In Britain, a nation that had been devastated by an enemy defeated months earlier, there was chance for a second celebration. Some heard the announcement on the radio at midnight, while others read it in their morning paper. Still others got up and went to work, only to find everything closed and jubilation in the streets. After a morning of rain, the sun broke out, and it seemed to bring with it all the colour and light that had been missing during the past six years. Hawkers were in the streets, selling flags and streamers, and it was a racket but people paid just to make a noise just because they could make a noise again. There were bands in the street, and dancing, and lights well into the night. No one was looking at the rubble heaped in between the still-standing shops. England was beautiful again.
King George proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be held on Sunday. For those who had come through the war with their faith in tact, it was time to give thanks to God, whose providential hand had indeed been cradled over the island even when it had burned. One holy man, however, would not join in the celebration. Reverend C. C. Thicknesse, a man whose name would have provoked mirth among those who saw nothing wrong with celebrating the nation’s victory, kept St. Albans Abbey quiet. The bells would not ring that day, he said, nor would any service be held. He would refuse to celebrate a victory bought at such a heavy price – the use of nuclear weapons to slaughter tens of thousands.
The revellers mostly shrugged and went about their business. There were plenty of churches who would welcome them into the arms of a victorious God. Thicknesse’s protests did make the papers, which did not denounce his lack of patriotism. Indeed, among learned men there was a kind of solemnity. America’s weapons, it was assumed, were now enough to destroy the world. Nobody had doubted, after two world wars, that mankind was foolish and stubborn enough to drive itself to extinction. But to think it could be done so quickly.
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