大象传媒

Approximately 800 words

Sir

So that's it. We are nearly at the end of another VE day commemoration of victory in Europe in the second world war on 8 May 1945.

But my memories are mostly good ones - and I wonder how many other people would say the same?

I was not quite six when World War II began and, of course, it was puzzling and worrying to begin with when explanations were undertaken about the blackout; gas masks; air raid warnings and all clear sirens; air raid shelters; bombs; the incredibly increased importance of the news and, of course, rationing.

My father was in the RAF and our social life became very impromptu and jolly at intervals, for when my father had a short leave he would invariably turn up with other airmen who might be too far from their own homes to go and visit.

My mother learnt how to make things like fatless sponges and mintoes with dried milk and would get to know when the under-the-counter hair ribbon had arrived in Howell's (now House of Fraser). The only item I can remember beating her ingenuity was the request by my school, Howell's Llandaff, near the end of the war that we girls should wear rubber bathing hats in the school swimming pool. Even our indefatigable school had to compromise eventually and allow hideous plastic turbans instead because of the lack of availability of rubber!

Having explained the 'nasty' bits of war time my mother then became secretary of all kinds of 'holiday at home' committees which organised concerts, fancy dress competitions, dancing on the green, go-as-you please competitions and the like to boost the morale of those at home. I can remember being Carmen Miranda with a huge basket of fruit (artificial!) on my head whilst my sister was the statue of Liberty with a book and a flaming torch. We did not travel far and incendiary bombs might be littering the garden but life was always full to the brim.

Railings would suddenly disappear, taken for the 'war effort'; signposts would vanish so that enemy infiltrators could not find their way around the country easily, and woe betide anyone who let a chink of light show through blacked out windows when going to the shelter. My brother was quite a bit younger than my sister and I and it was our job to sing to him and entertain him in the air raid shelter and keep him happy. Our mother was usually in the kitchen making tea !

We were fortunate in never experiencing gas but we still had to be prepared and I did hate the rehearsals in the hot, smelly, black gas masks. I did not like knitting 'comforts' for the troops either and I remember my mother having to unpick a balaclava I had knitted because I had not left the hole for the face! The look on my mother's face and her demand for total silence when the news came on the radio bothered me too.

But I loved the spirit of cameraderie; the feeling of togetherness, the feeling of all for one and one for all and, when VE day came along,it was probably one of the happiest days of my life. I did not even know why I felt so joyous and ecstatic, except that everyone else was and it felt so good to be enveloped in such a spirit of warm well-being, with everyone laughing and having such fun.
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More worry did follow afterwards but then there was VJ day too on 15 August when victory over Japan meant it really was all over.

We became constrained again in our self-contained units after that. There was no more midnight singing in the shelter, no more concerts in the local school; few unexpected overseas visitors, and far less bonhomie. The war was over - and I missed it.

Yours faithfully

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