The people's war?

 

Many of those who lived through the war, however, speak with warmth about what they remember. The idea that everybody was in it together, that everyone, no matter what class they were, all had to work together for the common good left its mark. The following three extracts were taken from "The People's War" by Peter Lewis (1986):

 

'There was this general feeling that we were one nation - a feeling of equality, that everybody was valuable, that everybody's effort counted. It was a much more equal society than we had before and some of it remains.'

 

'There are a large number of people who will tell you that in spite of all the fear, the loss, the suffering and so on, the war years were the best years of their life. By and large we ate the same rations, we wore the same clothes and shared a common purpose.'

 

'It was a great community spirit. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I went straight overseas for two or three years at the end of the war and when I came back, it had gone.'

 

It is an understandable feature of human nature that the bad memories are shut out. It is not only the memories of terrible deaths and injuries that are mercifully put aside - these are expected in war. But the memories of looting, of people returning to their bombed out homes to find what remained of their furniture and valuables had been stolen - these too are shut out. There was a tremendous feeling of all being 'in it together', but there was also the anger of the East Enders who booed the King and Queen when they visited their bomb damaged streets. Such things did happen but they are largely forgotten. People sometimes only remember what they want to remember.

 

Neil Demarco: The era of the Second World War; Oxford University Press, 1993/2000, page 79