Fans (there aren’t many) of the Downton Domination series here probably, like me, feel a subtle frisson when contemplating the nannies, chaste husbands and simply frightfully modern lesbians who feature in those tales. How can we simply enjoy tales of thrashings, chastity and forced homosexuality among this carefree inter-war generation, knowing the global catastrophe that was to overtake them in a few short years? I don’t know about you, but I for one cannot enjoy a good wank to femdom porn, in the presence of uncertainty about how it relates to the rise of global fascism and the collapse of the false hope of international order founded on the League of Nations.
So today we run the reel of history forward, so to speak, to see the heroism of ordinary women and men – mainly women, obviously – from the darkest days of the Blitz through to the triumph of democracy.
NB: before anyone points it out, yes I realise the same lovely lady appears in several different roles in these images. She is not simultaneously a British secret agent, a headmistress of a rather superior girls’ school and a gallant Frenchwoman risking all to shelter a downed British airman. She is an actress.
