AS THE country came together to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day memories were shared of bombings, brave soldiers and community spirit.
For Doreen Cross it brought back memories of visiting her aunt on clear nights in Brandon Woods just in case there were bombings, her schooldays as and evacuee and the street parties to celebrate the end of the war.
Doreen was just seven when she was evacuated from her home in Stoke Heath, Coventry, to Solihull shortly after the Coventry blitz and the fateful night of November 14,1940, when thousands of bombs were dropped on the city.
The now 91-year-old said during her evacuation, she lived in a dormitory with other evacuee children, including her younger cousin, and they attended a preparatory school nearby.
The children walked to school and Doreen had to leave 15 minutes before the others as she had to take her cousin to the infant school before meeting her friends to walk to school along a road with a nut tree on.
She added that some weekends they would go to a cinema to watch the latest films.
Doreen, who now lives in Kenilworth, said: “I remember my mum visiting once and she brought some crumpets with her.
“Matron let us use her room, she made us a pot of tea and said ‘If you would like to you can toast those on the fire’.
“So mum toasted us some crumpets on the open fire and we sat and ate them.
“That really was a kind thing of matron.
“Mum visited when she could from time to time.”
Doreen’s dad was posted in the 14th Army in Burma alongside soldiers from across the Commonwealth against the Japanese.
However, not all of Doreen’s memories of life as an evacuee were happy ones.
She said: “I remember we went down for breakfast – it was egg, beans and a slice of bacon.
“I’ve never been fond of fatty meat and we were served fatty bacon and it just made me want to heave.
“I didn’t like it and I was told ‘Your very lucky to have it.’
“At the end everybody else had left he dining hall and I was the only left, sat in front of this slice of bacon.
“We also had a lot of salad bits and a lot didn’t like lettuce so it was all piled onto my plate.”
As the war came to an end Doreen was living back at home with her mum.
She said on VE Day she remembers the street parties and on her street someone set up speakers and a microphone and invited all the youngsters to sing, which she did.
