Paving the way for milk and honey

Baby boomers could only guess how our parents felt as war began, says Ian Cole

“FELLOW Australians. It is my melancholy duty to inform you that, in consequence of the persistence of Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that as a result, Australia is also at war.”

Eighty years ago, on September 3, 1939, Robert Gordon Menzies, prime minister of Australia, spoke those fateful words on radio to the Australian people.

As a product of the post-war babyboom, I can have no idea how that statement impacted on the parents and grandparents of my generation.

Even over the years reading about the events of the war and all the death and destruction, I am like a person watching a replay.

I have the advantage of knowing how it all ended. My parents and grandparents had no idea how it was going to end and therefore how uncertain everything in life was for them.

As per the definition of baby-boomers, we were born in the 15 years after the war was over and brought up in the 1950s and 1960s.

The 1950s must have been a welcome time in Australia for our parents and grandparents. Food, housing and employment was more readily available as was education for their kids. But as kids we knew no different. Maybe it was not quite the land of milk and honey, but compared to what previous generations had to endure, it was pretty good.

Trying to put myself in my parents’ shoes in the 1940s is difficult. Their lives and livelihoods must have been shrouded in unpredictability, uncertainty and an unclear vision of the future. They must have basked in the arrival of the 1950s just as we babyboomers seemed to reject it for the excitement of the 1960s.

But back to my point. Boomer parents and grandparents were in a world of conflict in the 1940s. My grandparents watched their children march off to war as did many of the baby boomer parents watch their partners do the same.

The movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel told us that “everything would be all right in the end. If it wasn’t all right, it wasn’t the end.” The fact that I’m here tells me that everything was all right in the end, but my parents’ generation didn’t know it was going to be.

They were still aware of a huge loss of life and a loss of young life.

OK, my world has also had its conflict hiccups with Korea, Vietnam and present-day terrorism, but it has not been world conflict. To live in an era of peace as many of us have, it is hard to comprehend living in an era of war.

The Greek historian Herodotus around the 5th century BC stated his definition of the difference between living in a time of war and a time of peace. He said:

“In peace, sons bury their fathers.

“In war, fathers bury their sons.”

I have the advantage of knowing how it all ended. My parents and grandparents had no idea

Tasmanian Ian Cole is a retired teacher and former Labor MP.