Memories are made of this
6 July 2005
Living history
Sixty years ago this summer the Second World War came to an end. Many of us can remember the celebrations that accompanied it. Some of us can remember the conflict itself. Even more of us can remember what it was like to live under constant threat of bombing and invasion.
Sadly, I cannot. I was only four when the war ended and all I can remember was its aftermath. Ration books, food shortages and never having enough sweets or chocolates. Hard to imagine amidst today’s confectionery glut. But that is how it was.
Conscious that those of us who do remember the Second World War are not getting any younger, the BBC has created an online archive called WW2 People’s War to help preserve their memories. Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport it can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2. If you are internet averse you can get in touch with Jenna Benson at Radio Three Counties, Hastings Street, Luton LU1 5XL. Her telephone number is 01582 44 11 11.
The idea is to get as many people as possible to write their memories down online or go to a local centre to record them. So, do your bit for posterity. Tell it how it was.
Taking it on
Quite a few memories were recorded in Stevenage last Friday when Radio Three Counties brought their “Taking it On” road show to town. Designed for the over-fifties it is all about the choices, changes, chances and challenges of living and working longer in the East of England.
As someone well past, let alone over, her fifties I went along too. So did lots of others, including a redoubtable man in his eighties who told me that he was a twice-qualified member of the 'goldfish club'. When I asked what that was, he explained that, during the Second World War, his plane had twice been shot down over the sea and he had landed up in the drink.
The words were barely out of his mouth before he was hustled off to record his story for the BBC archive. I am glad that they got it. The world is full of brave people like him. We need to hear more of them.
Paying through the nose
When I was much younger the only way to get cash was to go to the bank and queue. Nowadays you can use one in the hole in the wall, automated teller machines, or ATMs. These are very useful, and convenient, things although they do occasionally swallow your card or refuse to cough up your cash.
Until recently they were also free. Many of them still are, but, if current trends continue, by the end of this year free ATMS will be outnumbered by fee-charging ones.
This has so angered one Scottish Labour MP, John Robertson, that he has started a campaign to raise public awareness of the growth in the number of fee charging ATMs. Like Mr Robertson, I do not see why people should have to pay to take their own money out of their own bank accounts. This will be particularly hard for people on low incomes and I am glad that at least one of the big providers, Nationwide, has said that it will not be installing fee charging ATMs.
Live 8
Like most of the rest of the country, my family and I spent most of Saturday glued to the television screen. For the first part of the day the images were of Wimbledon and for the second they were of Hyde Park.
This was another walk down memory lane for me. The stage was full of the pop and rock heroes of my almost forgotten youth. Sir Paul McCartney, the Who and finally Pink Floyd. All older, greyer and more wrinkled than they were forty years ago but still playing and still caring.
That was the most important thing. They were on that stage because they believed that they could change the world for the better. That is hope and, wherever hope is, youth cannot be far behind.
In this case it was not their own youth but the youth of the world. Live 8 captured their imagination and their energy. As Paul McCartney sang the show out with “Long Winding Road” I thought about all the poor, the sick and deprived in the world and how little it would take to help them.
Let’s not leave them standing there this time.
Barbara Follett MP
