Bantock House in Wolverhampton is a perfectly fine place to spend a quiet afternoon. The parkland and gardens provide a nice escape from the City traffic, while the house itself is moderately informative about Wolverhampton's development, although the contextual information about Victorian households is nothing that can't be found elsewhere. The house also hosts regular events, including an annual music event which provides local acoustic musicians the chance to play at somewhere other than the usual circuit of nondescript pubs. The standard of performance is variable, but this reinforces the sense of watching a real musical event, rather than X-Factor or some such nonsense.
Today, they were hosting a 40s weekend. I attended for a variety of reasons far too tedious to go into here, but with low expectations. The event was also attended by a variety of people, most of whom too young to remember the War, dressed as soldiers, spivs and Vera Lynn-alikes. The official entertainment was a 'sing-along' of wartime hits, lead by a medium-sized group of the above soldiers, spivs and Vera Lynn-alikes, most of whom were too young to remember the War. All of this is perfectly harmless, and I really don't mean to sneer, but I did find it profoundly depressing.
Part way through proceedings, the host reminded us that the men who fought in World War II were fighting for the freedoms we enjoy today. It was at this point that I realised what was making me so uncomfortable.
I am not, when push comes to shove, a pacifist. When I was younger, I felt that I would have fought against Hitler, and I still suspect that I would have done, but that shouldn't prevent any of us questioning the myth-making that surrounds this period. If Hitler had lived, he would now be 122 (or dead). Even if we had lost the War and been invaded by Germany, things would have changed; we would not still be living under a fascist dictatorship. There would also have been internal resistance, which combined with the inherent instability of any form of dictatorship would have lead to the collapse of the Nazi Party. Ultimately, National Socialism would have collapsed the same way that Communism did. And, of course, Hitler did not rise in a vacuum: the treaty of Versailles created the political and economic conditions in which fascism flourished; Britain, as a nation, was complicit in this.
None of this is intended in any way to diminish the sacrifices of that generation; I simply feel that sitting back and enjoying a nostalgic sing-along romanticises and decontexualises a complex area. Personally, I would rather engage with someone singing about their lives, while struggling to play the guitar than be entertained by well-known songs that were originally intended to distract people from harrowing events. For similar reasons, I prefer history to nostalgia; I want to learn about context and causes, not hear about how wonderful it all was, and not just because it wasn't.
I am still not a pacifist: I would have fought against Hitler - Chamberlain's appeasement made this inevitable - and I would have fought against Apartheid. But, just as I prefer history to nostalgia, I prefer peace to war.
