From: Tom Holloway (tom.holloway@U3A.ORG.UK)
Date: Wed Dec 08 1999 - 01:24:05 PST
. Hello Class 3 -- you said.... > We are studying The Second World War in our class at school. You didn't give your school, but I guess from your address that you are at Heathfield Church of England Primary School -- is that right? >We are doing an oral history project and we would like to know how you celebrated the end of the war? That's an interesting question -- would you like answers from all the Panel of Elders? I'm just one of them. You can learn about the others if you click on http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/chatback/english/memories/memories.html At the end of the war I was on holiday at the seaside with my parents. I can remember seeing everybody in the streets looking happy, and one strange thing I noticed was that a lot of the soldiers and sailors had taken off their uniforms and exchanged them with other peoples clothes. (You have to remember that there were thousands and thousands of people in uniform by that time - in fact in Britain we had about two million soldiers in the country. From America and Canada, and Jamaica and India and Australia). I can remember seeing some people dancing on the pier at Llandudno, the women had put on the soldiers uniforms and the soldiers had somehow wriggled into dresses and skirts -- they were really celebrating... I thought it might be possible to buy as many sweets as I wanted, but the rationing lasted quite a long time after that. >What happened to anderson shelters after the war? They weren't very successful. All the ones I saw had filled up with water and got a bit smelly, so they were shut up. My family had got a Morrison shelter, which was like a table, but made of steel to protect you if the house fell in. When the Air Raid Sirens went off we would put some things in there -- food and water and some knitting for my Mum in case we had to wait, and some books to read. But we would only get in ourselves if we heard that the bombers were coming towards us. You could hear them coming quite easily. ================================= Tom Holloway (tom.holloway@u3a.org.uk) The Chatback Trust (http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/chatback) Tel: +44 1926-771772 Fax: 1926-771707