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VE DAY IN WARTORN LONDON by Doreen Pyne

It was wonderful to know that we would no longer have to sleep in the Anderson shelter (our life saver) again. Also that our father a water board official, would no longer have to go out in the air raids in order to find further supplies.
A celebration bonfire was lit at the end of our road. I was 19 and went with my 3 brothers to join in. We had to pass Horsa Road which was demolished by a parachute mine in 1940 and hit by a rocket in 1944, who said that lightning doesn’t strike twice?
People sang and danced at the bonfire but most like us drifted away and went back to our homes to sit with families. We thought of colleagues and friends that died in the blitz or on war fronts. Neighbours that were hurt or killed, the neighbour released a few months ago from a Japanese prison camp to die weeks later. The elderly lady who lost her husband, then her only child came back seriously injured from the battlefield.
Our own lovely grandmother who was seriously injured and died in her own shelter during March 1944.
We reflected upon these and hoped for better times ahead.

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