Letters from home: an interpretive exploration of the experiences of people who were children during World War Two

Longson, Karen Julie

Abstract

World War Two (WWII) brought upheaval for children on a global scale, with fathers conscripted and transported away to fight in sometimes distant places, mothers supporting the war effort and millions of children evacuated away from home and harm. People turning eighty in the 2010s are the first generation to have become octogenarians having experienced WWII as children.
Interviews and written accounts have been adopted as methods of data collection, to hear stories from this “silent generation”, people whose voices were again stifled by a global pandemic. The challenges of engagement with technology and the requirements for many to shield away from potential harm facilitated a novel approach to reach a population that risked further marginalisation.
The resulting themes reveal how children experienced the last period of global conflict for over 80 years. Their stories tell of gas masks and air raid shelters, of missing fathers and hard-working mothers of course, but the use of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) has uncovered deeper meanings for these wartime experiences.
A key theme is “purposeful remembering”, the way in which older people are engaging with their memories of a wartime childhood, using those memories to construct and re-construct the narrative of their lives. This may shed light on how those early experiences are shaping relationships, expectations, hopes and fears as people move forward in to older, older age.

Citation

Longson, K. J. Letters from home: an interpretive exploration of the experiences of people who were children during World War Two. (Thesis). Keele University. Retrieved from https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/956336

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 28, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 28, 2024
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/956336
• Award Date: 2024-10