People were fed up of living in damp air-raid shelters during the war – but just got on with it

Wearing a face mask is nothing more than a minor inconvenience says Anton, as he channels the spirit of keeping calm and carrying on

HERE’S the thing. What would you rather do? Wear a mask when you nip to the shops while wondering if you’ll be able to lie on a beach in Benidorm next year? Or spend six years waiting for the wail of yet another air-raid siren while hoping that a loved one serving abroad is safe?

We’re told that one of the reasons that the Government doesn’t want to reintroduce stricter measures – at least while it’s decided whether Omicron is a real and present danger – is because people might then begin to show signs of “coronavirus fatigue”.

In other words, we’ve already had enough of mask wearing, washing our hands every time we open the front door, and keeping our distance from others. It’s all just too inconvenient, so if you reimpose rules big-time, then we’ll throw caution to the wind, and never mind the consequences.

I’m certain that people were fed up with sleeping in damp air-raid shelters in 1941, but 80 years ago they just got on with it. The enemy was real. It wore field grey uniforms, did a funny walk and dropped bombs on civilians. You can’t see Covid-19 but the harm the virus wreaks can be no less dreadful.

Of course, although the potential consequences are the same, there is a huge difference between those who now find the inconveniences wearying, and thus become less careful, and those who blindly ignore the dire situation that we’ve faced over the past 21 months. It’s a few weeks ago, now, that I was on a bus into town when a couple boarded. Maybe late 60s.

Unlike everyone else on the bus, they weren’t wearing masks. As they sat down opposite me, the woman glared around and then said, in a stage whisper: “Bloody silly masks! They’re like sheep.” Her husband – I assumed they were married because he looked so care-worn; and I think would have been, too, if I’d been hitched to her – gave me a weak smile. I smiled back. Tried to look understanding. I bet he really wanted to be wearing a mask, if only she’d have let him.

The point is that, compared to wartime, the things we must do to protect ourselves from the virus are no more than a mild inconvenience. So, when I hear that people are suffering from that “coronavirus fatigue”, it grates.

Anyway, rant over, and since we’ve touched on the war, and since I like to always end on a light note, I want to relate a story that I came across while researching my book How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On (still available in the occasional charity shop, so I’m told).

My friend Ted Harrison told me: “One night, my mother and father were huddled in the shelter during a raid. The old lady next door joined them and was complaining about the cold. So my father said that he’d brave the bombers to make some cocoa. About 15 minutes later he returned with this big jug of lovely steaming hot cocoa. The old lady was salivating at the prospect of it, so much so that her false teeth fell out and the bottom set went straight into the jug. Everyone just looked at each other. Then my father fished them out with a spoon.

“It’s safe to say that the old lady had the jug to herself. And every time she shared the shelter after that, they kept a close eye on her dentures.”

Meanwhile, I still have the postcard that Grandma Rippon sent to mark my first birthday. It showed a cartoon of a small boy and his dog, and the quote from Winston Churchill upon announcing to Parliament, six months earlier, the German surrender: “Let us not forget the toils and efforts that lie ahead.”

It isn’t the sort of sentiment you would normally send anyone on their birthday, let alone a one-yearold. But Churchill was right, of course. And we just got in with it …