![]() Many years later, we learned that in light of the expected invasion and our inadequate defenses, the British government had ordered the printing of large posters, which bore the emblem of the Crown and the words “Keep Calm and Carry On!” During the long days of blackout and bombing, rationing and uncertainty, death and destruction, we had repeatedly been encouraged to “Keep Calm and Carry On!” And we heard rousing speeches from the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, telling us how to be brave and resist and to pray that God would save our country.īut the enemy never came the church bells did not ring. We were told we would be alerted to the enemy’s attack by the ringing of the church bells - they had been silenced from the beginning of the war. I shared about friends and neighbors going off to war and how some of them were killed and others were captured and held prisoner until the war ended. I told them about rationing, which restricted how much food we could buy or even which clothes we could purchase. We could hear the roar of the engines as the planes flew over our town, the crash of bombs exploding, and the barking sound of the anti-aircraft guns. I explained about the bombing and how we would go to the cellar when the sirens woke us in the middle of the night with their eerie wailing. It was the most frightening thing I had ever seen. It flew so low overhead that it seemed to block out the sun. I told them about the day the Zeppelin flew over my home in broad daylight. I had been invited to talk to a group of a few hundred homeschooled children about “growing up” in wartime England. I explained how World War I had been called “the war to end all wars,” but World War II started little more than twenty years later. The question was not the only surprise of the morning. “How do I keep calm?” I responded, scrambling for an answer, wondering how I explain in language that an eight year old can grasp. ![]() But it was her eyes! They held me with the kind of searching wondering, unblinking gaze known only to children in innocence. ![]()
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