FRIDAY 8TH MAY 2020

For the youngest Members of York MC, 75 years could be almost 3 lifetimes. And for many, it’s practically two.
At the other end of the scale, WW2 finished just a handful of years before I was born in 1952. We grew up when it was still the immediate past, like 2008 is now.

For anyone unsure of the detail:- the remnants of the Nazi state finally signed an unconditional surrender. This was announced by Winston Churchill on the radio at 3.00 pm on 8th May 1945. In the East the struggle against the Japanese continued. The Second World War as a whole ended on 15 August 1945 which is VJ Day.

We tend to mark major time intervals – 25 / 50 /75…… 100. So for me, it’s more prudent to assume that this will be the final major VE Day anniversary in my lifetime. Also, this event is now just on the cusp of living memory. Soon indeed it will have joined Napoleon in books about history.

There is a characteristic of WW2 – the moral darkness which almost engulfed the world, the de-humanisation of whole peoples, the appalling extermination programmes– which sets it apart.

At 3.00 pm on Friday 8th May, we can all reflect that everything you are, everything you think, and everything you are allowed to do, stood once in jeopardy. Life since 1952 has often felt like a lucky escape.
The bunting will be out at our house.

ANDREW