Cam History: VE Day - 80 years

Great-grandmother Isabel Denning remembers Winston Churchill's historic announcement on the radio that World War II had ended. And she remembers the VE Day party which was held to celebrate.

Isabel was 13 years old when the war ended and was living in Box Road, Cam. A party to celebrate was held on the field behind Box Road Avenue. Now 93-years-old and still living in Cam, Isabel said: "All the people from Box Road went. I was relieved when the war came to an end."

The VE Day celebration was the second party Isabel remembers being held for Box Road residents. Another one had been thrown when a prisoner of war was released and returned safely to his family home in Box Road Avenue. Isabel remembers a party being held in someone's garage and drive.

Isabel was born at Upthorpe, Cam, and later moved to Box Road. She learnt to play the piano at eight-years-old and became an accomplished pianist, playing the organ at Cam Methodist Church for 41-years.

Her daughter, Alison Hodges, has chatted to her Mum about her war-time memories. She said:

"Mum was seven when World War II started. She was a pupil of Upper Cam Girls School (Cam Hopton then was boys only). She lived with her Gran and Gramps for three years as they were nearer the school. Everyone had a gas mask which they had to carry with them. When she was nearly 11-years-old Mum took a scholarship to get to Dursley Grammar (now Rednock).

Whilst at her grandparents' the air raid siren went off frequently and they were all rushed along to the shelter which was underground in a neighbour's garden where they all sat scared and huddled together, too frightened to sleep. In fact most nights of the war Mum didn't go to bed, she slept either on a little two-seater sofa or under the stairs. Running along one night to the shelter Mum was aware of a bomber overhead with the loud intermittent groan sort of stop starting. She had never seen a bomber so close to her before. The next day it became apparent where that one was going. Bristol was badly bombed the night before.

Mum went back home to Box Road to live when a pupil at Dursley Grammar and remembers her and her younger sister sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs as it was considered safer from the bombs. The family home was very near to the now Cam and Dursley train station. The Germans tried to bomb the track one night, luckily it missed but it left two craters in the nearby field and stones from the field landed on the roof of their house.

All houses had black-out curtains at the windows and had to be taped in a criss-cross manner to help protect them if windows were blown in. Streetlights were not lit, signposts taken down and if you were asked for directions by anyone your answer had to be "sorry, I cannot say".

There was also a strict night-time curfew in place.

Mum, her sister Phyl and cousin Marg got to know two prisoners of war who worked locally on a farm. Their names were Hans (pronounced Heinz) and Otto. Otto was very young and pleasant, he was forced to join the German army. Hans not so nice, not to be trusted.

Mum remembers hearing Winston Churchill saying the war was over on the radio, lots of celebrations everywhere. But clothes and food were rationed still for quite a while.

Edna Smith was just 15 years old and living on Knapp Lane in Cam at the time of VE Day in 1945 and her husband, Basil, was 14 years old and living in Halmore.

The couple, now aged 95 and 94, live in Cam and have many memories of growing up in war-time Britain. They both had happy childhoods despite the war.

When the war broke out, Edna was a pupil at the girls' school at Upper Cam. She remembers taking her gas mask to school where they used to practise putting them on. Basil went to Sharpness School and remembers being terrified when he left his gas mask at the bus stop one day.

He said: "I used to catch the bus at Halmore to get to Sharpness. The bus stop was near the blacksmiths. When I got to school I realised I'd left my gas mask where we caught the bus and I had to run all the way back to get it. I was frightened to death that I'd left it behind and that's why I ran back!" Basil remembers his gas mask as having a red case.

Security and the threat of bombs were a constant worry. Edna said: "We had blackout curtains so that no light would show. The warden came around to check."

Living in Halmore, which at the time just had a farm and two cottages, Basil says they used wooden shutters to block the light out, as they did in non-war times too.

Edna continued: "There were two brick air raid shelters on Morris Orchard behind our house. But we couldn't get out of our back garden because there was no gate, so we had to go all the way around. However, we never had to use the air raid shelters, we were lucky."

The couple both went on to Dursley Grammer School, now Rednock, and have school time memories of picking potatoes at New Grounds in Slimbridge, in the fields which are now the site of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

Edna said: "It was a big, open field full of potatoes. I was about 13 or 14 years old at the time and a coach used to pick us up and take us there. I didn't mind doing it, it was a change from school. Italian prisoners of war also used to help but I don't remember talking to them."

Childhood in the 1930s and 1940s was so different from what we know nowadays and the couple, who have one son, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, have many memories.

Edna said: "There was just gas at Knapp Lane when I was a child. We had electricity put in. And I remember having a toilet at the bottom of the garden."

Basil lived on Slimbridge Lane in Halmore and added: "We had no electricity or gas as a child. We had a paraffin lamp on the table and used to get water out of the well. We had to go across the field for the toilet. It was a bucket which was emptied in the garden. We used to grow marrows in it."

He also remembers milk being delivered from a waggon, with people coming out of their houses with a jug to buy milk directly from the churns on the back.

He added: "I remember milking cows. One of the farm cats would stand nearby and I would turn the cow's udder and squirt some milk into his mouth!"

Food was also quite different to what we know today. Edna remembers eating elvers which were caught in the River Severn, which they would fry and eat with egg. She remembers them being delicious.

Basil remembers his family being allowed to keep two pigs during the war. He said: "One was for the Ministry and other one was for yourself. But because you had a pig it affected your ration book because of the bacon you got! My Mother used to make brawn as well as bacon. My job was to turn the intestines inside out. My Mother used to plait the intestine and it would make chitlin."