I was amazed to receive this today from my Uncle Glyn Conway. It was written for his grandchildren.
As well as being a beautiful testimony of VE Day in the community of the Geufron in the town of Rhyl, it also shows two images of my mum which I have never seen before. In the first image I did not even recognise the girl as my mum! In the second if was unmistakably like her.
Twenty seven years later I was sitting on those same seats behind the Pavilion, shivering with my girlfriend Lesley and looking out on a grey sea. Coincidentally, Lesley’s mum was part of the Hagin family who had also enjoyed that VE day party!
Thank you for sharing this Uncle Glyn. x
This week is the 75th Anniversary of VE Day and the ending of the Second
World War in 1945. I thought you would be interested in some of my
recollections of that time since most people are now too young to remember
these events. I just asked Gran/Granny Jan could she remember some of
these things and she said ‘No of course not. I wasn’t born until 1947!’
I was born in 1938 so I was still a baby of 18 months when war broke out.
The photo above shows me in the pram soon after the outbreak of war with
my eldest sister Ceridwen and my brother Eddie. It was taken on the Rhyl
Prom. My brother has his bucket and spade so we must have been on a
beach outing. Behind are a group of soldiers who were stationed at an army
barracks near Rhyl.
I remember the great excitement by the public that the war had ended and
that in many families like myself people who were serving their country in the
military would soon be home again. My eldest brother Elwyn serving in the
Royal Marines came home from Germany and my sister Doris in the ATS the
Women’s section of the Royal Army returned from Belgium. My mother I
remember used to encourage me to eat my carrots as they would help my
eyesight. It was said that pilots during the war did the same. My Dad was too
old to be called up but he did his bit for the country by being a soldier in the
First World War twenty years earlier. We still had to wait another three
months before complete world peace when Japan surrendered after the
dropping of the atomic bomb in that country. That day in August 1945 was
known as VJ Day (victory over Japan).
Like all other schoolchildren I received a special souvenir illuminated
certificate signed by King George V1, the father of our Queen Elizabeth II.
Special street parties were arranged for the children and I remember sitting
on chairs from our homes around a long table in the street and enjoying
sandwiches, cakes and jelly served by our mothers and other relatives. One
strange thing I remembered was an argument in the street by two families. I
can’t remember the reason for it but young as I was I did think at the time it
was the very opposite of what the party was all about!
Cinemas showed how the war ending was celebrated all over the country and
how children who had been sent from cities to the country as refugee children
for their own safety were allowed to return to their families. At the end of all
cinema performances everybody was expected to stand for the National
Anthem before leaving though some of us children tried to escape before it
was played to quickly get back to our games such as playing football, cricket,
marbles, rounders, conkers, hop scotch or swimming in the sea. One of my
favourite games was playing soldiers at war but it was always difficult to get
my friends to be persuaded to be German soldiers! My brother brought back
a German soldier’s helmet which for many years was placed at the top of our
garden shed.
This is me at about the end of the war outside our house – together with
Ceridwen, the same sister who you saw pushing my pram in the other photo.
During the war everyone had to do something to help the war effort and she
worked for the National Laundry in Rhyl.
The VE Day party was held near our local Air Raid Shelter which had been
built for people to escape into if there was a bombing raid. We were not
bombed in Rhyl though a German aircraft involved in the bombing of
Liverpool crash landed nearby I remember. My brother Tim served as a fire
watcher in case of raids by the Germans. I still have his badge. I remember
various concrete bunkers with small square openings were dotted about the
coast in which soldiers could defend the country should German Landings
happen. These together with the Air Raid Shelters were a feature of the
landscape for many years after the war.
All these memories are in my mind at this special time of commemoration.
Things gradually got back to normal and whilst life was difficult during the war
years, it made us thankful for the things we took for granted. It’s a bit like this
lockdown period; things will improve and we all look forward to brighter days
ahead.
Ambrose Conway 