VE day.
Now it's election day the TV and radio stations have switched mega time to VE day. I remember it first time round, and there's something missing from the attempts to re-create the mood of the time. I think (or fink) it's the complete emotional and adrenaline high that filled even my infant breast.
Two or three days before the end we had a lone bomber loose an air mine on a big house on the edge of town. It was a beautiful house in a beautiful garden, a place where garden parties and the like were held to support the war effort. Sunday school treats with chopped jelly in bedroom washbasins, and running for sweets and bits of chocolate thrown over us by the elderly couple who, with their too old for war service children, lived.
We went up to see the damage, and our parents came to see if they could help these benevolent souls in their hour of need.
We approached the place. All the lovely hedges were flattened outwards towards the road and the surrounding field paths. The house (and its occupants were totally gone. All that remained was a great big hole. No trace of the family or its dwelling or its contents and their possessions was ever found.
Sadness for all the loss on every side - that's what's missing.
