EAST ACTON: VE and VJ DAYS 1945

VE DAY 8TH MAY 1945. The wireless blared it out, the cheering, Mr. Churchill, hoarse commentators, and factory whistles, steam engines hooting, church bells ringing — Victory in Europe at last! People shouted and waved to each other across gardens, and hugged us kids until we couldn’t breathe. And there were those, like Mum, who took it quietly at first, too exhausted with relief.

At our house, 18 The Green, East Acton, Mum found her Union Jack left over from the King’s Coronation. It was a bit stained and grubby but it didn’t matter — Beryl and I climbed up and stuck it out of the bedroom window. Slowly other flags and crumpled bunting started to appear round The Green.

Down at the shops a huge bonfire was being built on the strip of grass in front of the cottages at the bottom of East Acton Lane (Orchard Place). A dummy of Hitler, stuffed boiler-suit and wellies with a drawing of Hitler’s face, was hanging from a tree and being pelted with rubbish by some boys. Everyone was very excited, the atmosphere was electric. Uncle Bill (Ames) called in to share the good news with the family, and then took his sister Aunty Glad out dancing. As Mum said later, no one took her dancing.

That evening I wanted to see the bonfire, and one of our family friends on leave took me down. The fire was already blazing with ‘Hitler’ starting to burn to great cheers. A great big cheer went up when ‘Hitler’ collapsed into the blaze in a great shower of sparks. Someone had a wireless on and we heard the cheers at Buckingham Palace as the floodlights were turned on for the first time in six years. (The floodlights were officially switched on by Betty Ridley, the daughter of the Royal Palaces Senior Heating Engineer, who would later become a family friend.)

People were turning up with planks and bits of fence to hurl onto the fire to keep it going. Suddenly there was a great cheer from the nearby ‘Western’ pub and dozens of people streamed out in a ‘conga’ line carrying tables, chairs, benches, anything wooden that wasn’t nailed down, and threw them all on the fire. The giggly screams of the girls and the dancing round the fire was getting rowdy, so it was time for me to go home. I slept (I was told) with a big grin on my face!

PARTIES
Lots of places had street parties to celebrate Victory in Europe. Local men returning home, such as Mr. White of The Bye, suggested using the John Perryn School Hall. So our party was big and indoors, with entertainers. It was much easier for the grown-ups and much better for us, one big party instead of loads of little street parties.

Because it was so successful the grown-ups decided to do it on a regular basis, as a community activity. I think we had two more, with Peter Brough and Archie Andrews (very famous ventriloquist and dummy act) the star attraction at one of them. Then the interest, and the ‘community spirit’ faded away, and people retreated back indoors, and (I was told) back into the old ways of living. This was ‘getting back to normal’.

Everyone wanted to give VE parties, including companies. Someone, I don’t remember if it was family or friend, worked at a printing company in Mayfair, in the West End, and I was invited to their party. We went to Bond Street Station on the Central Line and walked to Bruton Street. Something looked very odd. A pub, I think it was called ‘The Coach and Horses’ stood on the corner of Bruton Street and Bruton Lane, completely on its own! It was surrounded by a huge bomb-site. All the buildings round it were gone, leaving just the basements with some rubble. The pub was propped up, and looked a bit lonely!

Opposite the pub was Bruton Place, an ‘L’ shaped, cobbled street of old houses which used to be stables for the big houses on Bruton Street. In the corner was the printing company, and we had the party in a big room with printing presses. I didn’t know most of the things on the table, so I only ate the iced buns, which I recognised. Someone said, “no one’s eating the cream puffs”. But I liked iced buns, I would get to know the other mystery things later.

When we left I saw that windows on the back of one big house were covered with brown paper. “Don’t they know the War’s over? “. I was told it was the sewing rooms of Norman Hartnell, a famous dressmaker. The windows were covered when they were making a dress for the Queen, to keep it secret from the newspaper reporters. He also had a large refrigerated room specially for storing rich ladies fur coats.

We also saw a ‘British Restaurant’ in a back street basement; these were set up to provide cheap meals for War Workers, who worked very long hours. I was told you could get a meal, pudding and mug of tea for 1/- (one shilling = 5p). Lots of houses and hotels in Mayfair were guarded by big armed Military Policemen.

VJ DAY
We heard about the Atom Bombs which were dropped on Japan. It was difficult to imagine such destruction, like one bomb flattening all of Acton. Then Japan surrendered, and it was VJ Day — Victory over Japan. There were more parties. Then we saw the pictures of our surviving POWs from Japanese camps, and heard how they had been treated. Like the Nazi concentration camps, it took the fun out of the celebrations, and replaced it with a sense of justice, that such terrible treatment had been stopped.

One of those surviving POWs must have lived somewhere around Old Oak Common Lane. He could only have been about twenty, but shuffled around in an old army greatcoat, crouched over in fear. He couldn’t speak but would find something, an old brick, a piece of broken glass, anything, and clutch it to his body, trying to hide it when anyone came near. If anyone in uniform passed by, even the postman or milkman, he would crouch sobbing, trying to protect his head. I think he felt safer with us children, but sometimes one of the older boys would cruelly shout at him, then laugh as he flinched away, crying. One day he disappeared.

While everyone was celebrating and talking about the future, I think for him, and perhaps a lot more like him, the war never really ended.

Revised extracts from ‘A Sheltered Childhood ~ Wartime Family Memories of an East Acton Child’

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