![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 0’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street. The classic opener is the family gathering round the bakelite radio on September 3rd, 1939 as Chamberlain intones that “this country is at war”: You know the drill – the air raid siren, a gas mask in the shelter, Vera Lynn, a Spitfire, stumbling in the blackout, a tearful goodbye, the drone of night time bombers and clack of ack-ack guns, dancing to Glenn Miller and St.Paul’s in the moonlight. ![]() Novelists and film makers often struggle to find the right period details to anchor their work in a particular era.Īnd when it’s a much mined time and place – London in WW2 for example – it often results in rolling out the same set of shorthand cliches. ![]()
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