Hi Den, I think most of our generation do find it a bit hard to understand the way of thinking in today's society, today's young people have grown
up in an increasingly soft lifestyle and are influenced by the ever growing army of celebrities/luvies and their OTT personalities "only my opinion".
For me the big difference in our times is that our parents grew up during WW1 and were not strangers to hardship, when WWII started they were
more prepared. I was only six and a half when the war ended but have a very good memory of what we experienced, I was evacuated with my
two sisters to Derby, one of my sisters was such a cow that we were all sent home together. You never forget the sirens and bomb explosions.
Dad was at war and my sisters and me slept with her at night time, we did use the Anderson shelter a few times but it started to fill with water.
Shortly before our house was bombed I remember mum walking us all up the road to see where a bomb had fallen, I can clearly remember
seeing the air raid wardens digging in the debris they had it lit up and there was a sniffer dog, when our house was bombed I was five years old,
I was talking with mum when she heard the Doodlebug engine cut out, she grabbed me and dived under the kitchen table, there was a huge bang
as the big window came crashing down on the table, everything went black as the soot poured down the chimney the next thing I remember is being
helped out from under the table and led out of the house. Once outside I saw mums bed hanging out of the bedroom with rubble and glass everywhere,
my sisters were not at home so mum and me walked to my uncle Fred's house one block away, he had already had anear miss and and four houses
next door had been demolished, the bombsites became our playgrounds after the war, we were rehoused for the duration of the war. It's only when
we get older that we think about these things in depth, to my mind the unsung heroes of the war are our mothers, they would have been wondering
all the time if their husbands were safe, they had to feed and clothe us kids on meagre rations, many had a job as well, and the they lived with the Bltz
the same as everyone else. I believe the knew all about stress but just carried on as best they could, they were the backbone of the country God bless
them all. Cheers
i