Memorialisation of the war-women

Leslie Thomas's The Dearest and the Best: A Novel of 1940, 1984

Handling of Dunkirk shows how Myth resists demystification- narrative emphasises heroic role of Navy and pays tribute to Little Ships

Battle an all-male affair; Robinson's book seems sexist by default

1951 Monsarrat's The Good Sea seems sexist by design: “The men in this novel fight two battles: one at sea against U-boats, another at home against women” 164

Mythologised Battle of the Atlantic stands in defiance to Myth of the Blitz

In contrast is Forrester's 1984 Three Women of Liverpool

-honest about nature of this community: black market etc. but doesn't disturb the Myth

-the decision to end while still in the war avoids austerity, permissiveness, the realisation that Britain was a second-rate power

Role of women's role seeping back into public consciousness in 60s and 70s

Post-war interpretations of female service life hardly numerous: Noakes- maintaining image of women as mothers main stumbling block

Peter Hennessy: “we spent the fifties in cinemas absorbing an endless diet of war films in which Richard Todd and Kenneth More convinced us that there is a singular mixture of insouciance, bravery and flair that we could bring to the conduct of international affairs.”

Stereotyping of other ranks and writing out of women and civilians

Debate of Victory Parties on Remembrance Day:

Dispute between the Daily Mail and Daily Express shows newspapers taking too distinct but recognisably conservative populist lines

Daily Mail stresses domestic and family virtues- women gave emphasis- moral conservatism

Daily Express libertarian conservatism: defended rights of people to choose their activities

-both phrased their arguments regarding patriotism

Cripples and soldiers (Koven)

Preference of segregation reflected elite cultural biases- poor put crippled children at centre of life and couldn't hide them anyway- rich hid them

Grace Kimmins transitioned from Sister Grace to Commandant at Chailey: “the flag of our religion is indeed a Union Jack, wherein the chivalry to the weak is emblazoned in letters of gold”

Rhetorical refashioning of cripples into soldiers: “The thought of bearing suffering as a soldier… meant much to the children”

WW1 saw crippled boys paired with crippled soldiers but enterprise of remembering and reliving battle exclusively male: “explained by wounded men to breathless, open-mouthed boys”

Children became not the objects but agents of rescue

28 graduates of Chailey killed in action: “Having rescued their bodies from the ravages of poverty, Kimmins celebrated their destruction as the realisation of the highest duty and privilege of able-bodied male citizens”1184

Chailey's Road of Remembrance turned violence and pain of war into organic ritual of renewal and fruitfulness- aimed to inspire disabled children to achieve glory of becoming whole men

Voracious demand for labour combined with negligible supply of able-bodied created a short-term favourable situation for disabled men

Presence of women made it difficult to restore wounded people to workforce not just as workers but as men

Idea of Wembley exhibition first expression of imperial popular culture

-national sports ground would be built on exhibition site and opened with 1923 Football Final- brought working-class focus

Wembley serves the first example of putting Empire on display in interwar period- Glasgow exhibition represents the problems of promoting the Empire at the end of the period (1938)

Scottish dimension was emphasised to help industry during unemployment

  Empire Marketing Board

- In 1930 alone 200 British Empire shopping weeks organised in 65 towns- contributed to a national and cross-party sense that British Empire was still a power

Direct appeal of Empire to women greater in this period than any other

- Wembley exhibition had Women's Section and Women's Week

Growth in numbers represented great deal of energy: 1932 there were 33 Imperial and patriotic societies- diversity eventually proved weakness

anti-Imperial sentiment equally fragmented