A common theme amongst residents' reminiscences was the strange juxtaposition of everyday life and its beauty - 'as though sometimes a war wasn't going on' - and then the all too real reality and destruction of war. Colin's descriptions of arriving in a blacked out Liverpool, the beauty of a halycon, verdant England - and a view onto deadly dogfights across the channel, offers a poignant view onto the times. Photos albums of the Allied Occupation of Japan also show this strange collision between death and beauty, post-Hiroshima; where death and destruction - and the universal human longing to survive and for life as normal -surfaced like a phoenix.Cherry blossoms; the frailty of life and the rubble of war sitting side by side; reminders of the thin line between existence and destruction.
