VE Day flags fly again
Flags which flew from a Campbeltown home the day the Second World War ended in 1945 were flown once again by the same family on the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (VE Day).
The flags – mostly Union Flags and one Lion Rampant – were originally owned by Martha and Archibald Keith and were flown from their home at Isle View, Shore Street, when Germany’s surrender was formally accepted by Allied Forces on Tuesday May 8, 1945.
This year, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Mr and Mrs Keith's grand-daughter Lesley Bell flew the same flags from her home at Drumore Park, a house which once belonged to the couple.
When Lesley told her mum Maureen Bell, Mr and Mrs Keith’s daughter, she had decorated her home with bunting and flags in honour of the anniversary, Mrs Bell went into her loft and unearthed a pile of about 12 or 13 flags, which included three from VE Day. Mrs Bell thinks the rest of the flags may be from civic week in 1950 and Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Campbeltown in 1958 among other celebrations.
She gave most of the flags to Lesley to add to her display, retaining four flags which lined the drive of her home, Rowantree Cottage, at Drumlemble, which she shares with her husband Walter.
Mrs Bell, who was born in the family’s first floor home at Isle View, said: ‘I don’t like throwing anything out that I think might be of significance so that would be the main reason I held on to the flags.’
It has been a number of years since Mrs Bell last saw the flags. So long, in fact, Lesley didn’t know they existed.
Mrs Bell thinks the last time they were flown may have been at Drumore Park during the Queen’s visit to Campbeltown.
Last weekend, they were proudly flown from the house once more, alongside bunting and other memorabilia, including an RNLI flag in honour of Lesley’s fiancé David Mullen’s service at Campbeltown Lifeboat Station.
Mrs Bell, 81, who was only six on VE Day, said: ‘The only thing that sticks in my mind were all the ships on the loch and their sirens and horns going off. It seemed to be a great noise.
‘With us being on the first floor at Isle View, and with old buildings across from us, we couldn’t see the sea, but we could hear the ships all right.
‘Another thing I remember is that we had film stuck on the panes of the windows that faced onto Shore Street. I think that was to stop the glass from shattering if we got hit. I can remember picking it off at the end of the war.’
Mrs Bell also has memories from the war years during which her dad, who carried out his national service at the end of the First World War, was an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden.
‘My father had two maps on the wall in the sitting room,’ she said. ‘I think one would be of Europe and the other one was a world map and he plotted the progress of the war on it.
‘I remember every time an alarm went off, my mother would grab me and take me to the old lady downstairs and we got under her bed. Father would be away out with the ARP.’
‘I don’t like throwing anything out that I think might be of significance.’