I tend to assume a generational factor in a lot of the history I know. My brother who is only four school years younger than I am was already being taught some things very differently.
That said, I do allow for idiosyncracy, hence the acknowledgement that I don't know what other people know—unless it's classical, I did not get most of my history from school. I can't remember not knowing about Dunkirk and I have no idea how that happened unless it started with early exposure to Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose (1940); even then, I have no particular memory of discovering the story, I just know I read an illustrated version while still in elementary school and so it seems plausible. Probably other novels over time, I just don't know which ones. [edit] Mary Renault's The Charioteer (1953) would be one.
There was an episode of Foyle's War that dealt with the little ships. And the recently viewed and read "Their Finest (hour and a half" is just after Dunkirk, and the movie they are producing is about the rescue.
I remember that episode of Foyle's War! That was also the one with British fascists and anti-Semitism set to light, Noël Coward-ish music which I distressingly remember to this day. I have not yet managed to see or read Their Finest [Hour and a Half].
We certainly weren't taught about the participation of people from Indian backgrounds in either the fighting or the rescue, but there they were, in real life, while not in the movies.
That was new information to me as well. I wish it had been part of whatever narrative I picked up as a child.
And yet the ones written during the war, while trying to be lighthearted romances, were the best evocation of the dreariness plus constant tension in the home front that I have encountered.
That sounds really interesting and slightly disorienting to read.
Re: your nationality, not your generation
I tend to assume a generational factor in a lot of the history I know. My brother who is only four school years younger than I am was already being taught some things very differently.
That said, I do allow for idiosyncracy, hence the acknowledgement that I don't know what other people know—unless it's classical, I did not get most of my history from school. I can't remember not knowing about Dunkirk and I have no idea how that happened unless it started with early exposure to Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose (1940); even then, I have no particular memory of discovering the story, I just know I read an illustrated version while still in elementary school and so it seems plausible. Probably other novels over time, I just don't know which ones. [edit] Mary Renault's The Charioteer (1953) would be one.
There was an episode of Foyle's War that dealt with the little ships. And the recently viewed and read "Their Finest (hour and a half" is just after Dunkirk, and the movie they are producing is about the rescue.
I remember that episode of Foyle's War! That was also the one with British fascists and anti-Semitism set to light, Noël Coward-ish music which I distressingly remember to this day. I have not yet managed to see or read Their Finest [Hour and a Half].
We certainly weren't taught about the participation of people from Indian backgrounds in either the fighting or the rescue, but there they were, in real life, while not in the movies.
That was new information to me as well. I wish it had been part of whatever narrative I picked up as a child.
And yet the ones written during the war, while trying to be lighthearted romances, were the best evocation of the dreariness plus constant tension in the home front that I have encountered.
That sounds really interesting and slightly disorienting to read.