大象传媒

This story was submitted to the website by Karolina Kopiec from 大象传媒 GMR Action Desk on behalf of Edith Brown and has been added to the site with their permission.

When Winston Churchill announced the end of the Second World War in Europe on May 8th 1945 it meant Victory in Europe Day. I was 24 at the time and had got married on the 31st March 1945 so the wedding reception was rather sparse. The ingredients for the cake having been given by various friends and relations, still it was a great feeling to know that at last the war was over. My late husband Ron and myself had both been munitions workers. I worked on aircraft at Manwood Millers on Tame Valley Dukinfield. We were a welder at Waddicors on Newman Street, we first got to know each other at the Palais de dance and the Premier Ashton so in spite of the black out and air raids and spending hours in the Anderson shelters we had a happy courtship, I was just 18 when the war started and worked in a cotton mill in Oldham before being transferred on to munitions. We started work when we were 14 in those days.
I remember the street parties when the war was over, but we did have mixed feelings because some of our neighbours had sons who didn鈥檛 come home.
Despite the hardship I have some happy memories: when we went to dances we had to make slight chances to our dresses as we had very few clothes so we had to try to ring the changes; we had the occasional Sing Song. It never did cross our minds that we would not win the war! Anyway, in spite of bulky beef and spam sandwiches and rations of 4 ozs of meat a week, I鈥檓 still here to tell the tale.

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