V. E. Day - the 75th Anniversary 8th May 2020 - a personal view

-



VE Day - Victory in Europe Day, the 75th Anniversary, 8th May 2020 - a personal view


There are many photographs which show how people in Britain celebrated VE Day. Winston Churchill addressed the crowds from the Ministry of Health building in Whitehall. The King and Queen came out onto the balcony at Buckingham Palace to wave to the rejoicing people. There were to be many celebrations across Britain and, as well as civic official ceremonies, there were street parties and family celebrations.

Life was to change after the war and just as we are faced with coming out of lock-down, so the British government had to reduce the wartime restrictions and controls and these could not be dropped instantly. After the war Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party lost the 1945 election. Clement Atlee's Labour government had to find ways of gradually phasing out government controls. In 1951 Churchill was once again PM but food rationing did not finally end util 1954. One of my memories is of sweet rationing which ended in 1953 and I would go to the corner shop to buy Uncle Dick's lollipops which were so dangerously large that you had to force them into the mouth and you could not speak until you has sucked them to a sensible size.

Above is picture taken on VE Day and it shows a group of children on the lawn of my sister-in-law's house on the day of a street party. Memory is a strange thing and my sister-in-law, second from the left, thought she could remember the event well. She thought she was an only child then, but her brother was actually nine months old. She remembered two boys in the photograph but when she eventually found it after searching for days, there was only one. Despite the cracks in the faded photograph one can see the children, four little girls and one boy, waving flags for the camera.


My sister-in-law is in a white dress and has red, white and blue ribbons around her waist and in her hair. The next girl or her right has a knitted tam o'shanter on her head which was also red white and blue. The little boy is dressed as boys were then, formally in a shirt and tie and he wears short trousers. He has a cap on his head possibly added for what was obviously an auspicious occasion. 
These children waving their flags so patriotically were to be the fortunate post war generation about to benefit from the Education Act of 1944 and Atlee’s reforms which brought about the National Health Service. After the war the NHS tackled diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio the latter reaching epidemic proportions. I well remember the fear this disease instilled in my mother's advice to a young child. The Union Jack flag, waved by the children, was also a symbol of an Empire which was soon to be disbanded. So many of the soldiers who died in the war were soldiers of the Empire. However, the war was not over on 8th May and VJ Day or Victory in Japan Day was still to come. Hopefully the planned 75th Commemorations will be able to take place on 15th August this year.


You can watch this amazing film of the celebrations in Newport which involved a huge march past civic dignitaries. It is in the collection of Newport Museum and Art Gallery. 
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-ve-celebrations-at-newport-may-1945-1945-online
(Click then open this link in new window.)
A member has sent a picture from her photograph album of herself on VE Day aged 3 and wishes to remain anonymous. 







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What happened to the Roman mosaics in the old Dock Street Museum?

-
Image
What happened to the Roman mosaics in the old Dock Street Museum? by Oliver Blackmore Newport’s old Dock Street Museum displayed two fine Roman mosaics from Caerwent. The black and white photograph below shows them grandly flanking the museum stairway. The Dock Street Museum was demolished in 1967. However, many Newportonians still remember the mosaics from their childhood. One such person recently asked what had happened to the mosaics? This presented the ideal opportunity to tell their story. The Caerwent mosaics displayed on the stairs of the Dock Street Museum c. 1906 . Both mosaics date to the third century AD – often called the ‘golden age of mosaics’ in Britain. Discovered in a Roman house in Caerwent, the mosaics are from and associated with, a room called a ‘triclinium’. A triclinium (named after the Greek ‘triklinion’) was a formal oblong-shaped dining room, composed of three (‘tri’) couches (‘ klinon’). Triclinia were where middle and upper class
Read more

Richard Frame and John Frost's Grave Stone

-
Image
  Richard Frame and  John Frost's Grave Stone  On Richard Frame's regular trips to Newport Museum and Art gallery he would always pause at the cabinet that housed the Chartist Collection. It  included a photograph of John Frost’s house in Stapleton, near Bristol, where he went to live with his wife and daughter when he was finally allowed to return to Britain in 1856. John Frost was  born on 25th May 25 1784,  in  Newport , Monmouthshire, and died on  27  July 1877, near   Bristol .  He was a hero of  Chartism  which was  the first mass political reform movement and was leader of the Newport rising of November 4, 1839, in which about 20 Chartists were killed by troops.  He was a prosperous draper and tailor in Newport and served as a member of Newport’s first elected town council from 1835, and as a magistrate from 1836–39 and mayor from 1836–37. He was a   delegate   from Monmouthshire to the Chartist convention in London between February to September 1839 and occasionally was
Read more

A Roman Soldier Visits Newport Museum and Art Gallery

-
Image
  A Roman Soldier Visits Newport Museum and Art Gallery On Thursday Verdun Howells the Education Officer at the National Roman Legion Museum visited Newport Museum and Art Gallery. Many children came to see him and talk about his life as a Roman Soldier - something about which he knew a great deal having worked at the National Roman Legion Museum at Caerleon for many years. But he was also there to talk about the Roman collection in the museum and as he was in that section of the museum he was drawing attention to the excellent collection of artefacts. It is never easy to take photographs in the Museum because of the lighting which is designed to protect the exhibits. Here is Verdun dressed as a Roman Legionary and as there was no one in this section of the gallery at the time I asked him to draw his sword. This was something he had not been able to do when other people were in the gallery for health and safety reasons, but when I visited there was no one around.   Behind Verdun is a d
Read more