Pictures Just Pictures: NOW THE WAR IS OVER

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

NOW THE WAR IS OVER

Lucy Corrander - Now the War is Over - May 11th 2009

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7 comments:

Hermes said...: Good title. Made me think this one.; May 12, 2009 at 7:13 AM
Lucy Corrander said...: I hope I'm right in thinking this is a World War Two gun emplacement Hermes - hence the title.

It's fascinating the way the walls have fallen backwards and outwards in a ring around the circular base.

Lucy; May 12, 2009 at 8:15 AM
Gordon Mason said...: Looks like a giant cookie to me!!; May 12, 2009 at 9:54 PM
ELK said...: incredible image!; May 12, 2009 at 11:45 PM
Lucy Corrander said...: Hello Gordon and Elk.

I suppose it does look like a giant cookie in the picture. But I also find these remnants of war both moving and frightening.

It's astonishing how many there are along the coast - gun emplacements and pill boxes. At one point there are still 'tank teeth' up on Chesil Beach.

When I was growing up in rural Essex, there were pill boxes in the hedgerows. Before that, I'd lived with my family in London and 'bomb site' was a term in common use. To me, as a child, it meant nothing more than an area of waste ground. And it seemed perfectly normal for people to have bomb shelters in their gardens.

It's only in recent years that I have come to realise how near to the end of the Second World War I was born and how quickly the people who had lived through it managed to set it behind them.

I know people who are still inwardly affected by its horrors. The scars run deep, continue to cause fear and suffering and are largely un-noticed or unacknowledged by the rest of us. However, the way positive relationships were so quickly re-built between warring countries after the war had ended - well, I find that astonishing. I can't imagine that, if I had had anything to do with it, I would have had the grace to have 'moved on'.

To me, the remaining scars in the landscape are both frightening and a spur and a reminder as a commitment to peace. I find them much more powerful than the official memorials which I often find offensive in their apparent glorification of war. That may not be the intention of the people who built them, nor of those who take part in ceremonies around them but that has often been how it has felt as an onlooker.

Lucy; May 13, 2009 at 5:19 AM
bentonflocke said...: wonderful shot and interesting journaling; May 13, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Lucy Corrander said...: Hi Bentonflocke - I didn't do very well with the wordlessness of this blog when it came to the gun emplacement, did I!

Lucy; May 14, 2009 at 11:11 AM

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