A lot of it I think is because grandchildren are suddenly showing an interest.
Spot on. WW11 is very much on the primary school agenda- has been for 15 years. There was a Granddad who was very well known to me at school because he was on pickup duty a lot. Served in the RN in the war. Turns out he was on one of the ships that went down with few survivors (Hood?). He was pulled off with 2 other shipmates days before the ship was sunk. Obviously a profound sense of loss and probably survivor guilt.
He never spoke about it to his wife and daughter (my boy's Mum). Then, because of his studies, the grandson simply did the, "Grandad, what did you do in the war?" thing, and he just told him the whole story. The Mum was absolutely gobsmacked. His response: "You don't tell those things to your little girl."
CG