I’m writing this on the 8th May

So by the time you see it there is a good chance that things will be different, though I doubt that street parties will be the order of the day.

‘Lockdown?’ the cry went up, ‘Oh no, how will we manage?’

It seems to me that we’ve managed very well! We’ve formed Whatsapp groups, discovered how to use Skype and Zoom, wandered the labyrinth of YouTube and the Web in all its infinity, resigned ourselves to wearing masks and queuing outside shops, but most of all we’ve coped!

On this day 75 years ago the war in Europe was declared over. In those days our parents and grandparents had their own form of a lockdown equivalent; they had to deal with the Blackout, and yet despite that there were nights when the siren would summon the whole family to take refuge in the Anderson shelter, or failing that then in the Underground. They did not get the luxury of a good nights’ sleep in their own beds.

Families were split up, as some have been during this crisis. However, this time none of us have had to see loved ones depart to war, knowing full well that there was a real chance that we would never see them again.

And the only communication we would have had with them 75 years ago would have been a letter home – no Skype, no Facetime.

The pall of Covid 19 has fallen over all of us, in the same way as the cloud of War rolled over the entire country in 1939. Then as now every man, woman and child was affected. In those dark war days those who could, whether man or woman, pledged themselves directly to the protection of their country in whatever way they could, while the children were uprooted from home, kith and kin to live in an environment which must have seemed as alien to them as living in an alternative universe.

And through all this we kept in touch using the humble pen and paper.
What we don’t have this time around is rationing – food rationing. Yes, I remember the Toilet Roll Famine, but throughout our Lockdown food has been available, as much as we want.

Out of interest I’ve found a typical weekly food ration for an adult:

Bacon & Ham - 4 oz
Other meat - value of 1 shilling and 2 pence (equivalent to 2 chops)
Butter - 2 oz
Cheese - 2 oz
Margarine - 4 oz
Cooking fat - 4 oz
Milk - 3 pints
Sugar - 8 oz
Preserves - 1lb every 2 months
Tea - 2 oz
Eggs - 1 fresh egg (plus allowance of dried egg)
Sweets - 12 oz every 4 weeks

Plus anything we could scrounge or grow and clothing was rationed!