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I was born in the then rural Essex village of South Woodham Ferrers in 1944 and therefore have no personal memories of the war or VE/VJ day in 1945.
I did have two older brothers who both lived through the period and recall some of their comments in the immediate post war years. My father was too old for the armed services and spent the war years away from his trade, working in the Marconi Factory in Chelmsford producing equipment for the forces. It was only in 1945 that he returned to his occupation as a coach painter. I remember him saying how people from the village would cycle the 10 miles each way to Chelmsford with no lights on their bikes.

Our village (it is now a town with a population of 20000) was on the River Crouch which flowed to the East Coast and my brothers used to tell stories of how our troops would arrive in the village on the warning of an enemy attack and tanks would be seen going past our house on their way to the estuary of the river. Even after the war I remember the remains of the search light station on the hill in Top Barn Lane.

Both Mum and Dad would tell tales of the locals who had access to the ‘black market’ for illicit supplies of everything from clothes and petrol to fresh food, especially meat. The American forces had a number of bases in Essex and again there were stories of the ‘loose morals’ of certain local females! In the late 1940’s as children we mostly played war games, which meant attacking the Germans! There also seemed to be an unlimited supply of rubber Gas Masks (like divers helmets) of varying sizes that had been issued but not used during the war.

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