VE Day

These are the dear faces I’m thinking of on VE Day.

Wal & Sal

Here are my Grandparents Wal, preparing to fight to the last man when the invasion came to Ashford, Kent and Sally, evacuated with their little girls, my aunts, although nowhere was safe.

Henry & Eileen

Here’s my other Granddad Henry, a long way from Stepney, fighting his way across North Africa, Sicily, Italy.

Here’s my other Nanny Eileen, patching people up with the First Aid Service of the ARP under the heavy bombs falling on London’s East End.

There’s Jimmy Paterson, who came all the way from New Zealand to defend England in his Spitfire through the Battle of Britain and who gave his life so this day could come.

Great Uncle Bill

There’s Great Uncle Bill, who was taken POW on the retreat to Dunkirk and spent the next five years in a labour camp in occupied Poland missing his wife and four children.

Great Uncle Bern

There’s Great Uncle Bern who rode a tank across Normandy in 1944 and who would marry the nurse who cared for him when he was wounded.

Alec

And there’s Alec, who was still somehow alive on Borneo, after more than three years as a prisoner of the Japanese, who had no idea it was VE Day at last, because his captors had told them England was gone.

I’m so proud of them all. And so sorry. And so grateful.

This is what Grandad Wal wrote to evacuated Sally one bleak night in 1941:

“Roll on the Day when we can say

We’re glad to be Home again

To sit at our ease and warm our knees

By the sunshine that follows the rain.

Then again we’ll be, the kids, you and me,

Just the same as we were before

As Happy and Loving as we used to be

Before War came and knocked on our door.

We’ll put our old sticks in a new box of tricks

And together, we’ll conjure a Home.

We’ll make disappear every frown and tear

By the Magic of Love Alone.”