Oscar-winner Steve McQueen's latest film offers a new perspective on life in the capital during the devastating 1940-41 Nazi bombing campaign – dispelling myths and clichés. "I can assure you, there is no panic, no fear, no despair in London town. There is nothing but determination, confidence and high courage among the people of Churchill's island.
" So declares US war correspondent Quentin Reynolds in the British propaganda short London Can Take It, released in November 1940 as the Nazi bombing campaign over the UK, known as the blitz, entered its third relentless month. The film enshrined the idea of an indefatigable "blitz spirit" within the British people, a stoic yet cheerful defiance that paved the way for the ultimate defeat of fascism. The political and cultural value of this narrative has proved irresistible across the political divide.
As writer and historian Angus Calder writes in his 1991 book The Myth of the Blitz, "the mythical events of 1940, would become subjects for historical nostalgia on the left as well as on the right". The blitz has since developed into an integral part of the British national psyche, invoked at times of crisis and providing a vague but reassuringly familiar setting for episodes of Doctor Who or sitcoms like Dad's Army (1968-1977) and Goodnight Sweetheart (1993-1999). When John Boorman dramatised his childhood in the blitz for the 1987 film Hope and Glory, he wrote in an introduction to his screenplay, "How wonderful was the war.
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