Today, on the 75th anniversary of VE Day, I would like to share with you some details of how Scots welcomed the end of the war in Europe:
In early May 1945, the news that
Hitler was dead began to filter across Europe. Even in the days before Prime
Minister Winston Churchill announced the official end to the war in Europe, and
designated 8 May as a day of celebration, Scots had begun their revelry.
Throughout Glasgow, residents rushed to decorate their homes with flags, local
businesses hung fairy lights and tassels in their store windows, and the
University was said to have erected poles for floodlights, in eager
anticipation of the end of blackout measures. One Glaswegian noted that in the
city flag poles had been erected ‘all over the place’, and Dumbarton Road was
ablaze with colour, as flags were showing in most windows. ‘Union Jacks were
first favourites with Scottish Lions a good second’, she commented. Another woman
also spotted ‘such curiosities’ as a dog with Union Jacks on his tail and
collar, and a child of 5 being pulled down the road on a little horse on
wheels, ‘gaily bedecked’ with flags.
On May 7, peace was finally
announced, and celebrations began in earnest. People began to throng the
streets, and across cities the noise of fireworks, gunshots, shouts, and
steamer hooters could be heard late into the night. One charwoman told her
employer she had heard dancing and singing outside her window in central
Glasgow until all hours of the night, ‘mostly patriotic Scottish songs’. The
following day, Victory in Europe (VE) Day, many Scottish people still had to go
to work, but at night in the evening the revelry began again. Scots crowded the
city centres, singing and dancing until the wee sma’ hours. ‘There won’t be
enough beer to go round!’ grinned one soldier travelling through Edinburgh.
In Glasgow, ‘innumerable’ bonfires were
lit in the streets, as locals reported seeing fireworks and houses beautifully
decorated with fairy lights. Light had much significance to Scots, as they had
been living under blackout conditions for nearly six years. Regulations had
required everyone in Britain to block all light from showing outside their
houses at night, even a crack of light could see you arrested, and most outdoor
light had to be extinguished too. Light was also poignant for other reasons –
as one Glaswegian noted on VE night, the light reminded her of the Clydebank
Blitz in March 1941:
‘I could see
nothing from my window but a little twinkle through the trees and a faint red
glow in the sky – very different from the bright red glow in the sky on that
cold March night when all Clydebank was ablaze and the smoky flames of the oil
tanks leapt up in the moonlight. Thank God we’ll never see that again and all
the desolation that followed it.’
This is a good reminder that end of
war brought complex emotions for many Scots. In Glasgow, VE Day dawned rainy
and miserable, and one lady commented to her colleague, ‘This’ll match some
folks tears, don’t you think? There must be some people feeling pretty sad
today who have lost their men.’ Others agreed that it felt strange to be
celebrating while the war in the Far East still raged, and ‘our boys are still
away’. To add to this, many Scots were anxious about what would happen after
the war, especially when the period after the Great War had brought mass
unemployment and severe economic depression to Scotland, and life had been very
difficult for veterans.
The war had also dragged on for
years more than the public had anticipated, and by 1945 Scottish enthusiasm for
the war had begun to wane. In the first few months of 1943, a
wave of Allied successes in Italy and Russia, and a damaging campaign of air
raids on Hamburg made a significant impact on public spirits. Investigations
into public morale found that many believed war would be over by the end of
1943. As we know, this did not happen. After the Allied landings at Normandy in
June 1944, public spirits again rose, and throughout the summer, reports noted ‘spirits
continue to soar higher than ever … the wave of optimism grows. The great
majority believe the war is nearly over … many think it only a matter of weeks
now, some of days.’ Again, when peace still had not been declared by the end of
1944, the high morale trailed off.
Optimism about war’s end was
not the only marker of morale, though. For Scots on the home front, many
forms of leisure continued throughout war, which must have helped to keep
spirits up. Football, boxing, greyhound racing, and sports galas, among other
such events, continued to be held in Scotland between 1939 and 1945. In some cases,
attendance regulations were relaxed for big events, such as a Rangers v Celtic
match in September 1942, attended by 37,254 fans, and in April 1943 England played
Scotland at Hampden Park, watched by a crowd of 105,000. Unfortunately,
Scotland lost 0-4.
Multiple theatre and ballet
companies also toured Scotland, and many large museums and art galleries
continued to hold lectures and exhibitions. Scottish galleries and museums were
not left completely unaffected by war, though. In Glasgow and Edinburgh large
facilities chose to send their most valuable items to country houses for
safe-keeping. In the case of Kelvingrove, in Glasgow, this was a fortuitous
move, as the facility was badly hit in the 1941 Blitz and suffered ‘extensive
damage’, losing many of its windows to blast damage.
The existence of wartime comforts
may not have hidden the underlying sense of anxiety and uncertainty brought by
a global crisis, as those of us living through the Covid-19 pandemic know well.
Most of the Scots whose diaries I have access to felt a complex range of
emotions on learning that the war in Europe had ended. Most
felt relief, rather than jubilation, as the previous years had been fraught
with tension, and many times before their hopes had been dashed. Some also had
loved ones in the military who were still at war in the Far East. While the
singing crowds, street bonfires, and flags in windows were testament to
Scottish feelings about peace, there were many others who celebrated quietly.
Miss O. from Glasgow lay awake in bed on VE night, overwhelmed with ‘a profound
sense of relief, of happiness, and of general bewonderment that out of the
terrific happenings in Europe, our home, our town, our nation had escaped.’
