Strange behaviour in a car park.

Oh heavens, aren't people horrible sometimes? I had really hoped we'd cultivate the 'let's all pull together' attitude of WWII. Perhaps I'm living in cloud cuckoo land to expect that today

The second world war was a golden opportunity for crimes. Massive increase in reported crime, from murder to tape and larceny. Let's not pretend that people are any different. There's true acts of kindness and generosity now just as then. Also the opposite side of human nature.

My mam lived through WWII. She says she doesn't remember much of the 'all pull together' attitude. She says it was more of 'what do I need to do to survive'. They were bombed out several times i.e. they had to move out for a couple of weeks to allow the house to be repaired and each time when they returned some of their things were missing (looted) and they didn't have that much to start with . When they were blitzed they lost everything and only family helped them. She remembers being scared and hungry a lot of the time. The only people she remembers being generous were the GIs on their way to the docks who gave them Hershey bars and gum.

She says that a lot of 'all put together' was propaganda and looking back through rose tinted spectacles.

I don't think we're that much different today than we were then. Most of us will do what we need to do to survive and help out when/if we can but we'll put ourselves and our families first because that's human nature. There will be some people who are altruistic but they'll be outnumbered by the rest of us.

What you say is true Daisymae ... but I think society has changed subtly and this pandemic is divisive (it affects one group disproportionately) which doesn't allow people to gell together against a common foe.

What rubbish!
I returned from a trip to the large Tesco's store this morning, and the atmosphere was definitely jolly and gung-ho. Full of old trouts like me we all assured each other that we were not here for panic buying as we carefully collected one loaf of bread, half a dozen eggs and fresh fruit and vegetables, and boasted about our nine pack of toilet rolls safely at home.

Anyone would think you were trying to spread alarm and despondency deliberately, Greymar, and why would you do that?

Good post, vampirequeen. People don't change, either for the better or for the worse. Greymar didn't seem to me to be spreading alarm and despondency, eazybee, but did seem to be understandably distressed at what she had seen. Our supermarket too was full of our (cheerful) contemporaries buying smallish quantities of this and that, but certainly it was noticeably busier than most Monday mornings. There were younger people with trollies, but no obvious panic-buying that I could see. Maybe they have been shamed out of it to some extent!