{"id":2071,"date":"2010-08-15T12:56:47","date_gmt":"2010-08-15T10:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2010-08-15T12:56:47","modified_gmt":"2010-08-15T10:56:47","slug":"2071","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=2071","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Victory in the Far East<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are today commemorations to mark the day sixty-five years ago when the Second World War finally ended. We had already finished the war in Europe and celebrated VE day. Now it was VJ day. There were huge celebrations. At last we had real peace. Tyranny, military dictatorship, Fascists, all had fallen. This was indeed the war to end wars. It had not been a war of conquest. It had been a war of survival. We had survived, millions had not. We could not then know of the Cold War, Korea, Suez,\u00a0Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

I remember that in the\u00a0small south coast town in which\u00a0we lived after WWII,\u00a0my mother used to take me to a stationery shop, full of pads, pencils and crayons ; an Aladdin’s cave in the age of austerity. It was run by a quiet man, a touch stooped, older looking than his years, with kindly eyes softened by a troubled shadow. It was explained to me that he was a very great hero. He had been a prisoner who was forced to work building the notorious Burma Railway (Bridge\u00a0On\u00a0The River Kwai) and had survived.<\/p>\n

I remember\u00a0 at school one day in 1946\u00a0a new teacher arrived. We called him a master in those days. He was in his late twenties. I had never seen anyone so pale and thin. He had been a POW in the Far East, captured at the fall of Singapore. He too was a hero. He was also a wonderful teacher. He taught my own children thirty years later.<\/p>\n

Today there are few veterans left, but there are some. Heroes every one.\u00a0It is their day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victory in the Far East There are today commemorations to mark the day sixty-five years ago when the Second World War finally ended. We had already finished the war in Europe and celebrated VE day. Now it was VJ day. There were huge celebrations. At last we had real peace. Tyranny, military dictatorship, Fascists, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malcolm-blair-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions\/2075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}