Party like it's 1945: Memories of VE Day in the West Midlands from the people who were there
Read the memories of VE Day in the West Midlands from the men, women and children who were there.
On May 8, 1945 the British public took to the streets and packed Trafalgar Square to celebrate Victory in Europe Day.
As the capital was swamped with people, so communities across the Midlands found their own way to celebrate.
From big cities to small rural villages, it was a moment in time that would create a life-long memory.
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Songs and celebrations rang out as the country marked the end of six long, hard years of war across our continent.
For many VE Day was also a time to reflect on the loss of loved ones and the sacrifice of a whole generation of young men.
Diaries and memoirs from the time show many people felt relief rather than exhilaration.
The public was also conscious that the war in the far east was still ongoing and that soldiers in the Middle East and Italy were being redeployed to the Pacific to fight the Japanese.
While this year the coronavirus lockdown has meant that hundreds of celebrations planned for the 75th anniversary have had to be cancelled, many have adapted and are going ahead with events that celebrate the day but also remember those that never came home.
In the same way that millions of Britons have used technology to satisfy their pub quiz itches, see family members, and even get married, VE Day 2020 on May 8 is taking place at home and online.
And for those who lived through VE Day, today marks a special anniversary. Their stories are remarkable. They chronicle a time when Britain had faced its biggest test and was looking to better days ahead.
See the memories from people across the West Midlands below.
'As I was handing him the gun, man to man, he had a bullet right through his head, killed by a sniper.'
With the European war over, Albert Evans was looking forward to some well-earned leave after fighting throughout the campaign after landing shortly after D-Day.
Instead, he was earmarked to do some more fighting, this time against Japan. And he didn't even get to go home after Japan was defeated either.
Albert, aged 96, who hailed from Brierley Hill and lives now in Pensnett, said: "At the time of the victory over Germany we were in Bremen, stationed in a big brewery.
"Who would not be thankful? Fortunately I was one of the lucky ones who got away with it. The poor ones were the ones who did not get away with it."
In particular, Albert, or Al as his comrades in the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment knew him, had lost a friend who was killed beside him.
"That was at Arnhem. We were going forward to attack. We were carrying a Bren Gun and I was number one and he was number two. His name was Ernest Coggan. I had had the Bren gun for about four miles and I said to Ernest, Ernest, you have to have this gun off me. As I was handing him the gun, man to man, he had a bullet right through his head, killed by a sniper.
"That was one of the biggest occasions of my life. I had more lives than a cat. I'm still here now at 96."
The end of the war, as he recalls it, came as just a normal day.
"All I thought of was getting back home to my mother. We were getting ready to move to Brussels to train on Dakotas and go out for the invasion of Japan. But after the atomic bombs were dropped that was suspended and instead of going home on leave, as we thought, they sent us out to Palestine and Egypt.
"We naturally thought that after three years of service and never having had a home leave that we should be coming back to Britain for our first home leave, but no. I was not very happy at all. It was very disappointing, one of the most disappointing things in my military life."
Mr Evans had served first with the Royal Ulster Rifles and landed in Normandy on D-Day Plus 10, and then was transferred to the 1st Hampshires.
"I was made a Lance Corporal, but I refused that because I was not a man who liked to give other people orders, and handed it back in."
As for the Germans, he says: "They're human beings like us. They had to do what they were told, like I had to do what I was told."
Mr Evans married wife Phyllis – her maiden name was Raybold – who came from Commonside, Pensnett, a year after leaving the forces.
Now a widower, he says: "I joined a male voice choir 13 years ago, called Gentlemen Songsters of Kingswinford. I'm a tenor. I love singing."
And his favourite song?
Mr Evans needs no further prompting to break into a serenade of "Love Changes Everything."
'A bonfire had been lit and people were celebrating'
Rex Deakin of Kingswinford said: "In 1945 I was nine years old and living in Belt Road, Hednesford.
"On May 8 I had gone to bed along with my younger brother and sister when we were awoken by my mother about 9pm who informed us that the war was over and to get dressed to go out.
"We were taken a short distance down the road where four shops stood back from the road in front of which a bonfire had been lit and people were celebrating.
"One of the shop owners opened up and gave us kids an apple each. A few days later a street party was held in Queen Street, Hightown, where my grandmother lived and we celebrated again.
"Prior to all that I had been following the progress of the allies' invasion of Europe in the Daily Express.
"I have further memories of war time. The first was when I was in my grandparents' garden when a Spitfire flew over very low. The noise and speed was impressive, hence the memory.
"Another must have been at the time of the D-Day landings. I was walking to school in the morning and the sky was full of aircraft towing gliders. I am not sure if the gliders soft landed at their destination or whether the troops bailed out.
"When I was at West Chadsmoor primary school there was a large grass-covered playing field adjacent to the school, near the top of which a zig-zag below-ground covered trench had been cut as a means of shelter in the event of an air raid.
"We never experienced one but did have a regular practice run. Inside were wooden bench seats and a lighting system.
"In my final year there a friend persuaded me to join him in an illicit exploration of the tunnel using a stick to bang the walls to find our way along as there was no lighting available. Unfortunately someone reported us to the headmaster and we both got the cane!"
Rex sent us a picture of his young self, saying: "The taller one is my uncle Charles – now deceased – and it was taken in my grandparents' garden at 105 Belt Road, Hednesford. At the bottom of the garden is a shed and chicken enclosure and off picture to the left was a pig sty, so we were kept well fed with eggs, chicken, bacon, and pork during wartime rationing."
'My mum said 'Don't throw that.' It was the first time in my life I had seen an orange. I hadn't a clue what it was.'
A cherished memento for Ken Clibery, of Lanesfield, Wolverhampton, is a photo which shows a party which was held there to celebrate war's end.
"It was taken on fields at the back of Mount Road, Lanesfield. The houses at the back are the Woodcross estate. I would have been five. I'm coming up 80 now. I am on the picture with my mum and school friends.
"Mrs Hannah Clibery, my mom, is the third lady standing on the left, with a hat on. I am on the bench where the little dog is, the sixth one along, kneeling between two taller lads.
"Our parents organised this slap-up meal for us kids, the like of which we had never seen before. I don't know how they managed. Rationing was still in place at that time.
"Older people took out tables, chairs and benches and gave us jellies and sandwiches, a lot of things we had never seen before. During the war you could not get them.
"The first ever orange I saw was just before this party. The Americans who were stationed in Birmingham were heading back home and came along Birmingham Road towards Wolverhampton in a great convoy. Children and grown ups were lined up alongside the road waiting for them to come by.
"They came by in trucks waving to us and throwing cigarettes and chocolates, and an orange rolled towards me. I picked it up and went to throw it back, and then my mum said 'Don't throw that.' It was the first time in my life I had seen an orange. I hadn't a clue what it was. It was like a ball.
"I lived then in Lane Road, a little street off Mount Road, 100 yards away. I have moved three times and haven't moved more than 150 yards each time.
"Sadly most of the younger ones on the picture are no longer with us. I am now 79 years old and could still go five or six rounds with Tyson Fury.
"Remember all of these people had just come through five years of hell during the war, and with millions more all over the country, with spirits high, they helped make our country what it is now."
'We were just pleased that the war was over'
There was no celebration from Mrs Ethel Lote – as a nurse, they were simply too busy.
Mrs Lote, who will turn 100 in November, was at Burntwood Military Hospital.
"I was there for six years, until the hospital closed. My home back then was at Shelfield, near Walsall – I live in Aldridge now.
"The hospital was near Lichfield and we used to walk from the hospital to Lichfield.
"On VE Day I was still at the hospital working a 12-hour shift. We were just nursing the same as usual. They had announced the end of the war, but all we could do was go on nursing. We weren't allowed time off or anything. We just had to go on with our normal day.
"There was nothing else we could do. We were just pleased that the war was over.
"Our patients were all military. We had the first convoy of injured soldiers from Dunkirk at the beginning of the war and went all through the war."
Mrs Lote, who was a civilian nurse, was at the time of VE Day newly married, having wed husband Albert on March 10, 1945. Her maiden name was Nutting.
That wedding had been long delayed.
"We had my wedding booked for February 1940 or 1941, but it had to be cancelled because my fiance, who was a Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, serving in the Fleet Air Arm, was sent abroad without any leave. We had to wait five years before we saw each other again.
"And then after the war we lived in Aldridge and my husband was chief ambulance officer and I was health visitor.
"I'm quite well known in Aldridge. I'm still giving talks to schools and places like that.
"A fortnight ago I was on the BBC news. They had found this man who had seen me on the television and traced me back through the BBC and he came here to Aldridge. It was someone whose father was left on the beaches at Dunkirk to die and he was rescued and brought back, and it appears I nursed him."
'Happily she didn’t chastise us for cheering and dancing on the table'
"On May 8, 1945, I had had my 15th birthday three days before and I was in a small group of fifth formers at Dudley Girls’ High School waiting in the school library to be called to take my School Certificate French oral exam.
"All was very quiet in the library when in came Miss Mona Matthews, one of our more formidable teachers, who announced that the war was over!
"Happily she didn’t chastise us for cheering and dancing on the tables and also happily I went on later to pass my exam.
"It’s a memory that has lived with me all these years and I’m looking forward to my 90th birthday on May 5 this year.
"In 1945 I was living in Sedgley with my mom and dad, sister Jean and brother John. I now live at Shareshill where I have been since 1963.
"I first met my late husband Arthur in April 1945, on my granddad’s birthday, and we were married at All Saints’ Church, Sedgley, on March 17, 1954. We went on to have three daughters and six grandchildren."
Margaret Beddard (nee Turley)
'We never found the tube or centrepunch but all agreed it was a suitable way to commemorate the historic event'
VE Day went with a bang for the teenage Alan Causer, whose dad and a neighbour exploded a 20mm aircraft cannon shell to celebrate.
Alan, from Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, who lived back then at 19 Westbourne Road, Darlaston, said: "Our neighbour, two doors from us, was our church organist, Bill Talbot, whose son Edgar was a RAF bomber pilot, flying Lancasters.
"He completed two full tours of operations, 60 in all, when crews were lucky to survive 20, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
"After being demobbed at the end of the war he couldn't stomach civilian life and rejoined, earning a Bar to his DFC for flying a heavy transport aircraft at 300 feet to drop supplies to beleaguered troops during the Aden emergency. When he died a few years ago he was accorded a lengthy obit in the Telegraph.
"As you can imagine, he was my boyhood hero and when I was shown his bedroom it contained, among many other RAF artifacts, a quantity of .303 machine gun ammunition and at least one clip of 20mm cannon shells.
"It was therefore his father's suggestion that an appropriate way to celebrate the end of the war in Europe would be to let off one of the latter. Both he and my father Jack were engineers in the local factories and came up with a way of – hopefully – safely exploding it in our back garden.
"They buried the shell nose down in the ground, leaving the percussion cap exposed. On the base of the shell they placed a short length of tubing in which they inserted a centrepunch resting on the percussion cap.
"Then they dug into the ground immediately adjoining the shell a steel stake on the top of which they fixed a pulley. A piece of string about 30 feet long with a heavy file on the end of it was passed over the pulley so that when the string was released from this safe distance the file would strike the centrepunch and detonate the shell.
"All went well. No damage was done to life or the surrounding property but it produced a crater about two feet across. We never found the tube or centrepunch but all agreed it was a suitable way to commemorate the historic event."
'Many people were dancing round the fire until the early hours of the morning'
"I was seven years old when war started.
"I came from a large family and my father went to join the army and left us to look after ourselves.
"We lived in the Black Country at the time and most nights the bombs were coming down and we all had to run into a small air raid shelter until the all clear sounded. We were lucky to survive at the end of the war.
"To mark VE Day we lit a fire in the middle of the road, a quiet street called Borough Crescent, near Oldbury, and many people were dancing round the fire until the early hours of the morning.
"Four years after the end of the war I was called up myself to join the Royal Artillery and was sent to the Rock of Gibraltar to serve my time. I served two years there. Some of the troops went to other parts of the world. I never saw some of my mates again."
Cyril Robinson, of Horsehay
'There was dancing in Queen Square, and people were sitting on the black horse'
"On VE Day I remember mum and dad going up to the local pub in the village.
"We lived in Wergs Hall Road and back then I was Miss June Ray. I would be 15 and not old enough to go in the pub, but I remember walking up there with them.
"They went in with the neighbours and had a drink in The Crown. I was not allowed in there, but probably had a shandy outside.
"I remember everybody being happy. We didn't do anything really too much for that.
"Codsall was such a tiny village then. You literally knew everyone.
"But I remember for VJ Day in August 1945 I went to Wolverhampton with some friends and there was dancing in Queen Square, and people were sitting on the black horse (statue)."
Mrs June Pratten, of Codsall
