Page 126 - KBHA BULLETIN 6

brought down and left on a spare railway line at the station so that anyone who was tired

could go and put their head down. Most of them made a dash for the hotel bars and, despite

the breweries bringing down extra supplies, the pubs ran dry at 11 a.m. The poor old
canteen workers were run off their feet and went home exhausted that day.

VE Day (Victory in Europe) came on 8 May 1945 and there was great rejoicing in the

town. A service was held on Jubilee Square, and a sports afternoon was followed by
dancing in the evening and a bonfire. Somehow VJ day (Victory in Japan) on 4 August

1945 was not quite so meaningful to us until ships started to arrive with prisoners-of-war

freed from Japanese internment camps. Whenever this happened the town flocked to the
docks and gathered a couple of fellows for each family. Their horror stories were very

sobering and we realised how lucky we had been.

Joan Ive

I well remember when Britain declared war on Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939. There

was a tension in our home and in our neighbourhood generally as we waited to hear how it
would affect us. When on 6 September I was sent to Mr. Rudolphe’s shop opposite St.

James Station to get a newspaper I read, in the largest headline I had ever seen in all of my
ten years, that South Africa was at war, along with some other Dominions of the British

Empire.

I remember that my older cousins joined up soon after that and went into training. We

became aware of more and more young men donning uniforms and when they came on
leave we would see the orange flash on their epaulettes to denote their willingness to serve

anywhere in the world.

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