VE Day 80th anniversary ceremony to begin with flypast and military procession in central London – live
King, Queen Camilla and Prince and Princess of Wales to attend commemorations in London with events scheduled across the UKThe actor Sheila Hancock, who was evacuated from her London home during the second world war, wrote for the Guardian on her memories of VE Day, reminding readers that it was a muted celebration marked as much by tragedy as triumph.In an extract, she writes:This month, we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and I worry that we will turn it into a yet another jingoistic celebration of the second world war. Yes, in 1945 we were relieved that the bombs and doodlebugs and rocket weapons had stopped, and we heard there was fun going on in the West End of London – but where I lived it was less jubilant. The war there felt far from over: we were still waiting anxiously for the return of the young lad next door from the rumoured horror of a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and many of my friends were trying to accept as fathers strange men they barely knew. The unspeakable details of the Holocaust were being revealed, and I imagine the grownups were utterly exhausted and often grief-stricken. For five years, they had lived under the threat of occupation. Churchill said we would fight them on the beaches and never surrender, but he did not deny that we could be invaded. In fact, it was a miracle we were not. And that threat is what the grownups lived with, and presumably, being unequipped, knew they could not withstand. Continue reading...
King, Queen Camilla and Prince and Princess of Wales to attend commemorations in London with events scheduled across the UK
The actor Sheila Hancock, who was evacuated from her London home during the second world war, wrote for the Guardian on her memories of VE Day, reminding readers that it was a muted celebration marked as much by tragedy as triumph.
In an extract, she writes:
This month, we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and I worry that we will turn it into a yet another jingoistic celebration of the second world war. Yes, in 1945 we were relieved that the bombs and doodlebugs and rocket weapons had stopped, and we heard there was fun going on in the West End of London – but where I lived it was less jubilant. The war there felt far from over: we were still waiting anxiously for the return of the young lad next door from the rumoured horror of a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and many of my friends were trying to accept as fathers strange men they barely knew. The unspeakable details of the Holocaust were being revealed, and I imagine the grownups were utterly exhausted and often grief-stricken. For five years, they had lived under the threat of occupation. Churchill said we would fight them on the beaches and never surrender, but he did not deny that we could be invaded. In fact, it was a miracle we were not. And that threat is what the grownups lived with, and presumably, being unequipped, knew they could not withstand. Continue reading...
