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9.
May 8th 1945 saw the end of the war at last. Churchill had given his speech at 2pm - which I do not remember hearing -announcing the end of the ‘German War.’ Suddenly, it was all over, and my mother announced it to me —
‘Johnny’ she called out excitedly - ‘The war’s over! — The war’s over!’ I heard the neighbours shouting out to each other over the garden fences and up and down the street.
‘Isn’t it wonderful — its all over!’
The excitement was tremendous, and awe inspiring. Immediately I felt a strange sense of change in the air, like a sense of loss, while at the same time a tremendous relief - all rolled into one. Apparently, it had been expected for some days but still seemed a huge surprise. The familiar sounds of war would never be heard again — or I hoped they would not. An immense burden had been lifted: as if people were suddenly freed after having been in prison for a long time. Church bells rang, and even the sirens wailed the last All-clear - as thousands poured onto the streets, hugging, kissing, singing and shouting.

It was a warm, sunny day - VE day. Flags and streamers appeared everywhere - from every house and across every road down their entire length. Dance bands and pianos were quickly assembled on street corners and celebrations went on through the night.
In the road, where we lived, the neighbours built a huge bonfire in which, after nightfall, an effigy of Hitler was ceremoniously burnt, surrounded by cheering crowds. Many people flood-lit their homes with bright lights and one, across the road from ours, had the giant sized letters VE in coloured lights down its entire front. With all the barriers down and so many people joyful. I found myself naively wishing - ‘if only it could always be like this.’ The singing and dancing, the popular Glen Millar numbers and the likes of ‘Lambeth Walk’ and the first time I remember hearing, those hackneyed party favourites - The ‘Hokey Cokey’, ‘The Conga’ and ‘Knees Up Mother Brown.’ They were repeated over and over, becoming more and more slurred and disjointed as the night wore on.

10.
Visits to East Anglia meant seeing - and finally meeting - Germans for the first time - as Prisoners of War. I vaguely remember staring intrigued, through a very high wire fence, at young men dressed in dark brown tunics and in what I assumed were the informal headwear used by the German Army. Discovering they were not the vague, unfathomable creatures imagined earlier, but human beings - just like ourselves. What was surprising - they seemed on average taller, smoother skinned and noticeably more blond.
After the war had ended and security had been relaxed a little, the chance arose for local people to meet them. In order to promote reconciliation, they were encouraged to volunteer and entertain a couple of POW’s to tea on Sundays, and my Aunt was one of the volunteers. Most of the prisoners seemed to have at least some knowledge of English and quite a number spoke it excellently. They were very pleasant - even delightful — always very polite, which seemed to impress everyone, and they would smile and give a cheery wave as they cycled past you along the country lanes. If there were more than one I was anxious to catch their conversation in German, not that I understood, but I was fascinated with the sound of a foreign language. Amidst all this camaraderie, it was a puzzle to me in my naivete at the time, how we came to blows in the first place.

Early evidence of the ‘Holocaust’ - as it later became known — seemed not to have much of a personal impact. I definitely cannot recall any initial mention - either at home or at school. Whether as a child I had no concept of the enormity of what had happened, or, that it was deliberately kept hidden by my parents, who always insisted on perusing the newspapers before I was allowed to see them. Not until many years later, around 1949/50, did I become seriously aware of this most extreme horror imaginable. I remember overhearing whispers and shocked conversations referring to ‘concentration camps.’ In these years I took little notice or felt much concern, except that it fitted into the whole terrifying scenario of the war. An old gentleman living across the road from us was Jewish and was apparently seen one night during an air raid, opening and shutting his curtains. This was taken by the neighbours as indicative, that he was ‘signalling to the Germans’ (sic).

At one stage, just after the war had ended, we provided accommodation for a short while, to a young couple from Birmingham who were homeless. One day I remember overhearing a whispered conversation between my parents - that, the ‘poor chap’ had been ‘one of the first into Belson’ and had suffered a ‘breakdown’ as a consequence. He never spoke or smiled, and sat most of the time in a trance like state, his young wife occasionally whispering to him and holding his hand.

My parents need not have worried as to my discovering anything in the newspaper, because I rarely took much notice of news content and turned directly to the cartoon page. Being rather infantile I could not wait to get my hands on the wartime adventures of Garth, Buck Ryan, Ruggles, Belinda or Popeye.

East Anglia during the war was of cause the location for many American personnel, who seemed more relaxed; extra generous and free with big broad smiles, lots of winks - and chocolate. One could not help but notice a surfeit of tall and slim, gaunt but handsome features with perfect teeth; in neat, well-tailored uniforms — unlike our military personnel, with their sackcloth-like, baggy and uncomfortable looking uniforms. Apart from their money, it was easy to see why the Americans were so popular with local women.
In these years, there was much talk as to how rich; how ‘up to date’ America was. It was painted as a land of milk and honey, years ahead of us, possessing the biggest and best of everything. But there was also a hint of envy and, as the years passed a certain cynicism and hostility crept in. Americans were painted as brash or naïve, and that it was really us who won the war. This kind of talk I think reflected that, in our heart of hearts, we knew that without the Americans we could not have won the war - but could not bring ourselves to admit it.

On VJ day, we were in East Anglia, but a few days previously an event occurred that was to colour everything for the next fifty years and beyond.
It was a bright August morning, one of those heat wave days that seemed so common in these years. Gathered in my Aunt’s kitchen for breakfast, we listened awe-struck and somewhat mystified at the news, read out by my Uncle - of a bomb so powerful it could cripple the whole of London - just one bomb! My flesh crept with the thought - it seemed easy to extend one’s imagination - after all the damage seen at home and photographs in the newspapers of even more extensively damaged German cities.
‘What on Earth are things a coming too’ remarked my Aunt as my Uncle added -
‘What a relief the Gerries didn’t have such a weapon, otherwise god knows where we’d be now’ to which my father added his contribution — ruminating on how far out into the suburbs it’s effect would be felt if one were dropped on London.
‘They must have been working on it — the Germans - them clever buggers.’ My Uncle went on in his broad Suffolk accent.
From that morning, another place-name was added to my list associated with the war - Hiroshima, and a few days later - Nagasaki. After the morning of the Hiroshima announcement I spent most of the day playing alone in my Uncles garden - my mind constantly returning, with awe, to ‘the atom bomb’ which the following week seemed to be the sole topic of conversation everywhere we went.
I can remember my mother and father speaking of Pearl Harbour and the fall of Singapore, and although far more remote than the war in Europe, the Pacific War still had a powerful impact. Possibly because everyone regarded it as part of a single war and not as two separate wars.
Like the Germans, the Japanese were thus identified convincingly as the wicked enemy and referred to with particular intensity, as ‘Japs!’, which made them sound especially mean and sinister.

Being in a different location — the rural market town of Beccles in Suffolk - VJ day seemed totally different in character from VE day. We joined the celebrations during the evening, when the Americans came in by the truckload - tossing fireworks everywhere which were frightening with their enormous bangs. My mother took me into a shop doorway and sung to me a rendition of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ which was more of a surprise than a comfort. One firework blew a dustbin lid high up into the air smashing one of the street lamps.

Back home, the War’s end was for me, reflected in the newly floodlit world that suddenly sprung to life with the wonderful coloured neon lights that adorned shop fronts; the street lamps, freshly cleaned and restored. All seem to reflect a Busby Berkley dream world.
However, the moment was most poignantly remembered, through a large brilliant white, alabaster statue of an angel, placed over the front of a local department store - as part of the victory celebrations. Standing about ten or twelve metres high, staring straight ahead with hands clasped together as if in prayer, and holding a dove of peace along with a sprig of corn between its fingers. The large flags of the Allied Powers were draped either side and at its base, in sharp gold letters, in upper case and glistening in the brilliant floodlights were the words ‘DAWN OF A NEW WORLD.’ Quite why this should have had such significance I cannot say, but perhaps it was its brilliance and the colour of the huge flags that stood out against the grey rundown and neglected appearance of everything else around it.

Sixty years later, looking back, it seems as if I had existed on a different planet. The world today - the people, the attitudes - seem so completely different and one cannot blame later generations if they take no more than a passing interest. To me though, the comparison seems bizarre and haunting.

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