7th May 1945

Monday

Heard a cuckoo this morning about 6.  Busy day.  Committee meeting at 11.30, only six members came, with dear old Guy Pearson in the chair.  I presented the 109^th Annual Report, which was accepted.  Among the gifts was the metal cannister which contained the bombs dropped on 17 March.  The ARP people apparently don't want this, so we’ve taken it.

The meeting then adjourned at precisely 12 noon to the Library, when 5 more members arrived.  Not a single subscriber turned up!  Edwards assured me that this was quite in order.

We then did the whole thing all over again, and elected the Officers and Committee.  Miss Peckover was made President once more, although it is hardly likely that she will ever again attend a meeting.

Then they made a presentation to poor old Edwards – a cheque for £25, as a token of their regard for his 22 years service.  The old fellow was most moved, while I sat gazing down the corridors of time at 1967.  Meeting ended quarter to one.  This is really farcical, and next year we must make some sort of arrangement to have it at a more convenient time.

And now it is nearly midnight, and the war is over.  All day there was an air of expectancy, with the press yelling “any moment now”.  Then at last the announcement came on the radio at 8 p.m. – tomorrow and Wednesday are to be holidays, all shops shut.  The Swifts were very pleased.  There is a total German surrender to all the allies, but the Russian attitude is still not clear.  By this evening there were flags all over the streets, people standing in little groups, people carrying flags, (even quite small Jacks on sticks cost 10/-).  Went into Porper’s bookshop, and a woman came in and said “I think I’ll buy a book – just to celebrate.”

 

And so ends this long and disastrous war, and I find myself alive and well, with a home and my books intact.  But amidst all the rejoicings there must indeed inevitably be sadness – what will the poor firewatchers do now?  What can take the place of those happy hours in the Control Room and Report Centre?

6th May 1945

Sunday

Went to Elm in the afternoon, and saw Warby.  Then to the “Limes” for tea.  Mrs. Coulter very happy about the imminent “peace”, but still a little nervous that even now the Germans may think up some trick or other.  Hundreds of heavy bombers going out as I came home.  Did some writing and to bed at midnight.

5th May 1945

Saturday

Still no news of “peace”, but an air of expectancy in the Market, with everybody anxiously buying in stocks of food as if for a siege rather than to celebrate a victory.  Saw Jones, Deputy Surveyor, who mentioned that the Ministry of Home Security had sent out a circular regarding the recruiting of volunteers for a permanent Civil Defence.  There was no practice siren today.

4th May 1945

Friday

Cold and sunny.  Work on the Annual Report.  ARP still packing, but Penny cannot give any date when they are likely to be clear.

At 11 there was news of a big German surrender in the North, yet tonight the bombers still stream out in the dark.  They may be taking out food, perhaps.

 

Going home through the Park this evening, saw a group of Italians standing by the gate laughing and chattering.  A little wizened man walking towards me looked at them and said “Look at the bastards!  There’ll be some trouble here, when our boys get back from the 8^th Army!  You see if there isn't!  They’ll cut the buggers’ throats for ‘em!” but the Italians kept on laughing and talking, quite unaware that the funny little man a few yards away wished to encompass their violent deaths.

3rd May 1945

Thursday

Bitterly cold, and rain at times, very overcast and dark.  Edwards came, looking worse than ever.

Finished all the notices for the meeting, and Girling came in with the balance sheet, which is a poor piece of work and shows a very unhealthy position.  Grants from Borough and County will be our only hope.  Must work on this.  Don't like W.R. Girling.

Out after tea delivering notices.  The sun was a hazy golden ball behind high thin clouds, and two or three old men and old women were standing by the churchyard railings at the end of Norfolk Street, where they always stand, gossiping in harsh voices.  Had to go along Harecroft Road, past the circus, but no sign of the gypsy and the Pekinese.

 

The ARP men in the basement all day, definitely moving.  Almost impossible to believe.

2nd May 1945

Wednesday

Cold but sunny.  In the papers that Civil Defence Corps “stands down” today.  It was true – Penny was below, packing up papers.  Went to Barton Rd and demanded the return of our table.  Penny asked me to leave the chairs down below a little longer, otherwise they would have nothing to sit on!

Saw a circus moving into the field in Harecroft Road.  A motor van had stuck, and by the side of it stood a very pretty dark gypsy girl holding a can of petrol in one hand and a Pekinese in the other, while a lame man fitted a funnel to the tank.

Old Edwards came in for nearly 2 hours, quite preventing me from working on the stuff for the Annual Meeting.

Rain began this afternoon.  Tonight bombers were going out en masse, perhaps carrying food for the Dutch.  The 9 o’clock news tonight reported a general surrender in Italy, capitulation of an army of over a million men. 

Soon after 10 tonight Jones, Deputy Surveyor called, and was talking about “peace celebrations”.  Apparently there are rifts in the lute – the schools are not going to any parades, and some sections of the Civil Defence won’t go either because they loathe the Controller, Ollard.  All people want to do is to forget about the whole affair.

Air raid alarms are now ended.  How very, very strange that is.  So the alarm on 26 March really was the last.

 

Colchester Gazette came today.  Poor old Smith is dead, at 87.  What a farrier he was, and what a man for the hackneys!  Wrote to Hilda tonight.

1st May 1945

Tuesday

Cold, with bitter wind.  Had a fire in the office.  Miss Thompson furious.  Dealt with an accumulation of letters and sent out the notices for the Annual Meeting.  Papers full of gloating accounts (with photographs) of the murder of Mussolini and his woman.

Sub-Committee, Levers, old Edwards, and Wolton, to consider whether surplus fiction ought to be offered to the County Library.  Decided more or less “no”.

Wrote to Ann, and suggested going in June, cannot manage to get away this month.  Wrote to Cyril Fox about the Mithraeum iron shackles.

After tea went down to the Vicarage paddock.  The trench has cut through the mound near the S. boundary of the field, and reveals that there is a large dyke on the other side.  Nothing but late 17C sherds thrown up so far, a few meat-bones.  The mound is very fragmentary, and seems to run more or less parallel with the field boundary without any signs of returns.

Tonight called at the Swifts’.  Mr and Mrs Jewson were there.  He was in civilian clothes and looked very well.  Said that all prison camps had secret radios (there were three in his) which were dismantled and the parts carried by numbers of men when the camps were moved.  On these radios instructions were received from “secret sources”, he said, but did not seem very willing to say what the instructions were.  Nothing, we hope, against the Geneva Convention.

 

Listening to the radio tonight at 10.30, there came the sudden news that Hitler is dead.  So both the leaders are gone, two men in large part responsible for the most appalling misery known in the world.  Hitler is thought to have committed suicide, but the facts are still obscure.  At 11p.m. came the news that Admiral Donitz at Flensburg has declared himself “Fuhrer”.