To All Young People

Journal

Volume 1

IN THE LAST CENTURY two cataclysmic events occurred.

The Great War 106 years ago in 1914 (now the First World War), and then - 81 years ago - in 1939, the Second World War. The total military and civilian death rate in WWI was around 40 million - both military and civilian - and a further 23 million military wounded.

Many young people, when faced with the reality of, for example, the Commonwealth War Graves Cemeteries of both World Wars, or the Menin Gate from the Great War - to their surprise - have the ground seemingly removed from beneath them. Reality hits them so hard that, occasionally, they break. 

The same happens when they come face to face with the horror of World War II just 25 years later, when the sons of the fathers also went into battle and did not return.

That was indeed the case in my family, both paternal and maternal.

The death rate this time was the deadliest of all military conflicts in world history, around 70-80 million. Some historians suggest that this is more likely to be 100 million. Possibly so. As we are learning from Covid 19, statistics can give us many different answers, often understated. And as we see with Covid, there is constant fluctuation at play in interpreting statistics.

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I grew up very aware that my parents both lost their brothers over Germany while serving in the Royal Air Force. It was their loss that united them and led to their marriage in 1949.

As well as losing his eldest son in 1945, my maternal grandfather had lost his two brothers with whom he was serving on the Western Front in the Great War.

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On November 15, 2020, HRH Charles, Prince of Wales addressed, at the invitation of the German President, the German Parliament - Deutsche Bundestag.

A few days later a young lady let rip on social media, buoyed up by having a large twitter following. She was beside herself.

How dare he presume to speak to the German parliament. She rabbited on, and then displayed her weakness by ending her quite educated rant with “I mean WTF …” at which point I ‘switched off’.

I sat and pondered, quite distressed too.

What would this lady say to the German People who had invited seven families to a woodland in Lachen-Speyerdorf on August 4, 2018? How would she have replied to Frau Kraus, a lady in her eighties? I suspect the young lady would have wanted the ground to swallow her up.

To all you young people, I support you.

But widen your perspectives, increase your learning, and stop being persuaded by conspiracy theory, hogwash and, bluntly, your selfishness. For those last three rest firmly upon the single platform: absence of knowledge. You have a long, long way to go before you measure up to the Greatest Generation, if ever.

Some of you indeed do!

But those of you who do are very much in the minority, and you know who you all are.

Covid 19

WWI 1918 - a societal sea change

WWII 1945 - a societal sea change

WWIII - a global, societal sea change

This time not world war but world-wide, and most of us united in fighting a common threat with no armed conflict involved. That is surely the upside, and it is upon this that we should focus our minds as we deal with, and defeat, Covid 19.

History will report on how well we did this both nationally, internationally, and globally, in due course.

We will succeed.

But ask yourselves, each and every one of you, What was my part in that success? I wonder how people in 1939 and 1940 behaved about the huge disruption to their Christmas festivities? I’ve been bombed out - again! But the government is not doing enough. It’s useless. I want my Christmas.

Take the plunge. As you investigate, even within the stories embedded within your families, you will discover rather more sobering events and concerns at that time.

So, to the rather misguided young WTF twittering lady note well these six nouns, for they were spoken and proclaimed in the Woodland in Lachen Speyerdorf:

Mitgefühl - Barmherzigkeit - Versöhnung
Mercy - Compassion - Reconciliation

As the reader can see from the link above, in 2018 my family accompanied me to Lachen-Speyerdorf in Germany, to the crash site as guests of the German People. I had the privilege to address the German People in German but standing on the actual point in the ground where the aircraft’s cockpit came to rest. Close by, at the base of a tree trunk was evidence of an humendous collision and which Nature has done its best to heal and to over-grow. Behind the memorial, a very clear path could still be seen through the woodland of the aircraft’s final approach, the trees holding their own but as if a scythe had met them.

It is a very sobering experience to stand upon the very soil that covers where one’s ancestor - after whom one is named - spent his last moments as life seeped into that soil. That, along with the millions of other instances on all sides of that terrifying and unnecessary conflict is why the future King was invited to address the Deutsche Bundestag. It is why we were invited to Lachen-Speyerdorf.

Where the cockpit remains at rest beneath the soil, so now the pilot’s namesake and nephew stands at the invitation of the German People - Samstag, August 4. 2018 Lachen-Speyerdorf, Deutschland.

Our families, our ancestors on both sides of that conflict, paid a huge price for the freedom that we - the present families - enjoy and which, for a time, it was even very possible that we might lose.

Let us not squander this freedom.

Build upon this. Stand firm. Stand resolute.

Do not be stupid. Do not be frivolous. Do not ride rough-shod over elderly people.

They were the people who ensured that we would live now and enjoy the freedom we take for granted here. And this surely comes home whilst we deal with Covid 19 and international lockdown and self-isolation.

Human nature plays its hand here. Many people are carers. Many of them really do care. They go the extra mile. There is a sizeable number though who do not care, and delight in abuse. It is for other carers to expose them and to have them removed. And in this regard I brook no quarter.

Be that beacon of light in an angry, troublesome world.

Face down hatred and all the phobias and selfishness.

Refuse to give in.

Freedom will prevail.

Learn deep down why it is that this Island People is held to be the mother of parliaments. That expression is two and more centuries in the making. It has been paid for in sacrifice. Many times have people, both genders, sought to snuff the life out of it in order to make their ideology and theirs alone be the order of the day.

Young People in the UK are very aware of the horror of indiscriminate bombing when they think back to the Manchester Terror attack and the London Bridge Attack.

But consider this sober fact of history in order to obtain the wider perspective. Always, always, look for the wider perspective.

In Britain, most people listened live to the broadcast by the prime minister Neville Chamberlain on Sunday, September 3, 1939, when Britain declared war on Germany. Of everyone living in Britain on that day, 43,000 civilians would not see New Year's Day 1941.

Why?

Because they were killed in the Blitz.

Keep this perspective in mind when speaking with the old folk. For they grew up, and many lived through it, and many still live, and still recall those dark and evil times as if but yesterday. It is befitting that they are now referred to as "the Greatest Generation".

But Covid has given us an even starker measure. When the prime minister made his address to the British People, the United Kingdom, on March 12, 2020 - not just England as one devolved first minister would prefer us to think - he made it clear that many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time…

Just now I mentioned the 43,000 deaths by bombing. Now consider that as of December 4, 2020, the Covid UK death rate stands at 60,617. Now put that as a backdrop against your concerns about Christmas.

We must always seek to widen perspective. This in turn helps us to grasp the horror of what the people of Syria have been going through these last eight years. And Yemen. And Sudan. And now Ethiopia.

To young parents, I urge you to pass on the spirit and message to your children in the way that you best know how, in your language, with your own way of emphasis.

Readers may find this article of interest : Our Young People - The British People

This, in 2020, says it all! Das ist wunderbar - unsere Zukunft - unsere Garantie

Kenneth Thomas Webb
Liverpool and Gloucestershire

June 8, 2022
All Rights Reserved

United Kingdom - Ukraine - Denmark - Germany - Australia - New Zealand - Canada - USA

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022

One of the Fifteen Founding Members of the Leaders Lodge

First written December 1, 2020

[i] The superb banner image is by the Artist-Photographer Gregory Hayes through Unsplash

And thus I stand down …