Time to Party
NextBack"The War is over, God bless the King and Queen” proclaimed the huge banner at the end of Prospect Road where I and dozens of other children sat with our parents at a line of tables in the middle of the road eating fish paste sandwiches, jelly and ice cream and drinking Dandelion and Burdock. Kitchens and living rooms had been emptied of furniture, union jacks and gaily coloured bunting fluttered overhead and a wonderful party atmosphere prevailed. At the top end of the street members of the now redundant Home Guard clutching bottles of beer were giving us kids free rides in their Bern gun carrier. Several of the more sociable German prisoners of war were also present at the festivities. One of them, who later married the daughter of one of our neighbours Jean Thomas, made me a cleverly carved set of German infantrymen, the cost, ten Du Maurier cigarettes. This was VE day, victory in Europe, May 8th. 194B and celebrations like this were going on in every city, town and hamlet in the British Isles, a collective expression of relief and joy after six long years of war. To us kids it was just an excuse for a party, rather like a fete or a carnival day and somehow the tables were laden with goodies, some we hadn't seen for a long time. I don't think we were really aware of any sense of deprivation during this period of austerity. It was what we grew up with. Neither were we aware of the sacrifices our parents had made during the war. As kids do, we just indulged ourselves.
