Yesterday morning, as I was driving downtown, I listened to The Story on NPR. For once my journey was longer than 10 minutes, so I actually got to listen to almost all of the segment - a miracle! The story featured an elderly British man, Malcolm Morris who had grown up in London during the blitz in World War 2. Mr. Morris was about 7 or 8 at the height of the war. His family lived in north London, where they decided to stay during the bombings, rather than go to safer parts of the country like many other Londoners did. Mr. Morris' home was about 500 yards from a bridge that joined the north part of England with London. The bridge was an essential link that the Germans constantly tried to bomb. He remembered how blase his family became about going down into the air raid shelter at night, so instead he would watch the bombs exploding from his window. He recalled how to the kids, shrapnel was a precious commodity that traded well between peers. Mr. Morris told all of this and more in a delightful, upbeat manner that exuded that British 'chin-up'-ness. The best story of all however was how he was thrown across a room by a land mine. These land mines were dropped from a specific kind of plane, attached to a parachute. When the parachute reached so many feet from the ground, the land mine exploded. Mr Morris just chuckled at the fact that he was so unaware of this landmine heading toward the vicinity that he was in, that his body was relaxed enough for little damage to be inflicted upon him when he did a body slam against a wall.
It all got me thinking. Got me thinking how easy my life is in comparison with these families that lived through London in World War 2. It got me thinking how spoiled our generation is, and the following generations are, that we really haven't had to live with the kind of fear that Europe felt from 1939-1945. (I mean, France at it's closest point to England is only around 20 miles away. Occupied France. With Germans intent on marching right on across the Channel to England....)
It also got me thinking about my family, and how recent all this sadness, anxiety, and fear really was in the grand scheme of things. For example - my grandfather had to leave his wife and son (my Dad), in east London to work on the army tanks in Germany. My grandmother refused to leave London and stayed with her 2 year old child while neighbouring streets were bombed. My great-grandmother, blown up by, if I remember correctly, a V2 rocket. The V2 was an exceptionally sinister type of bomb that was used in the later years of the war. It was the first sub-orbital rocket and was developed in response to the allies bombing German cities. As a kid, in history, we were told the V2 was silent - apart from the sonic-boom that some people heard over London- and that once you did hear the rocket it was too late.)
All of this stuff speaks for itself. It's a wonder to me that a whole generation actually made it. Not just physically, but mentally too. I wonder if they had/have more resilience? Or whether they appreciated the day-to-day grind because there was a strong chance it could all be taken away in an instant.
Everyone that was an adult during the war, back home, are gone now. And all these questions that I didn't have when I was a teenager will have to wait. Maybe I'll meet them again. And if I play my cards right, we'll have blissful eternity to discuss the answers.