Daphne Smith’s Story

Available for over a year

Daphne Smith is 83 years old and lives in Witney. On VE Day, aged 13, she remembers dancing around a bonfire on the village green at Milton-Under-Wychwood with her friends, and recalls wearing her ‘best’ dress her mother had given her the year before, for her confirmation. They drank lemonade and ate Smith’s crisps. She linked arms with her friends as they danced around the fire. As they were enjoying the merriment, being one of the smallest in the group, she fell over – staining her special dress with grass stains, mud and ash from the fire. No matter how much her mother scrubbed the dress with water and soda, she never was able to wear it again. Image: Milton-Under-Wychwood