This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
This month it will be 85 years since the end of the Blitz, Nazi Germany’s eight-month bombing campaign targeting British towns and cities. To mark that anniversary, we have made Children of the Blitz, a documentary featuring some of the dwindling band of Blitz survivors – the men and women now in their late 80s, 90s and centenary years who, as children during the Second World War, suffered unimaginable terror with long-lasting consequences.
People like Patsy, 90, from Belfast. An incendiary bomb landed on the roof of her house while she was sheltering underneath the stairs with her mother. The house was destroyed, with Patsy’s mother pulling her out of the rubble. Or 90-year-old Jean from Sheffield, who lost her mother when a German bomb with a delayed action fuse exploded as she was hanging out the washing.
Making this documentary felt purposeful, because this may prove to be the last opportunity to record the testimony of these incredible survivors.
Moreover, most of us know less about what happened 85 years ago than we think we do. The expression “Blitz Spirit” is still used today to conjure up the supposedly indomitable nature of the British, while black-and-white footage of St Paul’s Cathedral surviving amid the flames shapes our geographical view of the bombing raids. But the truth was more nuanced. People’s spirits could fall as well as rise – and the Blitz didn’t just affect London, the raids caused dreadful destruction in Hull, Coventry, Liverpool, Cardiff, Belfast and many more cities.
The commonly held belief that most British children were taken away from danger is also mistaken; around two thirds were not evacuated. Consequently, over 7,000 children were killed, and a similar number were wounded. Thousands more were left traumatised.
The lives of the survivors featured in Children of the Blitz were shaped by the experience of growing up under German bombs. For many, it stole their childhood and devastated their communities. For some, the trauma of what happened is still palpable today. When Patsy from Belfast is interviewed, she rubs a piece of material she still carries with her to calm her nerves. Another participant, 101-year-old Dorothea, can still feel the physical sensation the air raid sirens gave her as a child. The past is manifest in the present, and the children of the Blitz are still experiencing it.
Yet spending time with Patsy, Dorothea and others was ultimately an uplifting experience. Until I made this documentary, I had imagined that Blitz survivors might be emotionally constricted after being conditioned to bottle up their innermost feelings. I now understand the motivation in keeping their fear and heartbreak locked away.
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These children took the pain of what happened on themselves so they wouldn’t burden others. As Monica, 94, from Croydon says, “In those days, you took on a lot of responsibility when you were young.” Now, coming towards the end of their lives, they are sharing their childhood experiences while, I hope, finding some catharsis in the process.
Meeting them has made me reflect on how I take safety for granted, mistaking it for a birth right, rather than recognising it as something hard-won and in need of protection, as their generation saw first-hand. Gill, 87, lived through the Coventry Blitz; as a child she saw the sky illuminated by flames. She lived through a world war and now, as she looks at the growing number of conflicts around the world, Gill is frightened for her grandchildren. At the end of the film she says, “It could so easily happen again.”
We need to hear that, and we need to think about it. We must not forget the consequences of war for children.
Children of the Blitz is at 9.00pm on Monday 11 May on BBC Two.
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