{"id":33123,"date":"2017-07-27T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T05:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=33123"},"modified":"2017-09-25T22:09:17","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T02:09:17","slug":"qotd-the-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/27\/qotd-the-blitz\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The Blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

And now this stage set was illumined by incendiary bombs \u2014 their white glowings as they came down, their yellow flashes, and the rings of fire from the buildings they\u2019d ignited. And the barrage balloons, shining bright and pink, in the clouds of pink smoke from artillery and flares. And the aircraft themselves, glowing pink, in their remorseless parade \u2014 giving the illusion they were close enough to touch. And through it all, here and there, an opening in this shroud, and a star twinkling; an old familiar star.<\/p>\n

Seventy-five years ago; three generations. Here, you can mark them off with a ruler: 1965, 1990, 2015. And soon, not one living to remember. \u2026<\/p>\n

And the noise of the explosions, and the grinding of the aeroplane propellers, as if they were churning through the sea; the lady heard all this. Heard the sirens, the sirens, the sirens; heard the \u201call clear.\u201d And everywhere the shouts of firemen, and of the working-class heroes in the cratered streets, dousing the flames with dirt and sand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

From September to May, it was like this almost every night, and often in the daytime. It became a routine: \u201cOh bother, it\u2019s the Luftwaffe<\/em> again.\u201d Fear was in the air, but compressed under boredom, and sometimes in the heat of it the fear went away. \u201cHow long can they keep this up?\u201d Perhaps, forever.<\/p>\n

One night, an odd thing happened. A row of old tenements came flopping down like cards, but one plumbing column remained standing. There was a man sitting on the toilet at the top, with his trousers at his knees. It was ludicrously comic. In the middle of all this pain and death, people saw him and chuckled. Somehow, eventually, he slithered down the pipes, leaping into arms as the column tilted over. Made a joke of it, the man did, when he saw his wife alive; said he was thinking about complaining to the landlord.<\/p>\n

And people were emerging everywhere from the rubble \u2014 bloody and hurt, though patient and good-willed. Others digging, frenetically for the most part. Only names on their lips, but tears in their eyes; expecting to find corpses. \u201cThe bricklayer sounds,\u201d the crunch of plaster, the creak of joists. But no screaming, with so much work to do. Ears being used as stethoscopes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all trying to be British,\u201d the lady said. \u201cOne mustn\u2019t get it started. One mustn\u2019t be the first to wail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bodies coming up from the ground; people suddenly standing. It was the end of the world, and she was watching the resurrections.<\/p>\n

David Warren, “Seen & unseen”, Essays in Idleness<\/em><\/a>, 2015-10-08.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And now this stage set was illumined by incendiary bombs \u2014 their white glowings as they came down, their yellow flashes, and the rings of fire from the buildings they\u2019d ignited. And the barrage balloons, shining bright and pink, in the clouds of pink smoke from artillery and flares. And the aircraft themselves, glowing pink, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1118,7,41,230],"tags":[145,350],"class_list":["post-33123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-germany","category-history","category-quotations","category-ww2","tag-airforce","tag-london"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8Cf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33123"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33125,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33123\/revisions\/33125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}