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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Terry Oliver, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

As a lad the 1939-1944 years in London had be exciting, noisy, and often frightening but from the beginning of 1944 there had been a bit of a lull in enemy air activity.
On D-Day the 6th June I remember hearing General Eisenhower on the wireless say something like ‘Today, allied forces have landed on the continent of Europe’ As far as I was concerned the end was in sight, but just 7 days later the first German ‘V’ Weapon, a pilot-less flying bomb fell on London. In the following months 2,419 of these V1’s and 1115 V2‘s or Rockets each of which carried a ton of explosive, fell on the South East of England.
The War was definitely still on and we had to go back to the ‘Blitz’ style life until 29th March 1945 when the last V2 arrived.
In early March 1945 had to go to the local grammar school to take the 11 plus exam, I remember sitting at a desk when halfway through the General Knowledge there was a impressive Hitler induced bang as a V2 fell somewhere to the south. The windows of the third floor classroom shook but remained intact enabling us to see a pall of smoke rising some distance away. The invigilator said
“Don’t worry its not in Edmonton so get on with your work�
The likelihood of one of these missiles arriving without warning was quite frightening but everything continued as normal the schools and cinemas stayed open and people went to work.
The wireless announcement on VE Day that the war in Europe was over, therefore, came as a great relief to my class of 54 eleven year olds.
As the wireless gave the news that large crowds were gathering in Trafalgar Square and The Mall to celebrate I thought I would go see what was happening locally. Making my way to ‘The Angel’ our nearest ‘Centre’ I was disappointed to find hardly anyone about. My Dad’s contribution to the festivities was to retrieve the family’s 1937 Coronation Union Jack from the loft and fly it from the porch.
The next night we had a Street Party, someone dragged a piano on to the pavement, there was dancing, singing and games. A barrel of beer arrived from the local Off Licence and a huge bonfire was lit in the middle of the road. My best friend’s dad who was home on leave from the RAF had brought some fireworks home with him. These turned out to be distress flares, when he pulled the tag on the side there was a very impressive explosion and rocket shot up hundreds of feet into the sky. The over all effect of this pyrotechnic event was to scare the living daylights out of everyone at the party, Ron’s dad was shocked and had a very white face and had to be revived with a glass of Watney’s Pale Ale. He immediately dug a 3’ hole in his garden and buried the rest of the flares, I expect they are still there!
VJ Day was celebrated with another street party and bonfire which burnt the road surface making a huge pothole, it was some years before the Council got round to repairing it.
After this we settled down to the comfort of peace and the 10 years of austerity that accompanied it and for most of the 54 lads in my class, 2 years National Service.

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