Spam Fritters and Bunting!

(see recipe for spam fritters below)

While everyone in Great Britain was celebrating VE day, I was considering the dichotomy of experiences inherent in victory where one side has forced another into submission; usually in the name of freedom or righting a wrong.

Wallowing in nostalgia, the celebrations perpetuate the myth that heroic sacrifice will triumph in the face of evil and that ‘the end justifies the means’  but my concerns lie with those civilians caught up while all the heroism is being enacted and those caught up in the aftermath of the defeat.

War is frequently the last resort against an autocratic regime that has asserted that it has a mandate from its people but in truth it is one forced on a population by a small but powerful group of individuals who do not represent the entirety of that population. The physicality of war is invariably undertaken by the unwilling, and while the victors celebrate, a trail of destruction and misery is left behind along with stories of atrocities against civilians who wanted no part in the war.

The prevailing view is that Great Britain, with the support of the allies (the Commonwealth, most of Europe and the USA) won the war but an unpalatable truth is that without the ruthless sacrifice of many millions of Russians by a relentless autocrat stretching the Axis to breaking point, the Allies would not have been able to defeat them.

What is equally unpalatable is the way that Roosevelt/Truman and Churchill, having bombarded Berlin to ruins, then agreed to allow Russia to overrun Berlin in 1945 thereby sanctioning weeks of unspeakable barbarity against the remaining population before some form of order could be agreed and imposed. The consequences of this agreement ( read appeasement) were the cold war, the brutal treatment of populations of countries annexed by Russia and the rise of the warmongering autocrat that we see today still arguing over what was lost.

So, while we joyously celebrate the end of a bloody conflict with spam fritters on gingham tablecloths and bunting, we should stand silent for a while and recognise the unspeakable damage that victory leaves in its wake, the millions of civilians raped, mutilated and killed and grievances that, if not addressed, rear their ugly heads decades later leading to instability and enabling autocrats to persuade an influential few that yet another war is required.

The photo above, taken in 1941, is of my mother ( aged 11 ) and my grandfather in Spandau, Berlin.

During April 1945, my mother and grandmother were buried under rubble in their apartment basement for three days hiding from the Russians that had been let loose on the remaining civilian population; inflicting unbelievable acts of barbarity in what they considered to be retribution and against women considered to be the spoils of war.

Spam fritters: a recipe

Take 1 can of spam cut into 8 slices

Make 250ml of beer batter using beer, flour, seasonings and baking powder.

Coat each slice of spam with English mustard then dip each slice into the batter and

fry in vegetable oil until crisp.