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most things, we fairly soon became blasé with the V weapons which, in any case, we did not have to endure for very long.

The ending of the war I recall as no great surprise. It had been looking increasingly that way for enough time to have developed a personal feeling of inevitability and with victory in Europe it was only a matter of time before Japan too would capitulate ‑ although the far‑eastern war affected me only inasmuch as the news I read or heard of it.

We had school as well as street parties although, perhaps surprisingly, they have left no lasting impact or remembrances. I have greater recollections of menfolk coming home ‑ often enough to larger families than they had left behind, thanks to Anglo‑American hospitality! 'Demob suits' were everywhere evident as newly civilianised soldiers donned their clothing issue.

The war was over, my family and I were unscathed although an aunt at Newport on the Isle of Wight had been injured when her house had suffered bomb damage. I was still at school and under some persuasion to prepare for an adult working life in the Church of England or else as an officer in the Indian Army by my educators. The careers department of Peter Symonds in those days limited its advice to those two callings. I opted out of both but that is another story.

 

David J Ward                              January, 1995    home>>