The War’s Over!
Shortly after the war in Europe ended on 8 May 1945, I am told that we went as a family to a Victory Parade in Wood Street, Wakefield. I can remember nothing about this event which is just as well because, allegedly, I made a fool of myself. Apparently the entire centre of Wakefield was swarming with the good citizens of the Merrie City who were not only intending to celebrate the end of the war but also the right to congregate in public for the first time since 1939.How did I make a fool of myself? According to my sister, who remembers Mum and Dad telling her, as the soldiers marched past our position on Wood Street close to the saluting base on the Town Hall Steps where His Worship and other dignitaries were standing in all their regalia, I shouted out in a loud voice, ‘Heil Hitler’. I have to take my sister’s word for this but in my defence I should point out that during the war boys of my age (under 10s) often played war games. We knew what to do because we all went to the cinema fairly regularly and watched the Gaumont British and Pathé Newsreels.
In our war games, we would charge through the undergrowth on ‘Our Piece’ pretending to invade the unseen enemy. We would sometimes drop full length onto the ground and lob make-believe grenades (grass sods) over our mates. Some of us would run around, arms outstretched, making aeroplane noises, pretending to be Spitfires or Hurricanes coming to the rescue. Sooner or later, one of our gang would start to poke fun at the evil dictator by strutting around, one arm outstretched while a finger of his other arm was placed across his upper lip to represent a moustache, so that the rest of us could dutifully return the salute shouting ‘Heil Hitler’. It didn’t mean we liked him! In any case the British always won our games and the boy daring to play Hitler invariably ended up on his back being pummelled mercilessly by the rest of the gang.
All right, it was tactless of me to do this on Wood Street in the middle of a Victory Parade but, if I did it and I am admitting nothing, it can only have been misplaced boyish humour, coupled with delight that the man himself would receive no more ‘heils’. I was not lynched and I was not banned from Wakefield. I was not even barred from attending the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Grammar School a couple of years later.