BRIGG MAN RECALLS GERMAN SURRENDER & CELEBRATING VE DAY

Former Brigg resident Cliff Turner, now 91 and living in  New Zealand, was serving with the Navy when the Germans surrendered in 1945. Here the ex-Brigg Grammar School pupils recalls VE Day and later VJ Day after Japan had also been defeated, bringing the Second World War to an end...


It was while I was in Roedean that the German surrender took place and 8 May was designated VE Day. We were given the day off and with Stan Redwood and Sammy Mills, from Londonderry in Northern Ireland, I went by train to London to join in the general rejoicing.
I have only a jumbled kaleidoscopic recollection of that day. I am almost certain we went to stand in front of Buckingham Palace for a while and I certainly recall sitting in the back of an army lorry in Trafalgar Square. We also partook of liquid refreshment during the day and somehow ended up sleeping on benches in Hyde Park. In the cold light of dawn three scruffy footsore young men walked to Hyde Park Corner, past Buckingham Palace and on to Victoria Station to catch the train for Brighton.
Soon after VE Day I saw an ATS girl in a services canteen and thought I recognised her as Jill Chuter who came from Greetwell Cross Roads near Brigg and on asking her that proved to be true. We had a few dates in Brighton and when I was moved to Eastbourne she came for a symphony concert conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961), a very flamboyant character who spent much of his own fortune promoting music in Britain. The fortune came from his father who invented Beecham's pills, widely regarded as a panacea. The programme included Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and Delius' Walk to the Paradise Garden from A Village Romeo and Juliet.
After the concert we walked to Beachy Head and then went for a genteel tea which was totally unsatisfying so I asked Jill if she would like to go to Jax Snax, a rather rough cafe which served egg and chips for a very reasonable one shilling and ninepence. This turned out to be the last time I saw her as she wrote soon afterwards saying that she did not wish to continue our chaste friendship.
It was during this time at Eastbourne that one of our number, “Nellie” Wallis, came into the mess room and said he had just heard on the radio that the Americans had dropped a new kind of bomb on Japan. Within days the Japanese had, as their Emperor put it, “to endure the unendurable” and surrender unconditionally on 15 August 1945.
Some of the time near Brighton was spent a short distance from Roedean at St Dunstan's Home for the Blind which had also been requisitioned by the navy. This was closer to Rottingdean, an attractive village in which Rudyard Kipling lived for a while.
Later we returned to HMS Vernon in Portsmouth for a course on torpedoes which then came under the electrical branch. During this time I tried to get out of the navy without success and in the autumn of 1945 I was drafted to HMS Birmingham which was in Portsmouth Dockyard. The Birmingham was a six-inch gun cruiser built in about 1936. She had been damaged by a torpedo in the Mediterranean and went to the Norfolk, Virginia, naval dockyard in America for repairs. Many of my new mess-mates had been on her when she was damaged; three of them were ex-Torpoint boys who I had known earlier although they were all ahead of me.
Although I was still only a leading rate, the mess I was put into, called the Artisans Mess, also had people who were petty officers and we all got our rum ration neat instead of the two parts water to one part rum to which I had until then been accustomed.
The Chief Electrical Artificer was not a very nice man, but fortunately his 12 year engagement expired a few weeks later and he elected to leave the navy. His replacement was Ron Botterill who took a shine to me and he was still with the Birmingham when I left her more than three years later, when I had become the "oldest inhabitant".
My first ocean going trip was of short duration - from Portsmouth to Portland Harbour in Dorset. I found it exhilarating. Portland Harbour was the base for the Home Fleet; there were no jetties, all the ships were anchored out in the harbour and a trip ashore to Weymouth meant a trip in a liberty boat. I know I went ashore a few times but remember absolutely nothing about the place; I cannot remember even one street or pub name. Soon after arriving there I went on a month's "end of war" leave which was given to all servicemen who were not "hostilities only" personnel.
A month's leave in November was not a very exciting prospect but despite my protest I had no option but to take it and I spent most, if not all, of it in Brigg. My chief recollections of the leave are of finding a vast quantity of mushrooms in a field at the bottom of Westrum Lane and putting a hand on a live electric fence in the same field.
We had occasional days at sea doing gunnery practice but it was soon time for Christmas or New Year leave. Half the ship's company had two weeks’ leave over Christmas and the other half had leave which embraced the New Year. Scottish crew members preferred New Year or, as they called it, "Hogmanay".
I received an undeserved Christmas present from King Christian of Denmark. The Birmingham was the first Allied warship to enter Copenhagen harbour after the German surrender. The king arranged for a parcel of Danish butter, bacon and cheese to be delivered to the homes of the ship’s crew. I had not been on the ship at that time but was included in the bounty.

More memories from Cliff to come on Brigg Blog...