Eastbourne care home resident shares her VE Day memories of dancing through the streets of London

The 75-year-old diary of 91-year-old Irene Goddard has helped to bring back wartime memories on the anniversary of VE Day.

Irene was a teenager when the war in Europe came to an end on May 8, 1945. With dreams of being a journalist, she kept a diary which provided fascinating insight into the day for staff at Beechwood Grove Care Home on East Dean Road.

Irene lives with dementia and music is often key in connecting her to comforting memories. Her diary showed Irene’s love of music has been long held and on the night of VE day she enjoyed dancing to the Hoki Koki and Knees Up Mother Brown as she revelled with the crowds in central London.

Caroline Braime, home manager, said: “She wrote very well for a 16-year-old and she really captures the excitement of the day.

“It’s also been a really useful point of reference to be able to reminisce with other residents who also have memories of the day.”

Beechwood Grove provides residential, nursing, memory and respite care for up to 60 people.

The VE Day celebrations included Winston Churchill’s 1945 speech, a fillet steak lunch with a VE Day cake and a wartime music sing-a-long.

Irene’s diary was shared with staff at the home by Irene’s four children; Hilary, Mark, Janey and Kay.

“Mum had always told us she went to Trafalgar Square but it’s been amazing to read her account of it. We used to think her diaries were just a bit of fun when we were children but we realise now how well she wrote.”

Irene lived in the suburbs of London and described the capital’s streets as being drab, bomb-scarred and dirty. But on VE Day she wrote how they had been transformed into ‘romantic wonderlands’ and ‘London once more became a city of beauty’.

“The whole city of London went mad!” she wrote. “The everyday sober, stay-at-home was clinging to a lamp post six foot above everyone else in Piccadilly Circus.”

She describes how she and five friends joined the crowds outside Buckingham Palace, where the chant, ‘We want the King!’ brought the Monarch and his family out onto the balcony. “Then the cheers broke out,” she wrote, “deafening to the ear, and the crowds surged nearer to the gate and yelled “Where is he? I can’t see him! Lift me up someone!”

Her diary records Admiralty Arch being ‘the prettiest sight that night’ and how men on top of the arch lit fireworks. Searchlights played upon the surrounding buildings and she noted a soldier ‘stripped to the waist, his back plastered in lipstick,’ was leading the crowds in a song.

Her party of friends were enjoying the celebrations so much they missed their last tube home and were almost forced to walk the whole way until they spotted an army lorry that they could jump into.

“We were deposited very near our homes,” wrote Irene. “I crawled into bed at 3 o’clock in the morning and was never so pleased to sleep.”

Irene didn’t follow her dream of being a journalist but instead became one of the first NHS nurses and worked at the Westminster Opthalmic Hospital.

Kay added: “We’re looking forward to when the lockdown is over and we can visit mum, but we also want to go and see my sister to read more of Mum’s memories.

“There’s a lot about what we had for dinner and where we went on holiday but there will be more historical events that she’ll have recorded.”