Joy as Scots mark end of the war
parts of the country, while a total of 20 people had died and 210 injured in Edinburgh on account of the Luftwaffe’s bombs.
Nevertheless, the city’s spirit was strong and scenes of jubilation broke out as news filtered through that the Allies were victorious in the war in Europe.
Edinburgh’s celebrations began on the evening of 7 May, in advance of official proceedings, with war-weary locals gathering all the spare wood and combustible rubbish they could get their hands on to feed huge bonfires across the city.
Old Town “bairns” took “full advantage” of the permission to light bonfires, The Scotsman recorded. Canongate children built a large fire near the entrance to Holyrood Palace where people danced to the music of the concertina.
The following day – VE Day – witnessed an outpouring of joy in central Edinburgh.
Council leaders hosted a rather sedate official recognition of the end of the war in Europe at the City Chambers and Mercat Cross, where the Dean of the Thistle read the 76th Psalm, which had previously formed part of a service held in the same place in 1588 to mark victory over the Spanish Armada.
The city’s unofficial celebrations, however, were considerably more raucous.
May 8 and 9 were declared public holidays to mark the victory. Thousands of servicemen and women, factory workers, shop workers and others took to the streets to dance, parade and sing together as one.
With energy restrictions still very much in place, the city was denied the “crowning glory” of a flood-lit Edinburgh Castle, but the people more than made up for it by the noise they generated.
On the Sunday, Edinburgh witnessed one of its greatest ever crowds for the Thanksgiving Parade, with 3,000 men and women, representing the Services, Civil Defence workers, war workers and youth organisations, marching the length of Princes Street. At Stockbridge’s colonies and elsewhere, locals assembled long trestle tables, decorated buildings in flags and bunting and ate, danced and sang to their hearts content.
One Glenogle Road, resident recalled: “The children were all in one street for their tea and in the evening we waltzed in the street.”
Another said: “When the war finished, everybody made for Princes Street. It was absolutely packed. You could hardly move in it with the people singing and the jollification ... everybody was high on the fact that the war in Europe had ended.”