- Contributed by听
- A7431347
- People in story:听
- Tony Baker
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A4441961
- Contributed on:听
- 12 July 2005
Disclaimer
This story was submitted to the Peoples War Site by Stacy Blyth from The Folkestone School for Girls and has been added to the website on behalf of Tony Baker with his permission and he fully understands the sites terms and conditions.
They announced VE Day and said there was going to be a big celebration. I was in charge of a small gang of boys who were called the Street Urchins. We made ourselves responsible for the bonfire. We knew all the bombsites very well indeed and the sites were covered in combustible material, great lengths of wood from the demolished houses and doors, doorframes, all kinds of things. We spent all day collecting masses of timber. There was 8 of us altogether who built the bonfire, which was at least 20 feet high which was locked together. We had become experts at this sort of thing. It was about 12 feet in diameter. All the streets came out to celebrate. We set fire to it and it burnt and burnt and burnt. Towards the end it started topple and I screamed out to the adults to get out of the way. They all ran away as the remains came crashing to the ground. It continued to smoulder for about 2 days. The whole was 3 feet deep and 10 feet in diameter. The hole remained there for about a month before the local authorities came to fill it in, as there was hardly any traffic.
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