Well it

Well it’s certainly been a dramatic night of election results. But it’s important not to forget that today is also the 70th anniversary of VE day. I vividly remember, as a little boy growing up in Liverpool in the late 1940s, my mother’s exciting descriptions of an amazing night at a local street party - of music, dancing, bright lights and laughter.
When I was a bit older she gave me another side of the story – of being deeply troubled that night by very mixed emotions. Like everyone else she was thankful the German War was over –and wanted to celebrate that.
But earlier in the war her husband, my father, the pilot of a Lancaster bomber, had been shot down and killed. And so on VE night, as the party became more exuberant, my mother found herself torn apart by her genuine joy at the victory and the aching sorrow of her personal loss.
In the end, friends persuaded her that my father, and all who’d lost their lives on duty, or as civilians, would have wanted those they’d left behind to celeb rate the defeat of Nazi evil.
Of course, my mother wasn’t alone in finding VE night a bitter-sweet experience. Tears of joy mingled with tears of sorrow for many people mourning loved ones, or worrying about those still fighting or imprisoned in the Far East.
The holding together of contrary emotions is classically expressed in St John’s gospel where the joy of Jesus’ Resurrection is already present within the sorrow of his Crucifixion.
In our national life there are sometimes special moments when something touches collective consciousness so powerfully that people with contrasting outlooks and diverse backgrounds find themselves drawn together.
The two Minutes Silence at Remembrance is an example of national coherence, as it will be this afternoon when at the Cenotaph, and across the country, there’ll be a pause in political activity as people with sharply opposing views and strong emotions, who voted in different ways yesterday, stand together, united in sorrow and thanksgiving for the Fallen - whose sacrifice made possible our ability to vote freely in the election.
This 70th anniversary finishes on Sunday, after the national service in Westminster Abbey, with a veterans’ reception hosted by the Royal British Legion. The climax will be a flypast of mod ern and historic aircraft. When I hear the roar of Merlin engines and the Lancaster comes into view, I know I’ll be holding together mixed emotions too.。