On Thursday 8th May we mark the end of the Second World War in Europe. It is estimated that there are about 60,000 surviving veterans in the UK and Ireland of that conflict. The youngest veterans are in their mid 90’s and accordingly their numbers diminish considerably each year.
On 8th May we will remember the service personnel – both those who died and those who survived – but will also remember the huge hardships of the civilian population. There was rationing of clothes, food, fuel, household goods, vehicles etc., families suffered in the blitz, loved ones were killed at home in addition to those killed abroad whilst serving in the Forces.
Many more were maimed physically and mentally.
And indeed the war did not completely finish until the formal surrender of Japan on 2nd September 1945 and between 8 May 1945 and 2nd September 1945 the casualties mounted.
Today it is hard to envisage the savage effects of the Second World War. 80 years on nearly all of us live without any shortages or privations. At the War Memorial in Coleraine on Tuesday 8th May I will think of all those who lived and died and were maimed in that war fighting tyranny of monstrous proportions and to whom we – 8 decades on – owe so much in terms of freedom and prosperity.
Alison Millar HML-L
