AS the daylight waned on Monday May 7, 1945, people across Bury gathered round their radios to hear a long awaited announcement.
After almost six long years the war in Europe had at last come to a victorious end.
A news flash interrupted the BBC’s scheduled programming to declare that Germany had surrendered, and the following day would be a national holiday — Victory in Europe Day.
Crowds flooded the town as the joyous news circulated. And although transport stopped two hours after the broadcast, people flocked into Bury on foot.
Pubs, cinemas and dance halls were filled to bursting with the elated, and opened at least an hour longer than usual.
Newspaper sellers were swamped by queues of people eager to purchase a Victory edition souvenir.
Joyous groups with beaming smiles and buttonholes regaled in red, white and blue, congregated to discuss the news.
Workers linked arms and sang, and in the streets a soldier was seen jitterbugging to a throng of flag-waving, dressed-up “urchins”, who sat on the pavement edge and loudly chorused the Tin Pan Alley hit, Alexander’s Ragtime Band.
Amid the jubilation, however, Bury took the announcement in modesty and “a sober mood of thanksgiving”.
Churches of all denominations filled with worshippers, and hourly services were held throughout the day, as people gave thanks for the Allied victory, and remembered “with deep thankfulness” those who would not return from the war.
The Bury Times, published the day after VE Day, reported: “After a weekend of tense waiting, the announcement was an anti-climax, and as if by magic, the town suddenly blossomed with flags of all shapes, sizes and colours.
“There were no scenes of wild rejoicing on Monday night, but everywhere was an atmosphere of exhilaration and ‘this is really it attitude’ that people were trying to fully realise.”
As VE Day dawned, celebrations began in earnest. Although the weather was sadly against them, and rain kept many who would have swelled the crowds indoors.
Nonetheless, workers left their mills and offices shortly after arriving, and mingled with troops stationed in the town as they joined they holiday.
Most mills and workplaces were bedecked in decorations, with some of the most spectacular displays said to have been at the Ferranti’s works.
One Bury shopkeeper erected a window display of photographs of customers’ relatives who were serving in the armed forces, entitled “Here are a few of Bury’s boys and girls who have made victory possible”.
After opening to sell bread and rationed goods to housewives, shopkeepers shut up shop to join the Victory celebrations, and most cafes were closed.
Schoolchildren were granted a week-long holiday and joined their neighbours and friends in street parties.
“For the housewife, it was a day on which rationing and meal problems for once did not matter, and for the worker, a rest from five and half years of steady toil for the war effort,” the Bury Times read.
At the Parish Church, the Mayor of Bury attended a special evening thanksgiving service, and church bells around the borough rang in peals.
Flags and bunting waved across the town. Streets were lit in a brightness not seen since before the outbreak of the war. And buildings ‘shone cheerfully, symbolising the hope of brighter future”.
Bury’s Rock fire station was floodlit — as was Tottington war memorial, and bunting was set flying in many of its main streets.
Festivities also took a form reminiscent of a Guy Fawkes Night revelry, with a “life-size” effigy of Adolf Hitler taking the place of the infamous gunpowder plotter, as it was hung in Georgina Street.
Bonfires were lit in the surrounding districts, like “beacons of light remarking the great victory of the Allies”, and fireworks that had been put aside since 1939 were said to have been in great demand.
Celebratory sports events were arranged across the borough for the day after VE Day.
Bury and Ramsbottom cricket teams met for a victory match at the Sports Club, and mixed foursome competitions were held at the Lowes Park and Greenmount Golf Clubs in the afternoon.
On the Sunday a victory parade was held, featuring members of every organisation, including ex-servicemen, workers and Town Council and Corporation officials.
And at Walmersley Church, the following week, Reverend E B Jones, of Holcombe View, Bury — a forces chaplain who had been a prisoner of war for almost four years — preached at the evening service before members of the congregation, the Home Guard, and Civil Defence services.
VE Day was a new beginning for the people of Bury, not least for the hundreds of evacuees who had been removed to the borough.
Children, mothers, and teachers sent from the Channel Islands continued to filter back to their homes, following the archipelago’s recent liberation from Nazi control.
While Bury’s billeting office drew up plans to return the 2,442 V-bomb evacuees, sent to Bury the previous summer, back to London and the South of England, which would begin the following month.
A few weeks after VE Day, Whitsuntide Walks brought colour and celebration to Bury once again, and when the July holidays arrived an extra ‘V’ day was added.
Special holiday trains and coach trips were organised to Blackpool and the countryside. And in Bury a programme of festivities were laid on, including a fun fair in Rochdale Park Road.
But while the war in Europe was over, the conflict in the Far East against Japan raged on.
For at least 80 people in the town, who were the relatives of prisoners of war in Japanese captivity since 1941, VE Day was said to have been “a milestone and not the end”.
Hundreds more families were still praying for the safe return home of sons, fathers, and relatives fighting in East.
In the end it would be three more months before the Japanese surrendered and the final, somewhat sudden victory arrived on September 2.
Although it would take years for Britain to surmount the political, social and economic repercussions of the Second World War, on May 8, 1945, at least, Bury could at last ‘breathe more feely again’, and prepared to move onto the next battle — “the winning of the peace”.
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