Many of you, I suspect, have had a tough time over the holidays. Perhaps lonely, perhaps worried about what the future will bring. Many all over the world are yet unemployed or underemployed. Things have been difficult.
I offer you, therefore, an audio excerpt linked below, from a late 1941 speech given by Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during most of World War II.
I hope that it will provide some solice and some reason to believe that a better future is possible.
Things were particularly dark for England in 1940. All of continental Europe had been conquered by the Nazis and night after night, the great cities of that island nation were bombed by the Luftwaffe, Hitler’s air force. The British Empire stood alone against the Third Reich and expected a land invasion. The United States had not yet entered the War and there was no certainty that it would.
Virtually no one thought England would survive.
But Churchill did and the Nazis were defeated.
In October of 1941, still prior to the USA’s entry into the war, Churchill was asked to speak to the students of Harrow School, an independent boarding school that was his alma mater.
What he had to say applies quite well to those, even today, who might fear that worse is to come in their lives, as well as those who despair over their current condition.
Listen to the first three minutes and ten seconds and take heart.
The entire excerpt is just over four minutes long.
Once you click on the blue link just below this paragraph, look at the upper right corner of the page. Then scroll down and click on the Speech #33 (incorrectly identified as having been given in November 1941):
BBC Winston Churchill Speech to Harrow School
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The image above is Winston Churchill on Downing Street Giving His Famous ‘V’ (For Victory) Sign, June 5, 1943. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
Dr. Gerald Stein 