Waiting For Liberation - The Last Day

To me Liberation Day is not the cream, May 8th is the cream. If I start off with the weekend before, which is a Sunday, the war was obviously known about coming to an end and the grownups would get together in huddles, or someone knew someone who had a radio, so the grownups were discussing that the war was going to end this week. Well, didn’t believe that, the war had been going on for ever. I remember this lady said to me “Are you going to wave your Union Jack ?”
“I haven’t got a Union Jack” I said,
“Oh!”, so she went away and got this little Union Jack that people used to fly on their cars. That was the Sunday. Monday I went to school as normal but there seemed to be a lot of atmosphere that some thing was going to happen. Tuesday was a half day, because we were so weak from (lack of ) food apparently, by then. I passed the AA gun battery opposite the tram sheds, which I had passed every day for months going to school and as I went past I noticed for the first time that the pompoms were down and there were no Germans there. My friend came up and said “Wars over!”.
“Shut up”.
“It has, stopped last night!”.
Anyway it was a long time before we went into lessons and they said,
“Oh yes, the war’s over, you’re going to go home soon, but you mustn’t fly your flags yet its not officially over until 3 o’clock this afternoon. The ceasefire has started, but don’t annoy any Germans as it is still war here.”

The school was called into the hall, and I think we sang patriotic songs, I can remember ‘Jerusalem’ being sung. Anyway we finished about 10.30 to 11, and on the way home I passed this gun battery again and there wasn’t a German in sight, so I went up and had a look, stuck my Union Jack on my bike and rode the rest of the way home with it on my bike, “Not before 3 o’clock”, never mind that! But I went home the back way, across the Grand Fort Bridge, and you never saw any (Germans) there. Then we went down to my uncle, who had a radio, and listened to Winston Churchill’s speech, and that was the end.
MALCOLM WOODLAND

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