Minnie’s Musings

Having watched a couple of episodes of previously mentioned Long Road North, recalled A Town Like Alice, Bridge on the River Kwai (claim to fame to follow) as well as several series of Tenko, I was struck by the conflicting emotions evoked by the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima.

The Today program covered this anniversary with an interview of a child survivor (a Japanese American who, with his brother, was staying with his grandparents while his parents were interred in the US). It was extraordinarily moving, especially as this gentle man had spent the majority of his life campaigning for peace.

A scene in Long Road North had the principal character being confronted by a youngish female journalist about the atrocity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who was told, somewhat sharply, that the Japanese captors were ‘monsters’ and, when she pursued the question, that she had never experienced war.

I was reminded of this when The Today interview was followed up by a discussion with former defence secretary Ben Thingumy, who put the decision in wider historical context and corrected an assumption that is widely held. The latter is that it was not solely an American act rather than an allied decision to shorten the war using the ultimate weapon. Given that aggressive pursuit of imperial ambitions had started way before WWII and the loss of life was extensive, ongoing and brutal, he felt that it was justified on balance. That is for you to agree or disagree with.

Claim to Fame: on some Saturday night variety show during the late 1980s Dudley Moore played his party piece, Happy BIrthday on a Theme of Bridge Over the River Kwai. My father was standing in the drawing room door and laughingly commented, “He used to do that when we were up at Oxford”, to which my mother retorted, “He used to do that when we were at The Guildhall”. To which I said – with all the sarcasm of teenage hubris – “Ooooo look, a competition! ‘Who Knew Dudley Moore First’”.

There is a Part 2 to this post so hand in there…