Quorn’s VE Day 80 Anniversary Commemorations 2025 - Memories Book

From the 4th until 14th May 2025 St Bartholomew’s United Church hosted a VE Day Exhibition. It coincided with a Service of commemoration and open church held on the 4th and a Church open day on the 10th. A Memories Book was placed in the church and visitors were invited to share their memories. The following is the transcribed collection of those memories.

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Christine Baum is now Christine Cox. Christine appeared in a photograph at a Freehold Street party held 1945. Christine wrote the following:

“The Christine Baum in the photograph is me. I lived with my Granny in Freehold Street for a while after I was evacuated out of Birmingham where I was born, because of the bombing. I was 3 when I was evacuated as our house in Birmingham did receive some bomb damage and my father decided it was no longer safe for us to stay there. Both Mum and Dad were local people, Mum being born in Barrow and Dad in Mountsorrel, but he wanted to join the police force, and they would not have him in the Leicestershire police as he was not quite tall enough, so he applied to the Birmingham force and was accepted. The family moved down there to live, Mum, Dad and my brother.

I was not born then and was born in Birmingham in 1938. (I was a bit of a shock to them as Mum was nearly 40 years old!) We lived with Granny Rue in Freehold Street but as it was a very small house my brother had to go to live in Mansfield Street with the Bumpus family. Mum went to work in Wright's factory and Granny looked after me. I think I led her a bit of a dance (I expect she complained to Mum when she came home from the factory!).

Eventually Dad had a bad accident whilst at work and he was invalided out and came to live with us in Quorn, eventually buying a house in Orchard Estate and then in Nursery Lane where he set up a market garden and Mum branched out into floristry making wedding bouquets and funeral wreaths. The house was always full of flowers being made up which is why I don't like flowers, I had had enough of them!

Sadly, neither my Granny nor my mother are on the photo, I don't know why as I am sure they were there. I must say I can't remember a lot about the party, I remember living in Freehold Street and what a happy time it was for me, playing with the other children and paddling in the river at the bottom of the street!”

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Patricia (Pat) Marchant lived in Burley in the New Forest and is now aged 94. Pat dictated the following to her son Dennis Marchant on 2nd May 2025:

“I remember VE day because in the evening there was a dance in the Village Hall. All the lights were on! And there were balloons everywhere. I was 15 years old and worked as a house maid. Brian my boyfriend was also 15 and worked on the golf course. He would later be my husband. We’d both left school at 14. He was there, as was my sister Betty and a lot of troops including ‘yanks’. Sylvia was a Land Army girl who lived and worked on a farm near me. She was there with her friends. The band was called ‘Les Semesters Orchestra’ and were popular. I remember there was juice, lemon and orange and coke! We had to be home by 9pm! At home there wasn’t too much celebrating as my brothers Charlie and Jim were still away in the Navy and my elder sister was in the RAF.”

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Sally Rue (nee Lord) wrote on 7th May 2025:

“VE Day was very poignant. There are no winners in war. There was joy and relief that hostilities were over but so much was destroyed and so many lives lost. Many service people did not return home, and my father was one of them. He returned from his honeymoon on the Isle of Man in September 1939 and volunteered for the RAF and became a navigator. He flew through the war until January 1945 and then was reported missing in a Wellington Bomber, later presumed dead.

We were Londoners and lost our home in a bombing raid having endured night after night of air raids. We were consequently homeless.

Eventually, my mother and I moved to Leicester near to the Golden Mile as its now known. We lived with my aunt, uncle and cousin [a very handsome boy] !!!

To celebrate freedom is the greatest joy but is accompanied with much sadness. The effect of which is felt by future generations.

Hence VE Day evokes mixed emotions for me and many people. On one hand I lost my father but on the other hand I would not have met my husband which was a blessing!”

My mother married Jack Lord in 1948. He was an active member of St Bartholomew’s - church warden, etc and enthusiastic Scout Leader.”

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Kate Hutchinson wrote:

“I was 12 on VE Day and although there was enormous relief in our family and village, my elder brother was in hospital recovering from his wounds when driving a tank in the battle of Arnheim so celebrations were muted.

I remember VJ more, I was in Doncaster staying with Aunty Gladys and Uncle Fred and we had an enormous street party there. My cousin Douglas was in the navy on convoys and has no known grave at sea.”

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Ann Greasley recalled:

“My husband Owen, remembered playing on Wood Lane, and the Americans in their jeeps would throw boxes of ‘chewing gum’ out for them, they’d never tasted it before!”

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Irene Bishop’s memories were told to Heulwen Howells in May 2025:

“I was 12 years old when the war ended. My brother and I lived In Mansfield Street with my parents. I was born in Gotham and moved to Quorn when I was nine. I remember the American Soldiers based in their camp in Wood Lane and they always seemed to have so much money. They would use a note to buy fish and chips and never wanted the change back. The fish and chip shop was called the Majestic and it was run by the parents of Rev. Harold Adkins. The Americans were very friendly and would give us chewing gum and doughnuts.

My friend, Tom Pick told me that he went to the camp on Wood Lane where the Americans would pass money through the fence for him to go shopping for them. Some women from the village took in washing for the Americans.

I used to walk to Humphrey Perkins school in Barrow with my friend Betty and we lwould often see the Americans with large containers of beer (they actually looked like petrol cans!) sitting under the trees, relaxing and drinking, because they weren’t allowed to drink in the camp. I also remember the Italian prisoners of war - they used to come round to collect the rubbish - they were the bin men!

There were so many in uniform in Quorn during the war, the Americans on Wood Lane, the Navy in Quorn Hall and the ATS billeted in the Old Bulls Head. I made friends with one of the ATS girls, Eleanor, and I continued to write to her for some time after she left Quorn.

I always loved parties and dancing but, VE Day itself was not really memorable, as so many had gone to London for the big celebration. Still, we had bunting put up, street parties in Farnham Street and Mansfield Street and there was dancing in Station Road. There was also a church service which we had to go to, as most people went to church back then - it was what we did”.

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Helen Shacklock wrote:

“VE Day. Pauline Genders and Raymond Shacklock - My parents went to London for the day on VE Day 8th May 1945. London was very familiar to my mother, so it seemed a natural place for them to choose. My mother mentioned walking around enjoying the atmosphere and the crowds.

They met during the second world war after my mother’s family moved to Loughborough in the middle of the London blitz. They married in January 1946 living first in Cossington and then moving to Quorn in 1961. My mother’s home was at Chislehurst, Kent, and in September 1940, the Battle of Britain was followed by the nightly bombing of London. Chislehurst was part of the last line of defence of London and many anti-aircraft guns were concealed among the trees on Chislehurst common. After several weeks, during which time they had three bombs within fifty yards of their house, the place of work of her father, Reginald Genders, was badly damaged. He was engaged on metallurgical research for the Government and had already been negotiating to take over some laboratories belonging to Loughborough College to carry on his work. (He had been awarded an MBE in January 1920 for work connected with the first world war.) The Genders rented a house in Loughborough and my mother remembered the uncanny quiet of the first night there away from the air raids.

My mother, Pauline, took a job at the Brush where she met my father, Raymond. At the time of the second world war the factory in Nottingham Road, Loughborough worked with Airwork to repair and construct aircraft. Both parents had wanted to go into the Services but workers at the Brush were considered ‘reserved occupation’ and refused permission

to join the services. Later when her parents returned to Kent Pauline stayed in Loughborough and was secretary to Maurice Fiennes, grandfather of Ralph Fiennes.

My father, Walter Raymond Shacklock, always known as Raymond, was originally from Nottingham, but had lived in Loughborough for a short time between 1926 and 1932, when his father was Departmental manager of I and R Morley’s factory in Loughborough. He went into engineering after leaving school, serving an apprenticeship with the Brush company in Loughborough, combined with training at Loughborough College. He remained with the Brush company during the second World War serving with the Home Guard, which among other things, meant manning an anti-aircraft gun on Wilford Hill for one night a week, part of the defences of Nottingham. Later he served as a Corporal with Home Guard Intelligence whose Headquarters were at Garendon Hall, Loughborough.

On VE Day, my mother’s brother, Basil, and cousin Sydney and my father’s brother, Victor, were still away and so for our family the war was not over, and it was still a worrying time. They were not even home for VJ day on 15th August 1945. Victor served in Burma attached to a Signals unit with the West Africa regiment and was mentioned in Despatches. Basil was in the Royal marines on HMS Swiftsure, part of the British Pacific fleet. On 30th August 1945 they entered Hong Kong and took part in the formal acceptance of the Japanese surrender. They then arrived in Nagasaki as part of the British Commonwealth occupation force in Japan and saw at first hand the devastation caused by the atom bomb on August 9th.

Sydney, who was in the Royal Navy, took part in the D Day landings on Juno beach then in November 1944 was drafted to HMS King Alfred for updated training for the Far east and the Pacific.”

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