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My father died, in 1940, in a hospital in Manchester. A result of an ‘op’ that was anything but ‘special’. He never had the opportunity to be ‘mentioned in despatches’. A young policeman was sent to Grandma’s house (where the family had congregated) to relay the bad news of father’s death. As soon as Gran discovered it was the policeman’s first experience of imparting such bad news and creating shocks, to a family without a telephone (just like most families in those days), she made sure that he joined in with the tea drinking, which was the way people coped.
From that momentous day, mother fought a single parent war of her own. With a pencil not a pistol. As some of the time she jotted down survival techniques - on scraps of used envelopes - “we have to save everything” - whilst listening to the ‘experts’ on the wireless. The ‘economy’ recipes from Marguerite Patten, and the medical advice from the “Radio Doctor” - Charles Hill. He extolled the virtues of Cod Liver Oil and Malt, and Brimstone and Treacle - and my brother and I were liberally dosed with tablespoons of these thick and strong aperients.
We were briefly evacuated - staying for a while in a house at the side of Lancaster Castle, and watching the troops marching in and out, and also some time on a farm, in Yorkshire, where I became unwell, after drinking warm goat’s milk offered by the farmer, straight from the dipper in his bucket - at least so they thought at the time, but no doubt I recovered as a result of all the medicinal dosing and fresh air in the countryside around.
Back in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, we experienced things that were fun to children. Suddenly hiding under the table, when mother heard the drone of planes overhead, and once again at Grandma’s house, when 5 adults and 2 children crowded into the space under the stairs - usually used for household cleaning equipment — which Gran called “The Glory Hole” for some unknown reason - and I thought the whole thing was really funny, and couldn’t understand why one of my aunts started to cry.
I have no recall of the daylight hours of V.E. Day. Possibly a picnic on Chorlton Meadows, with our sugar sandwiches and bottles of water, or a chat with one of the Americans, who were billeted nearby and always gave us sweets that we’d never seen before - I only remember that night.
I was fast asleep in my bed, and suddenly woken by my mother as she shook me wildly. She was shaking herself, shouting, crying, and screaming all at the same time - ecstatically calling out: “The war is over! The war is over!” I was amazed to see such animation, but her message meant nothing to a small and sleepy child. Sixty years on my thoughts go back to her, and so many other women on that day, who were left alone with their joy, and their memories of loved ones no longer with them.

"This story was submitted to 'The People's War' site by James Chapman-Kelly on behalf of Faith Waldron and has been added to the site with her permission"

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