This is a fascinating subject for discussion. Having grown up in the 60s-70s it was a different landscape and although we thought the war was a very long time ago it was only roughly 25 years ago, as we were reminded in a popular TV show ‘All our yesterdays’, which played back the war years week by week. Commando mags and playing war in overgrown air raid shelters was just part of growing up. However, us boys playing with our Action Man dolls was frowned upon and didn’t fall into the chiselled jaw narrative our parents had sketched out for us.
Our Grandfathers had fought in the 1st or 2nd World War our mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts had been dramatically affected, and they, their friends and neighbours may have missing limbs or burn scars. My dad’s stories of childhood in WW2 were pretty much a carbon copy of John Boorman’s 1987 film ‘Hope & Glory’, whilst my mother was traumatized by the experience finding more happy times evacuated with relatives.
Moving forward, we have seen a period of relative piece, and more importantly we were bombed, and our nations families were sadly killed and injured, but we (apart from the Channel Islands) were never occupied, which is why I posed the question in your session at Chalke about occupied countries remembering the war differently. In this country our collective memories are gradually being diluted and are not complicated by such things as collaborators or, was uncle fritz in the SS, which still play out today.
To get back to your school experience with the commando mags; our fathers grandfathers and great grandfathers fought or endured the horrors of war for our freedom and that freedom may have been taken for granted during the intervening period, whilst it is not right to glorify the horrors of war there has to be a level at which stories, films and video games can also become an exploration of history rather than glorification. You have discovered an interest in this period of history through comic stories and your family history. Others have discovered this period through Call of Duty or films, all of which I think, have a part to play. Contrasting Commando comics with Guy Richie’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and BBC’s Rouge Hero’s they are a long way from a documentary but have a foundation in fact that can be researched further though books by Damien Lewis and Ben McIntyre.
Judging by the continuing number of wartime related content available at present on all platforms I hope we are reaching a time where teachers will feel empowered to invite boys reading Commando books to explore the true stories of heroism of the young men and women in their next class.
In 1969 our English teacher took the class to see The Battle of Britain film and we did a project based on the period, when WW2 wasn’t even covered in schools and we we studied a new invention called Social Studies instead of History.
This is a fascinating subject for discussion. Having grown up in the 60s-70s it was a different landscape and although we thought the war was a very long time ago it was only roughly 25 years ago, as we were reminded in a popular TV show ‘All our yesterdays’, which played back the war years week by week. Commando mags and playing war in overgrown air raid shelters was just part of growing up. However, us boys playing with our Action Man dolls was frowned upon and didn’t fall into the chiselled jaw narrative our parents had sketched out for us.
Our Grandfathers had fought in the 1st or 2nd World War our mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts had been dramatically affected, and they, their friends and neighbours may have missing limbs or burn scars. My dad’s stories of childhood in WW2 were pretty much a carbon copy of John Boorman’s 1987 film ‘Hope & Glory’, whilst my mother was traumatized by the experience finding more happy times evacuated with relatives.
Moving forward, we have seen a period of relative piece, and more importantly we were bombed, and our nations families were sadly killed and injured, but we (apart from the Channel Islands) were never occupied, which is why I posed the question in your session at Chalke about occupied countries remembering the war differently. In this country our collective memories are gradually being diluted and are not complicated by such things as collaborators or, was uncle fritz in the SS, which still play out today.
To get back to your school experience with the commando mags; our fathers grandfathers and great grandfathers fought or endured the horrors of war for our freedom and that freedom may have been taken for granted during the intervening period, whilst it is not right to glorify the horrors of war there has to be a level at which stories, films and video games can also become an exploration of history rather than glorification. You have discovered an interest in this period of history through comic stories and your family history. Others have discovered this period through Call of Duty or films, all of which I think, have a part to play. Contrasting Commando comics with Guy Richie’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and BBC’s Rouge Hero’s they are a long way from a documentary but have a foundation in fact that can be researched further though books by Damien Lewis and Ben McIntyre.
Judging by the continuing number of wartime related content available at present on all platforms I hope we are reaching a time where teachers will feel empowered to invite boys reading Commando books to explore the true stories of heroism of the young men and women in their next class.
In 1969 our English teacher took the class to see The Battle of Britain film and we did a project based on the period, when WW2 wasn’t even covered in schools and we we studied a new invention called Social Studies instead of History.
Definitely Fun History!
Fascinating, thank you for sharing that! Amazing to think you didn’t study WW2 in school!