I speak to you today at the same hour as my father did, exactly 75 years ago. His message then was a salute to the men and women at home and abroad who had sacrificed so much in pursuit of what he rightly called a “great deliverance”.
The war had been a total war; it had affected everyone, and no one was immune from its impact. Whether it be the men and women called up to serve; families separated from each other; or people asked to take up new roles and skills to support the war effort, all had a part to play. At the start, the outlook seemed bleak, the end distant, the outcome uncertain. But we kept faith that the cause was right – and this belief, as my father noted in his broadcast, carried us through.
Never give up, never despair – that was the message of VE Day. I vividly remember the jubilant scenes my sister and I witnessed with our parents and Winston Churchill from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. The sense of joy in the crowds who gathered outside and across the country was profound, though while we celebrated the victory in Europe, we knew there would be further sacrifice. It was not until August that fighting in the Far East ceased and the war finally ended.
Read it all or better yet watch it:
Never give up, never despair – that was the message of VE Day.
How strange that it is a 94 year old Queen and a 100 year old veteran who have showed us the leadership and encouragement we need at this time in the quiet digified but relentlessly determined way their generation had.
And how much to my anger and shame the way their peers have unnecessarily been left exposed to die in our ‘care’ homes through the indifference and incompetance of their children and grandchildren’s official decisions.
They are a treasure and not to be underestimated.