We will remember

In a year when we got an inkling of what living through a war means, we remember the 75th anniversary of the end of the Great War

- Stephen Roberts

The dead included a little girl who’d been sent to the baker’s and whose body was found still clutching the bag of buns she’d bought. The 15 who died included seven children aged 12 or under, of which that little lass was one.

This was the aftermath in Sturry, a village north-east of Canterbury, which saw the greater part of its High Street wrecked by a parachute mine when the Luftwaffe came calling on 18 November 1941.

It was the most destructive war in human history. It lasted for six years and cost a conservative estimate of 60 million lives, the majority non-combatants.

It’s easy to understand why politicians were keen to avoid a Third World War once the Second World War had finally been put to bed. It’s also easy to understand why those who’d survived wanted to celebrate the end of that conflict. No doubt those revelries went on long into the night in Kent, as everywhere else.

Two years ago, we marked a century since the end of the Great War. With Remembrance Sunday (8 November) and Armistice Day (11 November) taking place this month, I’m turning the clock back to the 1939-45 war, which finally came to an end 75 years ago.

I want to consider not just what a shattering experience it was and therefore why we should never forget it, but also what effect it had on Kent. I began writing this in the middle of the Covid-19 epidemic, arguably the greatest crisis facing this country since the war. I’ve sometimes wondered what living through a war must be like; it feels like we’re getting an inkling now.