V-E Day Through a Child's Eyes in Aberdeen

I was three years old at V-E Day, but my memories of it are as strong as if I had been older.

My mother and I were living with my mother' s sister and her three children in Aberdeen while the men were all away at the war. As all other families had done, we had gone through the experiences of civilians - blackouts, shelters, bombing raids, rationing - and survived in a street where the neighbours had helped each other cheerfully and created a closeknit society.

On this particular day, there was noise and disturbance in the street. I wanted to see, but I was too short to look out of the window. My eldest cousin lifted me, and I was amazed at the sight of the entire street festooned with bunting and Union Jacks. From every house window, a patriotic flag was waving. I had no idea why the excitement, but there was a flurry of it in our house too. Where was our flag? Sure enough, we had one.

My uncle was in the British Army and had been sent to Murmansk as part of a liaison supply team to help the Soviet Russian war effort. At one time when he was home on leave, he had brough some souvenirs. We had a flag! We proudly hung the hammer and sickle, the red flag of the Soviet Union, and one of our allies at the time, out the front upstairs window.

We used to joke during the Cold War that, if the communists took over, we would be covered because of our display on Wednesday, 8th May 1945.

However, the contributor doesn't know what happened to that flag.