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This VE Day thing.


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5 minutes ago, mattyq said:

Yeah, it's weird

My grandad was a squaddie and took part in D Day. He never ever talked about it even to my dad. When he died my dad sent off for his war records and medals and found out that he'd been all the way from Normandy to the bitter end in Germany and was seriously wounded with grenade shrapnel in his head which was never removed.

He worked in Tate & Lyle until it was closed in the 80s

That's incredible that, you must have been really proud. 

 

When I used to work in local rags interviewing veterans was by far my favourite type of story, always humble, always pleasant. 

 

One of the things I was most proud of in my 'career' was when this guy got in touch about the fact the government had denied him and his colleagues the chance to receive a medal from the Russians due to them being in the Arctic convoys - it was Cameron era, basically anti Russian feeling.

 

We did a campaign and in the end he got his medal. I'd done a feature telling his story, he was 17 and the deck of the ship was something stupid like minus 18c, but he had to stand in it as he was a gunner (which also meant he ended up deaf), he said the seas was so cold that if one of the ships got hit by a U Boat they had to just leave it because they were 'already dead'. 

 

He was at D Day too, apparently him and his mates were all still 17/18 and Montgomerry cane to tour their ship before it went into battle and apparently told the captain 'these lads are walking dead, send them to bed - that's an order'. 

 

He said he'd cried reading the story and people where he'd lived had come up to him in the street and said they hadn't realised what he'd been through. I tracked another Convoys veteran down in the same town and intrduced them both, then I arranged for the Mayor to present them both with their medals at a civic ceremony with their families present. They then led the town's VE Day and Veterans Day parades for that year. At least one of them is dead now, possibly the other one by now too, but I was proud of the fact I helped to build them some kind of legacy for what they'd done. 

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2 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Or (as Lurtzy said) spend the day reflecting on the horrible tragedies; and maybe think about committing to avoid the failures of the 20s and 30s which allowed Nazism and Fascism to triumph in Europe in the first place.

 

How will we ever eliminate populism - with a virus maybe?

 

 

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Not too many of the actual cannon fodder left any more. My dad was not quite 20 at Dunkirk so he would have been 100 this year. An 18 year old fighting in 1945 would be 93.. I knew lots of veterans when I was a young feller, even WWI vets but none of them would talk about their war. It just seems a bit jingoistic but be carrying on like this now, organized by people who don't have a scooby of the horrors they faced.

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11 minutes ago, Evelyn Tentions said:

Not too many of the actual cannon fodder left any more. My dad was not quite 20 at Dunkirk so he would have been 100 this year. An 18 year old fighting in 1945 would be 93.. I knew lots of veterans when I was a young feller, even WWI vets but none of them would talk about their war. It just seems a bit jingoistic but be carrying on like this now, organized by people who don't have a scooby of the horrors they faced.

Couldn't agree more.  Don't mind actual veterans 'celebrating' but so few of them and like you said they didn't really talk about their exploits/publicise them.

 

Daft middle-class twats putting bunting out and sitting in their front garden eating scones is not what this is about.

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43 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

That's incredible that, you must have been really proud. 

 

When I used to work in local rags interviewing veterans was by far my favourite type of story, always humble, always pleasant. 

 

One of the things I was most proud of in my 'career' was when this guy got in touch about the fact the government had denied him and his colleagues the chance to receive a medal from the Russians due to them being in the Arctic convoys - it was Cameron era, basically anti Russian feeling.

 

We did a campaign and in the end he got his medal. I'd done a feature telling his story, he was 17 and the deck of the ship was something stupid like minus 18c, but he had to stand in it as he was a gunner (which also meant he ended up deaf), he said the seas was so cold that if one of the ships got hit by a U Boat they had to just leave it because they were 'already dead'. 

 

He was at D Day too, apparently him and his mates were all still 17/18 and Montgomerry cane to tour their ship before it went into battle and apparently told the captain 'these lads are walking dead, send them to bed - that's an order'. 

 

He said he'd cried reading the story and people where he'd lived had come up to him in the street and said they hadn't realised what he'd been through. I tracked another Convoys veteran down in the same town and intrduced them both, then I arranged for the Mayor to present them both with their medals at a civic ceremony with their families present. They then led the town's VE Day and Veterans Day parades for that year. At least one of them is dead now, possibly the other one by now too, but I was proud of the fact I helped to build them some kind of legacy for what they'd done. 

I had no idea until quite recently,last 15 years or so,that two of my Uncles were part of the Desert Rats and one was at Dunkirk and was badly shaken up mentally because of the horrors he'd seen and experienced. They were both long dead before I ever knew about it. 

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49 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

That's incredible that, you must have been really proud. 

 

When I used to work in local rags interviewing veterans was by far my favourite type of story, always humble, always pleasant. 

 

One of the things I was most proud of in my 'career' was when this guy got in touch about the fact the government had denied him and his colleagues the chance to receive a medal from the Russians due to them being in the Arctic convoys - it was Cameron era, basically anti Russian feeling.

 

We did a campaign and in the end he got his medal. I'd done a feature telling his story, he was 17 and the deck of the ship was something stupid like minus 18c, but he had to stand in it as he was a gunner (which also meant he ended up deaf), he said the seas was so cold that if one of the ships got hit by a U Boat they had to just leave it because they were 'already dead'. 

 

He was at D Day too, apparently him and his mates were all still 17/18 and Montgomerry cane to tour their ship before it went into battle and apparently told the captain 'these lads are walking dead, send them to bed - that's an order'. 

 

He said he'd cried reading the story and people where he'd lived had come up to him in the street and said they hadn't realised what he'd been through. I tracked another Convoys veteran down in the same town and intrduced them both, then I arranged for the Mayor to present them both with their medals at a civic ceremony with their families present. They then led the town's VE Day and Veterans Day parades for that year. At least one of them is dead now, possibly the other one by now too, but I was proud of the fact I helped to build them some kind of legacy for what they'd done. 

Now that's brilliant!

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10 hours ago, Redder Lurtz said:

Tbf as much as Boris is a dick I think he's a million miles away from messaging that lockdown is over. Anyway that's  discussion for another thread. Point taken though. 

I think you’re giving him way too much credit. His signalling of changes to come from the weekend has given the green light to every brain dead eejit that the holidays are over and it’s back to normality, job done.

 

How many people died yesterday? How many had died when ‘lockdown’ was introduced? Don’t get me started. Hold firm Scottish Government.

 

PS I hate all this glorifying of our wartime victories shite. Our establishment, and consequently huge swathes of the population, has a very selective memory in terms of our place in world history. 
 

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1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

That's incredible that, you must have been really proud

 

When I used to work in local rags interviewing veterans was by far my favourite type of story, always humble, always pleasant. 

 

One of the things I was most proud of in my 'career' was when this guy got in touch about the fact the government had denied him and his colleagues the chance to receive a medal from the Russians due to them being in the Arctic convoys - it was Cameron era, basically anti Russian feeling.

 

We did a campaign and in the end he got his medal. I'd done a feature telling his story, he was 17 and the deck of the ship was something stupid like minus 18c, but he had to stand in it as he was a gunner (which also meant he ended up deaf), he said the seas was so cold that if one of the ships got hit by a U Boat they had to just leave it because they were 'already dead'. 

 

He was at D Day too, apparently him and his mates were all still 17/18 and Montgomerry cane to tour their ship before it went into battle and apparently told the captain 'these lads are walking dead, send them to bed - that's an order'. 

 

He said he'd cried reading the story and people where he'd lived had come up to him in the street and said they hadn't realised what he'd been through. I tracked another Convoys veteran down in the same town and intrduced them both, then I arranged for the Mayor to present them both with their medals at a civic ceremony with their families present. They then led the town's VE Day and Veterans Day parades for that year. At least one of them is dead now, possibly the other one by now too, but I was proud of the fact I helped to build them some kind of legacy for what they'd done. 

Not really, mate

I don't know if my grandad was proud of it or not... maybe he thought it was something he had to do and survive and not think of ever again.

Think my dad's proud of it but he, again, doesn't like to talk about emotions and stuff so it's difficult to tell.

What you did for the vets, though, was a completely excellent thing and deffo something to be proud of

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31 minutes ago, Red_or_Dead said:

 

Daft middle-class twats putting bunting out and sitting in their front garden eating scones is not what this is about.

This.  There's something not right with these people. 

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13 minutes ago, Champ said:

PS I hate all this glorifying of our wartime victories shite. Our establishment, and consequently huge swathes of the population, has a very selective memory in terms of our place in world history. 
 

I think a lot of the myth-making* started for propaganda reasons during the war - to keep up morale at home and to build support in the USA (before Pearl Harbour) - and a lot of it has stuck.

 

 

(*Before A Red puts his foot through his laptop and sends me the bill, I'm not saying there was no truth to it.  There were millions of instances of great sacrifice and heroism; but there were also disastrous fuck-ups, countless acts of greed and selfishness, lots of people literally shitting themselves and breaking down completely under the worst strain and a lot of resentment of our ruling classes.  The myth-making consisted of promoting the positives and sweeping the negatives under the carpet.)

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1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

Was taking a while back about how when I was a kid in the 80s a lot of veterans would have still been in the workforce, you'd have had bus drivers and stuff who were at D Day. It's mad that.

When I was growing up (80s) there were tangible things related to the War still around - people (obviously), bomb sites/wrecks, gear (we had WW2 stuff in our loft - gas mask, ration tins). But we're now so far away I'm sure to people younger than me it literally seems like ancient history. 

 

I don't really know what point I'm making here. I guess back then the war was a realthing and people still felt it. Seems now a lot of people use it as (imaginary) point scoring and jingoism. 

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Reading through this thread seems to confirm my experience...the further we have got from those conflicts the more it seems that those memories have been airbrushed and repackaged for national back slapping and commercial purposes

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3 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Really?  You don't think anyone in the media or on the right of British politics uses it?

 

Have you never heard anyone come up with shit like "The pubs didn't close during the Blitz, so why should we let coronavirus close them?" or "We defeated Hitler, we don't have to do what Michel Barnier wants" or shit like that?

To be fair I have never heard anyone ever say, "the pubs didnt close during the blitz...."etc. 

 

To me, and i imagine most people, VE day is about celebrating the end of a war and remembering those that suffered and sacrificed and fuck all to do with the EU, coronavirus or glorifying victory. Some idiots might think otherwise but fuck em.  As I said, dont like it, dont get involved, no-one gives a shit. 

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25 minutes ago, Moo said:

This.  There's something not right with these people. 

They probably don’t think there’s anything wrong with celebrating defeating Nazis. Real ones.  The ones that created the concentration camps and killed millions upon millions of people. Not ones that are called Nazi now because they vote Tory or think that trigger warnings and safe spaces are bollocks.  
 

We are fucking lucky. We are unlikely to ever have to do anything like that so having 1 day to celebrate it ain’t that bad.  

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I don’t remember VE Day, or VJ Day, at all from when I was growing up, but that might be because I wasn’t paying attention.

50th anniversary VE Day I vaguely recall being a thing though. 

 

I reckon making a bit of a fuss on a major anniversary like 75 years isn’t too bad. Although it does seem a bit strange when almost all of the participants will be dead I suppose.

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22 minutes ago, A Red said:

To be fair I have never heard anyone ever say, "the pubs didnt close during the blitz...."etc. 

 

To me, and i imagine most people, VE day is about celebrating the end of a war and remembering those that suffered and sacrificed and fuck all to do with the EU, coronavirus or glorifying victory. Some idiots might think otherwise but fuck em.  As I said, dont like it, dont get involved, no-one gives a shit. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/17/even-blitz-couldnt-close-pubs-bitter-blow/

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In my first job in 1978 , the chief cashier was ex-RAF and was involved in the Dresden bombings. He was also a stunt pilot in the Dambusters and used to talk about Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd as if they were his mates,  calling them Toddy and Redders. Like most 18 year olds I was a bit of an idiot , and wish I had taken more interest in his exploits.

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