Sunday, Oct. 30, 2005 - 10:41 p.m.
Starting paras with And or But
I enjoyed the clocks going back today. I was woken by a texto at 9am (i.e., 10am) and got up shortly after. This meant that by the time noon wheeled by, I'd cleaned the windows inside and out, repotted my weeping fig for the first time in its long, sorry life, faffed on t'internet, had breakfast, showered and scrubbed the bathroom. A MIRACLE. Considering I normally, if left undisturbed, am just rolling out of bed at that time.I was inspired by having friends round for dinner tonight - the best reason for tidying and cleaning. I made a dead impressive souffle macaroni cheese.
Anyway, this last week I've mostly been staying in and watching programs about the Blitz. You grow up learning about it and hearing about the 'Blitz Spirit', how Londoners would not - in New Labour vernacular - be cowed by the relentless bombing on their city and as they had to sleep night after night in their local tube station, they'd make the most of it, having a singsong before sleeping, bringing jam sandwiches down to share, that sort of thing.
When I moved to London I thought about this again and thought, actually, the tube platforms are filthy, imagine having not only to sleep on that but to lie next to your potentially stinky neighbours.
And then I thought about how even if you turned that into something fun and enjoyable, it would be hard to ignore the fear that your house might not be there in the morning, or indeed the realisation that being in the tube station didn't keep you from harm.
And then after the July 7th bombings, a piddling fraction of damage caused compared to one night in WWII, my overriding emotion was ANGER and also annoyance that Londoners were being portrayed globally as defiantly returning to work when really, we had no choice, and the tube was the only way a lot of us could get there.
So this program about the Blitz was great because it gave you real people's attitudes to it. One lady said that her main reaction was, how dare you do this, to my city!'. She then said that they weren't all brave people at all and were very scared by what was happening.
I think the mythical Blitz spirit is that if you're apart from it - either not living in a danger zone or looking at it from years later - you imagine that the people living it must have been brave and stoic, not considering how brown their pants might have been each morning.
But then there was this one granny who, aged 16, had been sheltering with her family during a raid when the shelter took a direct hit. Her parents and one brother were killed outright. She was talking about it now, saying, 'I do miss my family, I wish they were around me now, especially now I'm on my own. I do miss them...' Then she started to cry a little, but a second later, straightened her face and turned back to the screen and said, 'but there's no sense in being sad, is there?'
And I suppose that is a bit what the spirit is about, not giving in to it.
Anyway, it is funny how you can miss someone surprisingly years and years later.