27 May - 2 June 2019 | 326 comments (326 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Today's 75-year-olds didn't fight the war - so why do we think they did?

But I think there's another, less comprehensible reason, which is that so many of the older generation actually are going around talking as if they fought the war themselves. The red-faced old men, who show up on Question Time to opine that if Britain survived the Blitz, it can survive a little no-deal Brexit, seem genuinely to think that surviving the Blitz was their own, personal achievement.

by generic on Tue Jun 11th, 2019 at 06:13:43 PM EST
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Re: Brexit (none / 0)

I think a lot of it has to do with the extensive color photographs and movie clips of WW2 that have been assembled into "history" TV shows. Not to mention thousands of films showing how heroic and handsome everybody was back then. Watch enough of them and maybe it starts to turn into a "memory."

by asdf on Thu Jun 13th, 2019 at 03:22:37 AM EST
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Re: Brexit (none / 0)

As I pointed out to a number of people last week, the absolute youngest people involved in the Normandy landings are 92 now. If you're 80, you have little memory of the war and NO memory of the Blitz.

by rifek on Sun Jun 16th, 2019 at 02:03:33 PM EST
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27 May - 2 June 2019 | 326 comments (326 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)