MOSELEY MEMORIES
We celebrated the end of World War II twice, five years apart and with very different impacts. 8th May was Victory in Europe Day and our neighbourhood mounted the classic street party, clearly focused on children who had known only the gloom, privation and insidious fear of six years of conflict.
Suddenly, there was an enormous bonfire in front of us and no fear. There were no fireworks, of course, because gunpowder was only available for military uses. As the unfamiliar brightness lit up laughing faces, people pushed potatoes into the ashes and we enjoyed our first ever baked spuds. No butter or salt, of course, but seasoned with woodash. Delicious!
Dining tables and chairs were hauled out to form a line down the middle of Leighton Road, freshly ironed tablecloths spread and crockery hardly used in recent memory laid out. Carefully hoarded provisions were displayed by proud parents who had kept rationed goods in cupboards for months for just this day.
As all over Britain, the continuing war in the east was ignored. Only people with close relatives involved celebrated Victory over Japan Day in August. By then, most civilians just wanted to get on with the peace and a communal injustice took place as some of the worst victims were almost forgotten.
As evening drew on, they brought wood and fallen branches from back gardens and built a great pile at the top of Farquhar Road, where the blank walls of the terrace ends shielded houses on either side.
Five years later, Mickey Tyler told us one day in class 7 that something was going on at Billesley Common. He lived in Third Avenue, off Billesley Lane, and after school a group of us went to his house, where his mother welcomed us with tea and cake, and off we went.
All through the War, nights had been dark, no full streetlights, hooded vehicle lights, heavy blackout curtains covering windows (the Dad’s Army cry of “Put that light out!” was no fiction) and fires meant burning buildings and people dead or injured. COMMUNITY
I had never been there before, but when we got to the Common, it was difficult to believe what we saw. There was a Lancaster bomber, 14
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