大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jan Kilgariff of Renfrewshire Libraries on behalf of Valerie Taylor and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

On V.E. Day I was seven years old, my name was Valerie Smith then. We lived at 34 Calton Avenue, off Smithdown Road, Liverpool. Our Road backed onto Penny Lane.

Everyone knew that peace was coming so all the mum鈥檚 in any street that was planning a victory party began to save up their rations.

Mrs Armstrong was the organizer of our particular party. I remember she had a black spaniel called Monty, named after General Montgomery. Monty is on one of my photographs, sitting on the pavement with the children.

The children could go to the party in fancy dress if they wanted to. I went to dancing class, so a couple of my outfits came in useful. Margaret Cammell wore my fairy dress and my friend Pat Sutton borrowed the maid鈥檚 outfit. Another friend, Irene King was also a maid, I think her Mum made it for her. I went as Britannia, ruling the waves with a brush handle, cardboard trident and paper shield. My Mum made all these things. She took the frills off and the hoops out of one of my dance dresses, but I cannot remember how she made the helmet, with great difficulty I expect. Mum also made the Hitler Guy out of an old suit. He lived in our hall for a couple of weeks and almost became one of the family, but he went the same way as all guy鈥檚 (especially ones called Hitler), up in smoke to the sound of loud cheering.

The day of the party arrived. First of all the photographs were taken and a right happy bunch we look too, especially the ones on the front row. Then the tables were brought out and placed in the road, no bother from cars in those days. You had to be well off to own a car, and that didn鈥檛 apply to us. Then the table cloths were laid and lastly the food was brought out, sandwiches and jellies, and then Mrs Armstrong carried out some fairy cakes, and wonder of wonders, as well as icing on the top, each cake had a silver ball on it. Well that was it, mad panic then. We children had been standing watching all this going on but we still didn鈥檛 have our chairs. I flew into the house, 鈥淨uick, quick, can I have my chair now, there are cakes on the table with silver balls on.鈥� I had a fear that I would be sitting at the other end of the table from those cakes, but panic over there were enough for all. Mrs Armstrong had kept those silver balls for just such an event as this. As soon as we were told that we could begin eating, Mum said that every child鈥檚 hand shot out to that plate of cakes. We weren鈥檛 sure at first whether we could eat them or not and had to be told that we could.

Sometime before we moved to Carlton Avenue in 1943, half of one side of the road had been hit by a bomb, demolishing the houses opposite to us along with a few shops on Smithdown Road. Two large E.W.S. (emergency water supply) tanks had been built on this bombsite. The wall of one of them can be seen behind me on a photograph of me as Britannia. Also some shops on Smithdown Road can be seen. Even after these two tanks had been built there was still plenty of ground for us kids to play on and we had our bonfires on there for many years, the V.E. Bonnie being the first. This is where Guy Hitler met his fate. We all stayed up late that night, enjoying an evening round the fire. Finally roasting potatoes in the embers, fishing them out with sticks and having a good tuck in again.

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