My mother-in-law Betty Ellis didn’t feel much like celebrating on VE Day, eighty years ago. Her husband Bill was still in Italy, south of the River Po, and would soon be posted to North Africa and later to Northern Italy, close to the border with Yugoslavia.
The celebrations came a year later, as Betty and Bill recall in this short extract from a 45 minute cassette tape, which I recorded at the time of the 50th anniversary of VE Day in 1995.
There are a few comments from me and my mum in the background.
Betty lived on Gervaise Road, Horbury. Hagenbach’s baker’s was on the High Street, in the shop which is now the Darling Reads bookshop.
Bill returned to Westgate Station, Wakefield.
My thanks to George Senior, one of her great-grandsons, for restoring the sound quality on this recording.
