I Was Wrong

Yesterday, I sounded grumpy about people celebrating the VE anniversary. I’m glad to be able to report that I was wrong.

To be fair to myself, I was never against bunting and cake, commemorating the end of a war, or making learning exciting to hook the interests of children. For me, it was more a dis-ease at forced camaraderie and accidentally promoting a ‘war is good’ message.

When I went for my walk, I found that I was cheered by the decorations, the feeling of hope and the idea that humans always find a way around their difficulties. The celebration probably wouldn’t have happened like this if we hadn’t been in lockdown.

Our local council had plans in place and I know that if things were different, my Youth Orchestra would have probably been at the park, playing Lambeth Walk, We’ll Meet Again and Let’s All Go Down the Strand (‘Av a banana). People would have been encouraged to commemorate with street parties but I doubt as many would have done. With children off school there was plenty of time to make bunting, chalk flags onto the pavement and make scones (another way of getting grubby fingernails clean), the whole town came to life more than would have normally happened.

As I walked I had small conversations with people. We talked about the weather and what they were drinking. Each street that participated had done so in different ways. My favourites were those where older couples were just sitting in their gardens with a pot of tea, saying, “Good Afternoon,” as you walked by. Some streets, had everyone out in force but it wasn’t a surprise.
“Normal for King Street,” I muttered to myself before consoling two small ginger girls by saying,
“Ooh jam tarts. Perfect. You have the most authentic VE Day tea I’ve seen,”
“Thank you for saying that,” their mother said, as their faces brightened and their red rimmed eyes paled. “They’ve been really upset that ours wasn’t as good as the neighbours.”
The most authentic street seemed to be Victoria Road complete with opportunistic bike theft.

One street had the speeches of Winston Churchill blaring out and another looked dangerously close to getting a bit snoggy and gropey (made up words) as the alcohol started to flow. I’m sure there will be backlash in the papers today as people are pictured not observing social distancing rules but I am unable to get cross about that because all I saw was hope.

When the Nazi forces in Germany surrendered 75 years ago, the world felt hope. Yesterday, the sun was shining, people talked to their neighbours and felt hopeful that we will soon be out of this lockdown situation, without the complete devastation of our country. There was also a feeling that even if Boris announces another 12 weeks of lockdown then we will cope.