´óÏó´«Ã½

Audrey was fifteen at the time of VE Day, and had spent the war years growing up in Twickenham, Middlesex.

She had left school a year before VE Day when she was fourteen, and had started working in Dorothy Perkins in Richmond as a sales assistant in the year leading up to May 1945.

Her family suffered the effects of the blitz like so many, and after two years of using their Anderson shelter in the back yard, they switched to the drier communal larger public shelters nearby that took up to fifty people a night.

Audrey can remember counting the Allied bombers passing overhead, on her way to school in the early 1940’s. The planes had taken off from nearby RAF Northolt on their way to France and Germany, and she and her friends would count the planes on their return a few hours later, noting any losses.

On VE Day, Audrey joined hundreds of thousands celebrating in central London; singing, cheering, shouting, dancing the conga and drinking alcohol from bottles passed around.

She never made it to Buckingham Palace that afternoon due to the immense crowds. She returned to Twickenham for the continued celebrations, joining a party outside her local pub, The Turks Head.

A local bookie had assembled a dance floor right across the whole road, a live band played for hours and the party continued throughout the night. She then enjoyed a street party a few days later in her own street, and remembers that the gatherings, parties and celebrations went on for a good week after VE Day.

At her street party the sandwiches were made up of meat paste or jam; that was the only food she could remember from the day.

Image: Audrey just after the end of the war in 1946

Show less