VE DAY:  Mass Shagging in the Streets

The 8th of May, 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the end of war in Europe in 1945.

East London Teenager Boy   VE Day was one of the most emotional days in my life. There were Union Jacks out and every one was saying “We want the King!” Everyone was shouting for the King. Men and women. Mind you, they were shouting for Louis 16th a few weeks before they cut his head off. You can’t go on the emotions of… – People were so pent up. There was mass shagging in the streets… – No sort of class distinction. I walked into a posh hotel and everyone was offering me drinks. Everybody. What amazed me was where they got the drink from! No one ever had it. At least, we didn’t, because before this, pubs were closed. People had to walk miles to get a drink. A bloke would say to another bloke “I know a pub that’s got some beer.” The pub would be packed solid until they drunk the beer out. So I don’t know where they got the drink from.

East End Girl   On VE Day I watched my Dad dance up and down the street. He was dead drunk, my Dad. He tap danced all up and down our street. My Dad used to have cups for tap dancing. Everybody was out on the street, drunk. We watched from the windows.

Somerset Girl   On VE Day they had bonfires on hilltops. They took weeks building up huge bonfires on all the hills – on Street Hill and Wearyall Hill, between Street and Glastonbury, and all the hills around.

Somerset Boy   From Ham Hill we could see all the other fires. A sailor at our fire actually threw himself in the middle of the bonfire and they had to haul him off. He was in flames. They had to roll him down the hill to put the flames out. He was drunk. That was Victory night.

2nd Somerset Girl   VE day in Winscombe was very dead. We were longing for something. We could have gone to Weston but there wasn’t a late bus to come back. We really felt left out of things. You read about all these marvellous things going on in London – dancing in the streets.

Paratrooper   I was in Ireland on VE Day. There’s a bay there called Dundrum Bay and I was sitting on a little bit of grass thinking to myself: “Well, I don’t know, all this bleeding time, all that square bashing, all them manoeuvres, for me to be sitting here when it’s all over. I’m still here. And them poor sods I joined up with, who I was working with before the war, are probably blown to bits, or something like that. And what for?”

The following day we was on a road run. They took us on a road run all round the country lanes, and we were running down this slope in this little lane and an old Irish boy’s walking along, with an old hat and a bloody great knurled stick in his hand, and as we’re running past he said “What the bloody hell are you running for? The war’s over!” We was pissing ourselves laughing.

Liverpool Mother   I spent my VE Day in Southdown Hospital. After going right through the war, when all the celebrations were on I took appendicitis and was taken away. I could hear all this singing going on and I was saying to myself: Ooh, I’d love to be out there.

Liverpool Teenage Girl    On VE Night there was a gang of us got together. We were still working the railway, this gang. We were on 2 to 11 shift, my mate and I. We got that much drink, we walked up from Central Station and the next thing we remembered doing was sitting in Abercromby Square Gardens about 4 in the morning – singing. Everyone went mad those two days. I don’t think anyone slept.

Teeside Boy Soldier   We were stationed in Catterick and a gang of us went to Middlesbrough. There was a lad from Newcastle and he took a box of hand-grenades and a bloody great box of flares. In Middlesbrough he was throwing hand-grenades in park. We finished up in Acland Road. We came across a pile of road chippings and barrels of tar. How we did it I don’t know, but we got about three of these barrels stacked one on top of the other and set fire to bottom one. And we were dancing around them.

Staffs Miner   VE Day they gave you extra money to stop in. I was on nights when word came through – day’s pay and home Jeeves, and don’t spare the horses! Extra pint in pub! Extra ale!

Royal Engineer   I was in Germany on VE Day. Our division took Bremen and another division took Hamburg. We went into Bremen brewery, me and the engineers. We had to take a lorry and pick up the company’s beer. We all got pissed and nearly drowned because down in the wine vaults of the brewery the maniacs had knocked the pipes off and the sherry ran all over the floor. You was wading with sherry up to your knees. No lights on. We were shining torches. And the stink! You was intoxicated with the smell……

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 Read more at Chapter 26: VE Day and the Labour Landslide, taken from the restored version of You, You & You! The People Out of Step with World War 11.