombing trip in a Lincoln, a tropicalised Lancaster. A voyeurs WW2.
WW2 was a mamouth national and worldwide event, all honour to those who contributed and those who gave their lives. We must never forget.
Reply the main bombing raid over two days against Coventry was Nov 1940 but there were later shorter raids.
May 5, 2025
Quite correct, finger trouble on my part.
May 5, 2025
Thanks for sharing, agricola. Those are some nice memories to have – and share 🙂
May 5, 2025
Hi sir John
Thank you to all those that gave everything for peace thanks to the British legion for helping our war time service people
Young service men were shot for cowardice but were suffering from
PTD. Some as young as 18 years old
Our country is changing into a different kind of world and not for the good
GIVE EVERY THING GET NOTHING
GIVE NOTHING GET EVERYTHING
GOD HELP OUR CHILDREN
Thank you
May 5, 2025
My wife is a governor of a London school system. In an evening dedicated to 20th Century she watched children talk about the Civil Rights movement in America and Nelson Mandela…when she asked about WW2, they didn’t really know who was even fighting but one of them knew about the holocaust.
It is clear that our children are being deliberately deracinated from this country and indoctrinated into a race-essentialist view of the world. I assume the modules on the 18th and 19th century will be about slavery. I suppose it makes dramatic change easier to push through.
May 5, 2025
Why am I not surprised? After observing education of my children (50s) and grandchildren late teens – the subjects to pick from and those not available tell me we are in a slow process of rewriting history.
Education Ministers, teachers and universities.
May 5, 2025
😭 a friend who is a school governor and discussing the war with his children said when asked what Hitler’s Christian name was his daughter said ‘Heil’!
May 5, 2025
No a single military parade/march nor a street party in my region, but the cathedral is doing a service and a light show ….very disappointed with the government, local government and military upon there effort
May 5, 2025
Ten years after the war ended there was still rationing and food shortages (and high prices and low quality for daily necessities) that affected the physical growth and mental development of children born after the War. Indirectly that was of course down to the debts of WW2, but more directly a result of appalling economic mismanagement by postwar Labour and then Conservative UK governments: a deflationary and anti-enterprise uniparty socialist environment to which both main parties contributed for different reasons of their own, eventually (under Macmillan and Selwyn Lloyd) showing some marginal improvement, to be snatched away again by the suicidal 1960s BBC-promoted vote for Wilson.
May 5, 2025
To ensure there is peace you have to have the resources and capability for winning war. Talking all ways takes place in those situations before anything else.
Hence we have MAD, mutually assured destruction
May 5, 2025
Many veterans had PTSD stress after witnessing / experiencing horrific hell on earth usually several / multiple times except they were not allowed to show any weakness (Stiff upper lip, Mustn’t grumble, never complain mantra, which meant they suffered nightmares regularly to compound it and didn’t talk about it either.
By 1980 the term PTSD was coined by the American Psychiatric Association:-
“The significant change ushered in was the stipulation that the (etiological) agent was outside the individual (i.e., a traumatic event) rather than an inherent individual weakness”.
Before this people taught otherwise and were too ashamed to admit any personal weakness. Truly appalling for millions of survivors sadly.
We owe them so much for their sacrifices for sure.
May 5, 2025
I forgot to add it came about after the Vietnam war ending in 1975.
The record “Nineteen” described the problem of PTSD.
May 5, 2025
30 years after WW2.
May 5, 2025
I hope we’re not going to throw away our freedoms again by entering a dubious trade liason with the US especially a trade deal that precludes us from dealing with other countries like China or the EU. It’s likely the US is on a bent now to isolate China in a effort to break it economically – we don’t want to get caught up in that sort of dirty play.
May 5, 2025
Correction: liaison
May 9, 2025
Both my parents served in the 2nd World War (my Mom was in the War Office in London on secret work) and Dad was on fire duties in England from 1939-41 when he was sent abroad for 4 years serving in Greece, North Africa, Egypt and Italy). He returned in November 1945 so this VE celebration is not completely for me. I was born in 1946 to 8 years of food rationing and rebuilding of a broken country (America could have done more for us but did not). I have worked hard all my life rebuilding the country and am very fed up with the way it has turned out with the ordinary people paying the costs of looking after the world as if we were still an Empire. We should now look after ourselves and what is left can be given to others who might be in need. My parents would not be happy with the way their contribution to keeping Europe safe has been ignored by those in EU countries who seem to constantly want us to pay more for this and that instead of giving us some respect.