Celebrating VE Day in Wartime and a Pandemic
My project to walk the coast of the land of my birth did not proceed too well in 2020. Wales, just 100 metres from my current home, has requested I stay the hell out of it for most of the year. It has been tough being a travel photography enthusiastic in the year of no travel. I am not after sympathy though as there are many more deserving. It has made me want to write about something else though.
On May 8th, as the first national lockdown came to its end, we celebrated a significant event. It was the 75th Anniversary of VE Day. Celebrations in 2020 were obviously muted, and in a lot of cases, cancelled. If we put aside for the moment VJ Day and all those still active in the Pacific theatre (which we really, really shouldn’t), VE Day marked the end of hostilities for the home front. A time when those in Blighty could start to realistically dream of the return of some normality and the return of their loved ones from active service. There was a spontaneous event in my close. I hung up my anniversary flag, patriotic bunting and souvenir tea towel and blew up my inflatable Spitfire. Unlike 75 years ago, there was no packed rows of people at trestle tables pooling their rations. Instead we were a circle of chairs, placed 2 metres apart like we were preparing for some strange ritual, eating and drinking what we had left in the house after lockdown. It was a multi-generational affair - but few now remember, except through a child’s eyes, the events of World War 2.
On my front door, I had stuck up a picture. It was a print of a picture taken on VE Day in Mold, North Wales - a group shot of adults and children. In the picture are my Mum, her brother Roger and my Grandparents. It was a direct connection for me that took me to that moment. I don’t know who the photographer was or why we have the print, but I was very glad to have it.
We have been fighting a new World War in 2020. A war against an enemy we cannot see. An enemy not driven by ideology, expansionism or patriotism but evolution. An enemy that kills not because it means to, but simply because it does. An enemy that killed as may many UK civilians in 2020 as in the whole of WW2.
Throughout this new challenge to our nation, many parallels have been drawn to that conflict of 75 years ago. Our Prime Minister has attempted a Churchillian tone (his personal favourite) as he tries to reignite the spirit that saw us through the darkest days of the 1940s. The world is more difficult to predict than ever but I am going to go out on a limb and make one. I do not think we will have a day like VE Day. There will be no signature on a document between a group of happy-looking generals and a group of sad-looking generals that tells us the conflict is over. I hope that our science will prevail over this simple but lethal biological entity. However, even if we manage to control it, we can expect it to change to a state of perpetual guerrilla warfare and to be always on our guard.
It is already clear that like WW2, COVID19 will be an event of lasting significance. It is a period all those who live through it will remember. It will leave the world a different place even after it has gone. Those changes can be for better or worse. The loss of life and livelihoods is already a tragedy. Perhaps we won’t sleepwalk into the next disaster - climate change I am looking at you. Perhaps we will have more belief that with the full force of the state, the international community and the backing of the people we can achieve remarkable things. Though our frontline troops in this conflict are more likely to wear medical gowns than military fatigues, that our generation is still capable of exceptional commitment and sacrifice for the good of the nation.
An ”event of lasting significance” is also of interest to all those who come after us. It will be a period worthy of study, debate and remembrance. We might not get a VC Day, but the equivalent of my photo from May 1945 might be recorded somewhere in a camera or a phone. We generate more content than ever before but our mediums are more ephemeral. I would encourage everyone to find some way of capturing our COVID19 story in a permanent way so, that in 75 years’ time, future generations can understand what it was like for all aspects of society.