World War 2 - To V E Day

Gladys Connaughton.

World War 2 - to V.E.Day

I was 19 when the war ended. On V,E. Day, after my parents had made secure all arrangements for a street party in the evening, together with my 14 year old sister we all 'popped' up to London from Harrow where we lived, and were soon in the dense crowds in Trafalgar Square. Sailors, soldiers and airmen, together with girls in 'civvies' and uniform were climbing up lamp posts or trying to do so and were also splashing in the fountains. Someone passed the message around that Mr. Churchill was coming into the Square in a car - the news was like a 'Mexican Wave' through the crowds, the gradual excitement grew until his car was near, but with the crowds I could only see his bald head and hand held aloft in the 'V' salute.

At the street party back in Harrow in the evening, I played the piano, which my father and neighbours brought out and placed under a lamp post. I played from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m. non-stop. My dad had fixed up electric light bulbs in old enamel washing up bowls collected from neighbours previously and he connected them through the house windows so we had flood lighting in the street throughout the night.

During the war I played piano with an orchestra and we always stayed at our Posts and played throughout an air raid to allay panic.

With my family, I slept many nights in our concrete air-raid shelter in the garden. Our neighbours had an Anderson air raid shelter and when theirs or our shelter got flooded with rain water, we spent the night with that family in the driest shelter five of them and four of us, plus our dog. The children had the bunks in the Anderson shelter and the adults had a rota to sleep on the one remaining bunk - 2 hours each (and got up next morning and went to work!). This happened night after night. In our shelter the two bunks were reserved for the youngest, everyone else on the floor. On the shelf in our shelter were two acid accumulators to operate a small radio, we had electric light and a small heater for the provision of cups of tea. My sister had the top bunk, I had the lower bunk and the dog slept on my feet The dog trembled often giving us warning of danger imminent.

In Shoreditch, London, my uncle led his family (wife and 2 children to safety out of a public house where they had taken shelter. Ammonia had been released after the brewery was hit and by urinating over handkerchiefs and placing them over their faces he saved their lives.

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