Squirrel

I'd not heard that. Sounds interesting.

tonrob

I'd pop back to 1989 when my fit bird supply was at its height and I still had the energy to cope.

Let's just say that the stick with which I beat them off is not quite as shitty as it used to be...

Lothianlad

A romantic idyll of a summer which, as it happened, was one of many successive days of clear blue skies, the lightest of breezes and golden sunshine.....but the tension of the time was extremely acute for those who were around at the time, especially in southern, south eastern and eastern England - more particularly the counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Essex.

Throughout most of that momentous summer those clear blue skies were marred by a network tracery of aircraft vapour trails from all those homebased Spitfires and Hurricanes chasing all those invading Me's and Do's in some kind of grand aerial ballet during which the lives of so many young men were at stake, and all too ferequently lost over the glorious sunlit towns and villages and meadows, pasturelands and woodlands of the English countryside 15k feet or so down below.

I have in my collection a video of a summer family garden picnic taking place in a sunlit garden in Ashford, Kent - filmed on a Sunday afternoon in August 1940 - an elderly gentleman and three ladies sitting in deckchairs on a lawn close to a small pond, with two young children playing, and two small dogs frolicking about. It looked a picture of peace and serenity until the camera panned up towards the blue sky above them where you could see the black dots of aircraft weaving in circles around each other and leaving behind them all those vapour trails forming circle shapes all over the skyscape. People on an English lawn taking tea while several thousands of feet above them men were engaged in a bitter struggle against each other and dying in the process.

The people themselves were putting themselves at risk as broken, flaming aircraft and red hot shrapnel only have one direction in which to go - downwards.

The same applied to all the farmworkers hard at work in the Kentish cornfields that summer gathering in the harvest - toiling away like there was no tomorrow (and in those days nobody really knew for certain whether there ever would be a tomorrow - for tooo many, there wasn't, unfortunately). That part of England was an especially dangerous place then.

The British Embassy in Washington DC, USA still has a huge photograph on display on a wall featuring a group of young children in August 1940 - boys and girls of about 6 to 12 years of age - taking shelter in a trench alongside a Kentish field - a trench similar to those in a WW1 Flanders battlefield but without the mud - each one of those kids were crouched down together in a line, each one of them gazing upwards at the sky above them, watching the RAF and the Luftwaffe weaving and diving in mortal combat above them.

All those RAF personnel and civilians working desperately in those RAF stations dotted all around southern and eastern England in the face of Hitler's assault program and then being subjected to bombing raids by might of the Nazi Luftwaffe, not to mention all the people living in those areas at that time, would hardly have regarded the whole situation as particularly romantic.... military and civilian casualties - both fatal and severely injured - were very considerable. It was more of a nightmare. The astonishing thing about the people at that time - the people being confronted by all of this - was their complete and utter resolve not to give in to it all - but face it with fortitude.

Looking back at it all now over 71 years later maybe we can feel a wee bit romantic about it, in a way. It's amazing how human beings can always summon up strength and courage when it's absolutely vital so to do.

Octang Frye

Nonsense. They stank to high heaven. People such as Frances Bacon would go through the streets clutching an orange to their nose and mouth.
Remember, people were throwing excrement and urine into the streets.

Impurities in food... lol. The sort of person that believes that no doubt purchases concoctions that "cleanse".

tonrob

Have you collected your award yet?

Squirrel

No doubt some people sometimes did do that, but it wasn't the usual way of disposing of bodily waste. Most houses had a privy outside, basically a drop shaft with a seat on. Once a year people would have their privies cleaned out. Not a very nice job but you didn't do it yourself, there were people who did it for a living.

The people who lived in those days had to walk the streets themselves so they wouldn't have relished the thought of them being full of excrement. So most wouldn't throw poo out at least, maybe pee. And obviously some lazy disgusting people chucked it out of the window anyway. I just don't think it was the norm.

SultanOfSwing

It was the norm. People laughed at the flush toilet when it was first invented in the late 1500s. Right up until the Industrial Revolution it was quite common for shite to be sitting around in the streets. One of the highest paying jobs for a commoner in those days was cleaning it all up during the night.

Bunch of dirty bastards, our ancestors were.

Sarah

Just regurgitating what I'd read, I've no doubt that the Brits all stank of poo and wee but this American lady said the Aussie Aborigines she went on a walkabout with didn't smell at all whereas she stank to high heaven after a week.

I've no doubt there's a ton of garbage in the food we eat, whether it makes us smell or not I highly doubt too. Although my next door neighbor does smell of garlic a lot of the time.

Sarah

ahhh poo in the streets, reminds me of when I used to dodge the fresh turds from the alcy homeless blokes who regularly shat in front of my office building in Hammersmith. They were always bright orange, probably to go along with their livers.

nethead

I think dairy products make Westerners smell really bad to those in the Far East who don't consume much (or maybe that's an urban myth?)

I think I'd like to be a teenager around the time that Rock and Roll took off in the USA or maybe when the Beatles had just started.

Brigette

This sounds interesting. Currently watching The Tudors on BBC America and I cheered when Anne Boleyn was executed. Shameful I know

Karrie72

I cried when Anne was executed, sad eh? Mind you it was quite over the top but brilliantly done none the less.
Regarding the smelly bodies thing...if I may share a morsel...when I exercise regularly I sweat less, tmi I know sorry!

paddingtongreen

Why?

If I could find it, I would post a picture of my mum and little brother walking me to school. The cardboard box I was carrying didn't have my lunch in it, it contained my gas mask. Having to practise with those stinking rubber gas masks every week is reason enough not to go back.

dippydon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AJBF...eature=related

dippydon

A very rare radio recording of Judy performing the New Year song.
From 'Bundles For Britain'.
Aired: January 1 1941

Note the last 40 seconds