Memorialisation of the wars-Blitz

Blitz supports a myth of British pre-eminence

• The 1981 Botham myth in cricket shows the myth which the Blitz confirmed: Phoenix from the Ashes- “as a country we have specialised in doing badly at the beginning of wars and ending up victorious”

• Blitz part of long tradition of referencing back to our past: Wintringham 1940: “In this country freedom, made real in new forms, is still as powerful and as heartening as it was in the days when Milton wrote that liberty 'hath enfranchised…' Men of the past made our nation by conquering tyranny; like them we shall conquer” 8

• Gallipoli is history to be made, Dunkirk history as made

• Patrick Wright's On Living in an Old Country

• Historical consciousness invovled with stories helps bring our world into order

• Particularisms: us vs them confront destabilising demands of social transformation

• Churchill spoke for dominant particularism against Welsh speakers etc

• Everyday life has been increasingly valued e.g. science ousted religion

• Nature and History sharpened into absolute spirit during times of trouble

• 1943 Peter Scott: “That was the countryside we were so passionately determined to protect from the invader”

• Mythology of the “Old Country” which presupposes and enforces a middle-class view of the world

• Scott mentions “cricket at Old Trafford” (Manchester) to appeal to northern towns but doesn't use Sheffield or Leeds because many middle class admired writings of Manchester Neville Cardus

• For the Left myth would change ideological conservatism into revolution: because Blitz was seen to create welfare state to diverted from continued need of reform

• Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory

• -the crisis of language at the frontier

• -prevalent modes of rhetoric couldn't use appropriate words for non-soldiers

• Euphemisms: in official communication “brisk fighting” meant 50% had been killed

• “style of British phlegm” involved speaking about conditions as if they were normal

• Image of the phlegmatic joking Tommy forms part of spectrum with soldier as crucified Christ

• Briggs: “record of wartime pacifism paradoxically reinforces the claim implicit in the Myth of the Blitz that the British fought in 1940-1 with unusual unity and in a markedly civilised spirit” 75

• In 1930s pacifism worked across political spectrum

• -In 1933 the Oxford Union voted against fighting

• Centre League of Nations peace ballot 1935- 11.5 m Britains participated

• In 1939 22/1000 claimed conscientious objection, 16 by 9^th March, 6 by 1940

• Came principally from self-employed: individualistic jobs created individualistic occupations

• Eliot's: Quartets as public poems with propagandist function

• -Can be read coherently without reference to WW2 at all: imagery of “East Coker” “The Dry Salvages” etc. belong to 1939-41: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

• “Little Gidding” is representation of the Mythology

• Little Gidding is area that sheltered C1-place represents the end of the world

• History is now over

• Blitz is like Purgatory: “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire, And the fire and rose are one.”

• Daily Mail picture of St Pauls- fire fitted established Judeo-Christian mythology- historical script of 1666

• Like Dunkirk great reliance has been placed on relatively few images

• London is the city of the Blitz- London can take it! To influence America

• Dome of the cathedral is seen as symbol of capital and nation

• “London can take it!” said in front of statue of Richard the Lionheart and bombed out Westminster- vision of medieval past and one that symbolises unity of monarchy

• -retitled Britain can take it for domestic release

• Past and present fused- Wren's churches took on double meaning- churches became symbol of long history

• Fires were Started- stoic looks of Scott in fireman- working-class become Britannia's shield

• Formula for presenting the Blitz encapsulated in FWS