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VE Day Celebrations.
Prayers were being said at Winteringham all last week for good weather for the VE Day commemoration. May Day dawned and at 6am the skies were bright
and clear. Such is the unpredictability of the English weather that the prayer then became one for the good weather to continue. Well, it did until five minutes after the closing at 4.30pm of a wonderful
afternoon.
Christine Wood, on behalf of the Village Hall Management Committee told me that the main purpose of the afternoon was to provide a 1940's 'bit of a do' and this is exactly what
occurred. What's more she had backed it both ways by having indoor and outdoor features. The aim of getting people together for an old fashioned social occasion was well achieved.
Of course, these
affairs don't just happen without a lot of preparation. The village NAAFI ladies had been busy and I'm told that at as many as eight or nine Victoria sponge cakes had been baked. There was Lincolnshire
plum bread, scones, flapjack and, to add a real war time flavor, bully beef sandwiches, all at around ten shillings or fifty pence. You could take your pick from the then and now price list.
After feeding the frame you could gorge yourself on nostalgia. A wealth of WW11 memorabilia was on display in the hall from Ken Jacobs, Andrew Wilson and John Fletcher. John specialized in the seldom
mentioned but extremely valuable Royal Observer Corps. But don't get the impression that this was a completely quiet 'do'. Your contemplations were likely to be interrupted periodically by the wail of an
air raid siren that Ken had provided.
The high point of the afternoon was the RAF fly past. Two hundred people, perhaps more, had lined up to form a huge V on the playing field.
They waited in a reverent silence. The approach of a Hurricane and a Spitfire was heralded by the call of the siren until the throaty drone of those ungeared engines became all you could hear as they completed three passes. It was a stirring sight and not a few tears were shed by the assembled villagers and visitors.
By this time the stalls had been busy. The Committee had invited stallholders to exhibit and sell. There was no formal charge for this but most made a donation to the appeal for funds to renovate
the hall. Village organisations responded with Tombola, plants for sale, cake stall, the ever-popular raffle and the Neighbourhood Watch presented a display.
Geoff Greaves' and Chris Knowles'
Church Skittle Alley brought back memories for me though oddly not of ninepins. The heavy wooden cheeses that were thrown at skittles made a noise that reminded me of the crump on German bombs falling
six miles from where I lived as a boy. It obviously didn't put anybody off, as the attraction was a great success. For the more robust the tug o' war and the children's races on the playing field
provided an outlet for excess energy.
In 1945 many people were still in uniform as Ken Jacobs and his family reminded us. Gary Jacobs made an impressive and very laid-back GI. The distinguished
looking David Fowler in a flying officer's uniform represented the Royal Air Force with an attendant WAAF (who might have been his chauffeuse) in the shape of Ken's granddaughter. Ken Jacobs
good-naturedly took a good deal of ribbing about his black beret which steadfastly refused to be tweaked into the regulation shape. Jean, Ken's wife, was determined that we shouldn't forget the women's
role by looking very fetching in a black air raid warden's uniform unspoiled even by the tin hat.
For me, though, there were two supreme occurrences. One was the attendance of Mr Ken and Mrs
Marion Sills. Ken, who had distinguished war service, married Marion while he was still in uniform in 1945. The happy couple celebrated their Diamond Wedding last month.
The other was seeing the
tireless Jollands in her electrically propelled chair, drumming up prizes for the evening bingo session that she had organised.
All told the day was a wonderful example of village joint effort and
derring-do so representative of the war and immediate post war spirit.
Harry Wells
5 April 2005
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