A Joyous Uproar with Similes of Pachyderms - Ruth Heppel's Account of VE Day 1945 by Griselda Heppel
Now THIS is what I should have posted last month, just ahead of the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8th May, and if I’d been more switched on (and less distracted by the disturbingly named Mandela effect), I would have done. Still, we’re only a few days away from celebrating the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings on 5th June, 1944, so very much still in the remembering mode, in which eye witness accounts have increasing value as that generation passes away altogether.
We were regaled part of the time by an airman who had climbed up one of the lamp standards and was having a wonderful time with a bottle of milk. A bearded sailor climbed up one at the other side of the road & was doing the maddest things such as hanging on with his legs & waving his arms about shouting ribald remarks to the airman. The airman was joined on his lamp-post by another one who started fighting, about 15 feet above the ground, over the milk-bottle during which time its contents anointed the heads of the crowd freely below. Finally they dropped it and a policeman made his presence felt so they had to come down. The cries by this time were “We want Winnie” “W.I.N.S.T.O.N.C.H.U.R.C.H.I.L.L – Winston Churchill!” And “Oh why are we waiting” to the tune of “O Come all ye faithfull”. At 10.15 when it was getting really dark the floodlights were lit, and all the flags shone like billyo & were reflected in the windows. Winny came out at last at 10.45. He was received with the usual cheers etc. and made quite a long speech about ‘good old London… wonderful cockneys…. Rotten Germans etc’ . He said London had remained firm as a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros, and ended up by repeating the first verse of “Rule Britannia” & conducting us in the chorus. Finally he went in, so we walked down to Trafalgar Square to see the flood lighting. It was lit like daylight and really looked tremendous. There were red white & blue lights as well which were all reflected in the water…There were necking couples everywhere – everywhere, one almost fell over them…. We got home finally at 1.30 in the morning.
Going through the papers left by my late mother, Ruth Heppel, I found all the letters she wrote to her elder brother and sister-in-law in India during the Second World War. As a portrait of a teenager living through the Blitz (her home was bombed twice and the family had to be rehoused), they make a fascinating record; but what stands out is the one dated 10th May 1945, in which Ruth, by then a 19 year-old art student, gives an astonishingly vivid account of the VE Day celebrations in London. The joyous uproar she describes she then also recorded in a glorious pen and watercolour painting. The whole letter (six pages!) is too long to include in full* but here’s an extract describing 9th May 1945:
... I went up with [a friend] last night again and we went to Buck Palace. We had a very good position & the crowd wasn’t a bit squashed this time. We had to wait 1 ½ hours before they came. Meanwhile there were cries of “We want the King”, “We want George”, “Where’s George”, “We want Lizzie” “Come out, come out wherever you are” etc etc.
As soon as it got really well organized the band started playing & drowned the shouts, but as soon as they had finished the crowd started off again. Hand-bells were being rung all round & rattles by the dozen….. People were perched everywhere – all over the Victoria Memorial, on the lions & statues all round. The latter needless to say had beards & slogans & things all over them. However they came at last plus the Princesses & they all waved & smiled while the mass went mad with joy. After they had gone we walked back via St James’s Park to Whitehall. Several processions of nothing at all started up & marched arm in arm all down the road. When we arrived at Whitehall we joined the crowd, and just by pure luck, even though we were among the last to arrive, Winston passed just by us, sitting on the roof of his car waving his hat & puffing at his cigar. After that we waited at the M of Health building for 2 hours for him to come out again. The populace had really got worked up by this time & we sang anything and everything from Roll Out the Barrel to Land of Hope & Glory.
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| VE Day 1945 by Ruth Heppel |
We were regaled part of the time by an airman who had climbed up one of the lamp standards and was having a wonderful time with a bottle of milk. A bearded sailor climbed up one at the other side of the road & was doing the maddest things such as hanging on with his legs & waving his arms about shouting ribald remarks to the airman. The airman was joined on his lamp-post by another one who started fighting, about 15 feet above the ground, over the milk-bottle during which time its contents anointed the heads of the crowd freely below. Finally they dropped it and a policeman made his presence felt so they had to come down. The cries by this time were “We want Winnie” “W.I.N.S.T.O.N.C.H.U.R.C.H.I.L.L – Winston Churchill!” And “Oh why are we waiting” to the tune of “O Come all ye faithfull”. At 10.15 when it was getting really dark the floodlights were lit, and all the flags shone like billyo & were reflected in the windows. Winny came out at last at 10.45. He was received with the usual cheers etc. and made quite a long speech about ‘good old London… wonderful cockneys…. Rotten Germans etc’ . He said London had remained firm as a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros, and ended up by repeating the first verse of “Rule Britannia” & conducting us in the chorus. Finally he went in, so we walked down to Trafalgar Square to see the flood lighting. It was lit like daylight and really looked tremendous. There were red white & blue lights as well which were all reflected in the water…There were necking couples everywhere – everywhere, one almost fell over them…. We got home finally at 1.30 in the morning.
I will always treasure the vision of Churchill comparing Londoners to a couple of pachyderms.
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| Hippopotamus or Londoner? Hmm Photo by Follow Alice https://www.pexels.com/photo/ black-hippopotamus-on-green-grass-667201/ |
*The letter can be found in full on the IWM linked website, Letters to Loved Ones and also on my blog Griselda Heppel
Find out more about Griselda Heppel here:
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Comments
Soon these things that were our parents' lives will have passed away with our memories of them. We can write powerful remembrance pieces as you have done here and it doesn't really matter that the month had passed. My own piece about the war's meaning for my parents just came into my head.
We write about what we know with photographs and accounts that we have stored up, very effectively in your case, and from a completely different angle to my own blog for next month, although it concerns the same war.