Celebrating My 21st - on VE Day!

Disclaimer: This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from CSV on behalf of Gwendoline Francess Fullick and has been added to the site with her permission. Gwendoline Francess Fullick fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the end of the war, 1945 I was twenty-one on VE day! My manager and his wife collected some rations together from different people and the girls at work and they made me a twenty-first birthday cake. It was plain but it was lovely. They managed to get a bottle of wine and we had a sort of a little party at work. What was left over I took home with me. It was lovely and my own parents were very good. There weren’t a lot of things you could buy but they managed to buy a tiny leather wallet and put some money in it. But you didn’t expect anything else. I had quite a number of cards which I’ve still got to this day. I’ll soon be 81 — on May the 8th! When I look back, thought it was a terrible time to go through, I have lots of good friends. Everyone was kind to one another and the neighbours would all help one another. So different from today when you have a job to get to know people. We had a good community spirit then. I was given nylons during the war. A lady I worked with, her son went to America during the war and he bought nylons for his sister. She was much bigger than me and they didn’t fit her and so they were given to me. Everybody was good to one another; I don’t know what’s happened.

On VE Day there were parties going on in the street. People were dancing and the Yanks were there on leave. We went to the pub in the evening. I’m not a drinker but I had many drinks bought me and they were just wasted. It was lovely. A few days after they had celebrations in London. I came up on my own because mostly my friends were in the services. I lived in Muswell Hill. I lived in that house from when I was 8 and my father died in the house at the age of over 80; so it was a good many years we lived there. I think we all felt it when the boys we grew up with died; when they didn’t come back form the flying sorties they were in or they were sailors. We didn’t think about it when VE Day came though. We thought “No more air raids!” and people are not going to have all that suffering. The fireworks were wonderful. I didn’t stay as late as some people. People stayed there all night and came home at 4 in the morning. They managed to walk all the way. It was a long way from Muswell Hill to Leicester Square or Trafalgar Square! They just did a bit of dancing I suppose. It was wonderful — the mood was great. But I don’t want to see anymore wars. The last war we’ve had, having been in a war, you really felt for people, you really did. I can’t see any point in wars you should try talk things out. But that’s life. It is so much to look back on, it’s quite wonderful.

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