Saving lives in South Africa

Not just Ancient History IT may be just me, but I feel that the commemorations planned for the 80th anniversary of VE day on May 8 this year are somehow more muted than those that took place around the 75th anniversary in 2020. Perhaps the fact that we were in the middle of the Covid lockdown and people needed a “lift” back then meant that it just seemed that the 75th anniversary caught our attention more, or maybe it was because 75 somehow feels more meaningful than 80. I have heard some complain that the fact we have a Labour Government now and, traditionally, that party has different views from its Tory counterparts is a reason why there seems to be less going on, but I don’t buy that—there’s a Government website dedicated to VE/VJ day (www. ve-vjday80. gov.uk) and besides, individual cities, towns and villages don’t need central government approval to hold any commemorations. I fear the reason there seems to be less of a “buzz” this year is simple: time is moving on. There are simply fewer people around today for whom World War II has any significant meaning. I don’t know how many veterans are left; those still with us are all now over 100 or nearly there, and even those born during the War are slowly fading away. It’s just a fact of life that there are an awful lot of people out there who have never met anyone who had any first-hand knowledge of World War II at all and the conflict has never touched their lives. My grandparents, born in the 1910s and who were at the very heart of World War II, grandfathers serving, grandmothers staying at home and raising children, have all passed away. My father, born in 1942 and barely three when the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has gone too. My mother is still with us but she was born in September 1944 and knew little of the War and its effects bar the rationing that lasted into her childhood. The vast majority of children of primary school age simply won’t know anyone who knew what it was like to experience even that rationing, let alone who had any real-life experience of the War itself; and as they aren’t taught about 1939–45 in any meaningful way (the Home Front is covered, little else), it has become just like any other war in history, it might as well be the Zulu War, the Crimea, the Napoleonic Wars, or the 100 Years’ War come to that for all the impact it has on our children today. Some will be interested, yes, but to others it is ancient history and will be glossed over as such. It is, I think, inevitable that this will be the last anniversary that will actually feature those who served during the War; we may have one or two still with us in five years’ time but not many, and in ten? They will, I think, have all left us by then and any commemorations will be more muted still. When the centenary rolls around, there will be events to mark the milestone, just as there were in 2018 for World War I, but after that? Whether we like it or not, memories of the War so many of us grew up with stories of (rarely from our parents or grandparents, few spoke about it, but certainly from the films, comics, books and Airfix models and soldiers we all seem to have had as children), are fading away as quickly now as its participants are. Soon there will be little left, apart, of course, from the little pieces of metal and silk that make up our hobby (you knew I’d mention medals somewhere eventually). I make no apologies in this anniversary month for asking those of you with World War II medals in your collections to do as I’ve asked of you before, take those medals from their cabinets or albums, take the frames down from the walls and take a good look at them, remember the man to whom they were awarded and the actions for which they were won. Remember, 80 years after it all ended, just who those people were, just who once wore those medals, because just as there are fewer of them around these days so there are fewer people who remember them too, and it is up to historians, collectors, enthusiasts to do our bit where we can. There’s always a man (or woman) behind the medals we collect and, on occasions such as this 80th anniversary, it is only right that we once again acknowledge who they were.