VICTORY IN EUROPE An era defin

Some of those who joined in momentous day share memories

Perth and remembers the “streets being packed” on VE Day.

He added: “I was young and don’t remember much about VE Day, but I knew there was something happening.

“I thought we’d been invaded there was that much noise!

“I remember people celebrating in their gardens and coming out of their houses. Everybody was happy and thinking ‘thank God for that.’”

The sense of relief was palatable right across the country.

Eighty-nine-year old Ann Millar (89) has lived in Perth for many years and, like Norman, is a resident at Balhousie North Inch North Grove care home.

Originally from Hounslow near Windsor Castle, Ann was an evacuee during the war and was sent to Wales with her older brother to live with relatives for a year.

On May 8, 1945, at the age of 15, she was invited to travel to London with her school friend and her father to celebrate VE Day, and ended up looking on a rather famous building.

“We took the underground into the centre of London and walked through all the crowds up the Mall to Buckingham Palace and stood there and cheered like mad,” she recalls.

“Everyone was so happy and excited. They all sang this wee ditty: ‘1, 2, 3, 4. Who does he think we’re waiting for? 5, 6, 7, 8. King George is always late!’

“Everyone sang that while we waited for the King and Queen and the little princesses.

“We were near the front and saw them beautifully on the balcony.”

Ann came to live in Perth when she met her husband, a minister, at church in Hounslow. It was love at first sight and they married in 1956 and moved to Scotland, but the memory of that momentous day has not dimmed.

Also in the London crowd on May 8, 1945 was Jane Ewart-Evans, a resident at Balhousie Dalnaglar care home in Crieff.

Jane, who will be 100 later this year, was then 24-year-old Jane BM MeadeMiller.

Along with her sister Diana, the pair would have blended in with the cheering crowd, with those around them oblivious to the momentous role they had played in ending the war.

Jane and Diana were part of a team of codebreakers at Bletchly Park, who are often said to have shortened World War II by two years.

Born in Calgary originally, Jane travelled to the UK in 1932. She went on to teach English for a family in Berlin where she learnt to speak some German, only returning home to England before the war broke out in Europe. Then in