Nevil Shute wrote a love story between an RAF Pilot Officer and a Section Officer in the Womens’ Auxiliary Air Force in World War 2.

He distils the stress and strain during war on lives in a socially divided society. The encounter, enchantment and engagement are all repressed by social convention. Subterfuge had to be employed to discover names and first names were only used after the second ‘date’.

It is all very distressingly proper and restrained. It was not done to be seen together unaccompanied by others: “…. good WAAF officers did not contract relationships with young men on their own station.”

It was the two world wars which radically re-defined social conventions in the western world, particularly in Britain. Working class men showed they could fly, lead and fight just as well as the upper classes, as did foreigners and colonials and they could not be denied entry into officer ranks.

Women stepped out of the domestic and secretarial world and made huge incursions into previously male-only worlds, performing, surprisingly to men, very well.

Once a door has been opened, it is nigh impossible to shut … right Hodor?

These societal changes occurred during savagely destructive warfare, with death just another sunset away for many.

The demands for further changes to society structures and institutions have continued with the woke demands to re-define history, condemn iconic leaders for new-found blemishes, deny platforms to opposing views and tolerate deviances in those deemed to be historical victims.

In an astounding re-definition of apartheid, instead of identity being disregarded as a basis of distinction, it has become the basis for societal status with some requiring exaggerated preferment and others exclusion and condemnation.  

The impacts of this woke wave of change have seen Europe and  the US swamped with unchecked millions of African, Arab  and Latin refugees and immigrants from former colonies. Gone are the days that countries can deny entry to other than formal applicants through proper channels.

You can’t say no to a refugee or return them to their country of birth.

So we in the West are left with a different society, highly stratified and diverse with greater welfare expectations and minimal political principle to withstand changes demanded by social media.

Authoritarian regimes who enforce societal compliance will rise and dominate the world. Sharia law and Social Credit sytems will become the order of the day.

They will halt the woke erosion, by Diktat and gulag!