Why Michael Caine claims World War II was “one of the best things to happen for me”
As someone born in London six years before the conflict started, it was inevitable that World War II would have made a monumental impact on the formative years of Michael Caine. However, his experience wasn’t an entirely negative one.
Caine and his family may have been evacuated 100 miles out of the city to Norfolk, but that would be where he made his acting debut as a child in a school production, which saw him bitten by the bug that would lead him towards a legendary career that spanned from 1956 until his retirement at the age of 90 in 2023, yielding two Academy Awards in the process.
That wasn’t why he once described World War II as “one of the best things that happened to me”, though, with his country life inadvertently providing an upbringing he could have never hoped to experience in the city. Calling his four and a half years working on a farm as “a wonderful period”, the future superstar explained how his family’s newfound lifestyle proved to be a blessing.
As he told BBC Radio, “I grew up completely on organic food and never had any chemicals”. Noting that fresh fruit and vegetables were something that wouldn’t have been a major part of his diet in London, Caine said that “access to the kind of unhealthy foods like sweets and cakes we get today was impossible”.
Going one step further, he praised World War II for the way it affected him personally: “When you think in terms of the Second World War, from my point of view, it was one of the best things that happened to me”. Unfortunately, the restrictions did limit him to “a banana and an orange” as a Christmastime treat, but only because they could not be imported for the rest of the year.
Offering a dark juxtaposition between lives lost at sea and his organic sustenance, he added that despite how “the U-boats used to sink the merchant ships” and ensure he wouldn’t be raised on sugar and additives, he reiterated how “it was one of the best things that ever happened to me, the Second World War”.
Caine’s unique assessment of the war continued when he returned to London, with his house being destroyed in a bombing raid. However, his family ended up with a prefabricated house as a replacement, which he praised as “luxury”.
Having never lived in a house before, never mind one with “central heating, running hot water, a bathroom, a refrigerator, and an electric light”, the aspiring thespian found it comparable to “moving to Mayfair, except I didn’t know where Mayfair was”.
It’s not often World War II will be described as a highlight in anyone’s life, never mind someone who was shipped 100 miles away and returned to find their home destroyed, but it evidently didn’t have an adverse effect on Caine or his childhood.
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