I was born 11 years after the end of World War II, yet it was there, in my life. I was, after all, a product of that war – the child of an incoming soldier to my islands who met and married my mother. Concrete remnants of conflict lay around our park. My friend and I played ‘Jerries and Britishers’ with the boys (when they let us) or hide and seek in the dugouts. Rusting corrugated iron lined their walls, yet somehow we survived without acquiring blood poisoning from cuts and scratches. Our future health was secure. Penicillin and vaccines saw to that.
I watched numerous war films in the local picture house. Sometimes I would have nightmares of German soldiers running up our street, ready to march us all to some hellish place. I didn’t tell anyone about this in case I wasn’t allowed back to the pictures, and then I might miss some much more lightsome offerings from Hollywood or Elstree!
I never thought much about the future, just relieved I was in the present because ‘Britain Won The War!’. School days were spent in anticipation of summer holidays and family picnics at local beaches. It was at one of these beaches that, in 1968, on a sunny, Sunday afternoon my dread of war returned. Russia had invaded Czechoslovakia. We had seen tanks rolling into the streets of Prague on the television. This time the film was clear, and not scratchy and jerky like that from the 1940’s.
I’d had my swim and was sitting on the grassy broo above the beach, in front of my father and some other dads. ‘There’ll be another war, you ken,’ one of them said.
‘Aye,’ my Dad replied (despite being English he had picked up some dialect.) ‘This time it’ll no be us, though, it’s our boys that will be called up.’
‘Na, na,’ came another voice. ‘It’ll no be dat kind o war. Wan big bang and we’ll aa be gone.’
A shiver ran down my spine and I knew it wasn’t from my swim.
Things settled down, although not for the peoples of Eastern Europe, and my life went on. A Saturday job put paid to lazy, childhood weekends (homework had to be done on Sundays.) O levels were studied for and passed which led to a job as a typist in a solicitor’s office. (I did not see that coming!) I had had dreams of travelling and meeting exciting people. I’m not sure how this would come about, but certainly not through office work! Nevertheless it was a job and I had a wage. I could afford to buy fashionable clothes and save up for package deals to visit foreign beaches.
At tea times we watched Julian Pettifer report from Vietnam. It’s strange how soon we became immune to the bombings and screaming refugees. Maybe because it was on the other side of the world and our own ‘boys’ weren’t there. Sometimes my mother would say, ‘Switch that off. I can’t bear it.’ I would argue that it was happening whether she could bear it or not. I felt all grown up now that I had left school.
A black cloud appeared on my horizon when Russia invaded Afghanistan. It was a few weeks after I had become engaged and once again sabres were being rattled. Would I ever be married and live happily ever after? The answer to that question is yes. Thirty-nine years later we are still here.
Whether we make forty years is a different question. I am in the future I dreaded. A Third World War has broken out. Covid-19 is the common enemy, a weapon unleashed on the world by an unseen force. It can slip silently into our bodies like an SOE agent parachuting into 1940’s occupied Europe. It is the stealth bomber of immune systems.
There is no selection process. The robust may survive but the vulnerable must be protected. Armed forces and sophisticated weapons are useless. Washing hands, sanitising surfaces and social distancing is our defence mechanism. Scientists are fighting to understand the virus and create an antidote. Nurses and doctors are treating patients with what knowledge and equipment they have. Politicians are trying to work out how the economy can survive.
In the future, books will be written and films will be made about this war. Actors will vie to portray kindly doctors, forward-thinking scientists, plucky community volunteers, tragic victims. Children will read and watch and some will no doubt have nightmares about this unseen enemy, just as I did of Germans in jackboots and cold war communists ready to ‘Push The Button’.
At present, in the UK alone, tens of thousands have been taken. Numbers are still rising. Some say they have levelled and we can relax controls. Others state that we must continue cleaning and distancing for many months to come, to ensure that there will be a future for today’s children. A future where they can look forward to summer picnics and fun at the beach.