They said that Londoners could take it. But could they?
Accompanies Lucy Worsley’s documentary on the Blitz which is due to air soon on BBC One
What does “Blitz Spirit” really mean? It’s a concept that’s frequently invoked in times of crisis: a curiously British commitment to keeping calm and carrying on.
Eighty years on from the Blitz, though, it’s worth remembering that the eight months of intense bombing between September 1940 and May 1941 did not comprise just one single, homogeneous experience for the people living in London and the many other British cities affected.
Those eight months were indeed a time of remarkable resilience, and of terrible suffering. Yet our clichéd images of the Blitz – jolly singalongs in the air raid shelters, milkmen continuing to deliver as usual to bombed-out houses – don’t tell the whole story.
It seems timely, while we’re facing a national crisis of our own, to drill down deeper into the nature of the “Blitz Spirit” – and one way to do that is to look in detail at the personal recollections of Londoners who were there, living and dying beneath the bombs. The government issued propaganda declaring that “London Can Take it” – but would these ordinary people have agreed?
A closer look shows
