VE Day in England, 1945, by John Loweth

From MemoryArchive

Who: John Loweth
What: VE Day 1945
When: May 1945
Where: Central England

VE Day 1945

This is an account of my first dramatic memory in life, as I was only 4 and half at the time. Since then there have been many other dramatic events in the world such as 9/11, the Kennedy assassination, the first man on the moon, the big 2004 blackout in eastern USA and Canada and so many others that we can all remember what we were doing and where we were.

During the war years in England we lived in a rural area and were not effected by bombing and such, however we were not allowed to have any lights outside at night, and we had black curtains on the windows and had to turn off the lights if we should go outside, my mother wouldn't even go outside to smoke a cigarette for fear of an enemy plane spotting the light. But on the day of Victory when Germany surrendered which I think was May 7 1945, my mother was so excited, she kept listening to the radio (this was before TV), and was dancing around saying this was the best day in our lives and soon my father would be coming home from the Royal Navy and how happy we all should be. She decided that we should have a big party and invite all the neighbours and the folks from the village a couple of miles away. As we lived in the country one of the first things we did in the morning was to go to the woods and get sticks and logs and we built this humungeous pile of wood outside which seemed to me to be about 20 feet tall, later she started baking and cooking with me helping or trying to anyway and in addition made this giant cake with big coloured letters on top announcing VICTORY. Later I remember finding logs so people could sit around the fire, then I remember how she pretty well ripped all the curtains of the inside windows, and went outside and tried to take off the special headlight shades on the car.

We had several dozen people show up by supper time, and how she found time to tell them about the party I will never know, but it was a big party with everyone dancing and singing patriotic songs and as night fell she turned on all the house lights and as the curtains were off the windows the light flooded the garden outside where the bonfire was.

I can still remember that day as if it were yesterday.