Voices from history brought to life

Another day of rain and wind until mid-afternoon. I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's with six others. Hilary sold me a jar of raspberry jam, made with fruit from another church member's garden. She told us that Mother Frances had bequeathed the church garden several roses given to her, plus a crab apple tree, which has settle in nicely after being transplanted from the Rectory. Last week she returned from holiday to oversee the packing and departure of the removal van. When it arrived in Northumberland it was necessary to wait until low tide before crossing the causeway from the mainland to Holy Island. A very different world from urban Cardiff. I hope she'll be happy and have a fruitful ministry there.

After a cuppa in the hall, rain drumming on the roof, Roger gave me a lift to Chapter to collect this week's veggie bag, as it was still raining. Then, I didn't get soaked through walking just a third of the distance home from there. There was mackerel  to cook for lunch - filleted for Clare, smoked for me. 

I read for a while when Clare went to Beanfreaks. Fortunately, the rain eased off by the time it was my turn to go out for the week's grocery shopping at the Coop. Job done, I went for a walk in the park before supper. In the evening we watched 'The Repair Shop' and then historian Lucy Worsley's programme about the Blitz, called 'Blitz Spirit' telling the story through a selection of extracts from diaries and memoirs written by individuals who lived through it all. A fascinating account, backed with newsreel footage from the time and dramatic monologues reconstructed from the original texts. 

Worsley showed convincingly how the notion of 'Blitz Spirit' was a product of government propaganda aimed at boosting public morale. Civil defence preparations proved inadequate in the face of the onslaught on working class communities in the Docklands and East End of London. Volunteer team work and citizens taking initiatives in response to unforeseen emergencies and crises brought people together, sometimes despite the government, but class divisions were sometimes exacerbated by the difference in exposure to the bombing on the part of the rich and poor. It was the survival instinct of ordinary citizens in response to crisis that forged a lasting resilience which elites and government could exploit in propaganda that was key to shaping the course of the war. 

We tend to forget how poverty and social injustice were endemic in pre-war Britain, just as they had been in Spain in the Civil War years before. Britain had its fascist and Nazi sympathisers in positions of power but the Blitz marked the eclipse of their open influence on the course of events. In so many ways in the face of such chaos, things could have turned out so differently.