At a time of fear and life disruption why should we mark VE75? A knowledge of history should teach us lessons we can live by now. Forget the mistakes of the past and we repeat them, forget the horrors of war and we don’t do everything we can to avoid it.

The past can also give us a sense of proportion. Currently there is rightfully fear of coronavirus and the unknown length of the disruption to our lives. Past generations who lived through the war had the fear of the war touching them every day and did not know how long it would last.

The fact is we should be marking this week as the war lasted six years (not forgetting those involved in far east which lasted another six months). Imagine this.

So let’s remotely and safely learn from the experience of the previous generations’ experiences, talk to them and if possible record them for the future and acknowledge what they went through and learn from them. We all want to feel safe and get back to our normal lives as soon as possible but let’s not rush into it and put the recovery and our safety in jeopardy, let’s take our time and do it properly.

The UK rightfully celebrated the end of the war in Europe this week 75 years ago but this was not the end of the disruption to people’s lives. Rationing lasted until 1953 - some items later. Damage to the fabric of society took a long time to repair and the cost to the economy even longer, but the government and society took the chance to look at what we had before and change what was wrong, or did not work and introduce things that were needed like the National Health Service.

So let’s do this now - let’s come out of this safely and in a better position. Those of us who run the Lincolnsfields Centre 1940s experience education project in Bushey that gives young people and the community the chance to learn about and experience the 1940s are unable to run our project for the safety of our staff, volunteers and the community. We look forward to opening when safe but until then most of us know people from past generations. Let’s take this chance of VE75 to learn from their experiences and acknowledge what they went through which we can now get a real appreciation of what they went through by our own experiences now.

Brian Linnegar

By email