How Cirencester celebrated as the War was won (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

How Cirencester celebrated as the War was won

Sixty years ago, at 3pm on May the 8th 1945, a crowd gathered in Cirencester Market Place to hear a radio relay of Prime Minister Winston Churchill's broadcast announcing the end of the war in Europe.

VE Day had come. The celebration could begin in earnest with a mighty peal of bells from the Parish Church, echoed later by the steeple of Holy Trinity in Watermoor and many churches around, whose bells had been silent for so long.

It is hard now to appreciate the emotions stirred by this event. There was great joy, relief and thanksgiving, tinged by the sadness of separation from those who were away and from those who would never be coming home. So it was that with mixed feelings the crowds made their way to the churches and chapels to services of thanksgiving.

It seems natural to suppose that the bells would have ushered in a period of civic ceremony, feasting, dancing in the streets, with maybe a celebratory bonfire.

However for Cirencester, like many other places, this was not to be. The Market Place managed to sport the Carnival Committee's bandstand, but no band since all the local military bands were on camp for their own festivities.

Five-and-a-half-years of restrictions meant that the means were not available for partying on the grand scale and bonfires were officially frowned upon as inappropriate use of much needed salvage.

Officially it was stated that government directives had been issued to local authorities, but in Cirencester they had been held up in a the Post War Development Committee's paperwork.

In any case in these there was no provision to include children in the celebrations. Valiant efforts were made by individuals including two of the staff of Ormond's in the Market Place.

They had gone in to decorate the shop which was supposed to be closed, but came downstairs to find it full of would-be customers all wanting to purchase flags and bunting.

At one point they had to lock the shop and let the customers out of the back door. Rationing of bunting and the like had been temporarily lifted, but it was too late to make an immediate impact so it was by degrees that the streets took on a festive appearance sporting bunting, Union Jacks and flags of all the allied nations.

Soon the skills of improvisation, which had helped to secure the victory, came into play.

In the evening of VE day and over the next few days the people themselves, by street and area, organised parties and games for the children. They ignored the official line on salvage and burned effigies of Hitler and his henchmen.

On the first evening music was eventually brought to the Market Place for dancing with the aid of Frank Smith's amplification equipment. Dances were also held in the Corn Hall and Church Hall with the US Hospital Band providing the music at the former and the Park House Orchestra the latter.

These and the unofficial celebrations went on well into the night of VE Day and were repeated the following day which was also a national holiday.

Space does not permit a survey of all that happened, but we might look in on some of the celebrations.

Chesterton, the newest estate, was scene of a number of parties. Our photograph of Apsley Road shows over 40 children catered for, with the two youngest in the foreground being cared for by Mr Salmon, aged 93, and Mrs Jordan, 95. Real ice cream was on the menu.

In Springfield Road 50 children attended, many in fancy dress. As in other parts of town an effigy of Goering was escorted to the flames and after the children had gone to bed the adults danced and sang into the early hours. In Bowley Road, Mrs Haggerty's piano was rolled out into the open air to accompany the revelry.

At Watermoor a group of musicians, the Victory Ragtime Jazz Band, entertained under the leadership of 'Drummer' May.

Ermin Place residents borrowed the trestle tables from the Greyhound Inn at Siddington to cater for their 105 children who enjoyed the cakes, meat sandwiches, mince pies, sausage rolls, pastries, blancmange and jelly. Someone must have been saving their coupons!

The Jazz Band came to entertain the children and when it was the adults' turn they led a procession to the Horse and Drill where they were revived with beer as they entertained the crowds in their unique style. Then it was back to Ermin Place to burn another Hitler.

No doubt as the fires died down and the revelry subsided there was time for reflection. The war was not yet over, Japan was still at large and the shocking revelations of Nazi atrocities were beginning to filter through. To people of all classes the dreadful waste of war was all too obvious.

Within a few months another 69 names would be added to Cirencester's War Memorial and it would be a whole year before the town felt ready to really celebrate, when most of those who were coming home had made it.

Although at the end of May 1945, as our photograph shows, a Parade and Thanksgiving service were held in the Market Place and Parish Church. May we never again have to 'celebrate' a VE, VJ or any other V Day.

The measure of relief felt by that generation on VE Day was in proportion to the suffering of the wartime years. The cost to victor and vanquished should have been sufficient to warn future generations of the futility, bestiality and inefficiency of war.

There has to be a better way.