The Day War Broke Out

A visitor from another planet might be forgiven for concluding that this country stands on the brink of a catastrophe unprecedented in our island history and that a murderous fascist (yes, there's an 's' in it) regime has staged a coup in order to seize the reins of power and drive us all into the abyss. With a little investigation, our extraterrestrial friend might discover the cause of all this jumping up and down is simply that we're pulling out of a moribund would-be superstate, and that a new Prime Minister has, perfectly constitutionally, prorogued Parliament. And he might deduce something rather unflattering about the emotional resilience (and intellectual powers) of us Earthlings.
  Those who are hyperventilating over these supposed catastrophes would do well to think back to this day 80 years ago, when Neville Chamberlain was obliged to broadcast to the nation, informing us that we were, unavoidably, at war with Germany (a country with a five-star, fully accredited, world-class murderous fascist regime). Already the Nazis were sweeping across mainland Europe, and soon France would fall and we would stand alone against the world. That is a catastrophe, that is an existential threat.
 Within minutes of Chamberlain's broadcast, sirens began to sound across Britain – sirens that were then taken as warnings of impending toxic gas attack from the air.  'This was an opportunity for the people of Britain to demonstrate their traditional calm in the face of danger,' a Movietone newsreel reported. 'There was no sign of panic – men and women in the streets made their way to the nearest shelter and queued up in orderly processions at the entrances.'
  I hope that kind of spirit still lives on today – I believe it probably does, if only in pockets – but the evidence to the contrary is all too stridently present, especially in London. 
 Below, as a reminder of bygone times, is Robb Wilton's famous monologue, 'The Day War Broke Out'. The Home Guard (descendants of Shakespeare's Dogberry constabulary) proved such an inexhaustible mine of comedy gold that Dad's Army is never off the air, 42 years after the last new episode aired, and 74 years after the war ended (and there were excellent new productions of three 'lost' episodes just recently)...