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On V.E Day, being twenty one and still with the exuberance of youth. I had been for the previous three years in the R.A.F, and I was on leave at home in Kidderminster.

Celebrations commenced in the early evening, visiting several public houses chasing beer stocks which had been reserved for the occasion.

Kidderminster centre from Town Hall to Bull Ring was solid with a high percentage of Kidderminster civilians, together with hundreds of all national service personnel, not the least being American G.I’s

With drinking hours ignored, high jinks prevailed beyond midnight, and I was with a crowd at the bottom of the High Street, where many G.I’s and others had climbed aboard the wooden Police Pulpit — so many in fact that it collapsed and rolled down towards the Bull Ring, where it was stopped at the entrance to Trinity Lane.

Before long flames were seen in the Bull Ring and going there I joined in the crowd dancing round the bonfire. It burned for a long time only to leave a deep tar macadam melted scar in the road of Trinity Lane, where the Pulpit had been.

I think I arrived home at about 5 a.m., certainly a night to remember.

In later years the Pulpit was replaced by a handsome concrete structure together with and illuminated overhead canopy, and was in use until the creation and use of the Ring Road and pedestrianation of the area.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by June Woodhouse of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Patricia Trevor Rees and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

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