Planning to mark VE Day? - check out our resources
- debbiethrower0
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
“Lovely and warm….Alf busy in the garden”. So begins Emily George’s diary entry for the 8th May. But this was no ordinary spring day – this was VE Day, 1945. Like so many others, Emily and her family had endured the separation of evacuation and the experience of being bombed out of their home. Now, on VE Day, they gave thanks.
Eighty years on, Emily’s daughter Brenda has recorded that diary entry for us so that it can be used as a prompt by Anna Chaplains who might be enabling older people in their communities to share their own memories of the day.
Brenda was a schoolgirl of 15 at the time, and, in the recording, she shares her own memories of that day. In common with many people up and down the country she took part in a tea party for children in her street and witnessed dancing in the town. She went along to a Thanksgiving service at her church and would have heard the King’s radio broadcast, acknowledging the battle yet to be won in the Far East.
If you are planning a gathering to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, do make use of our resources, including an outline service for use with a group of older people as well as the sound recording. You can find both on our website here.
As part of the suggested service, there are appropriate hymns you might like to choose (you could use a CD or YouTube), readings and prayers, together with some suggested activities. One of those activities is to invite participants to discuss any memories they may have of VE Day. The recording of 95 year old Brenda, reading from her mother’s diary and sharing her own memories might well act as a useful prompt for the reminiscences of others on, or around, the date of this key anniversary .
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