Maureen Barrard, 86, marks VE Day 80 in Skegness with street party memories from the end of the war in Europe. Here Maureen talks to Steph Marsh at the Poppy Shop in Skegness.
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00:00Hi, can you tell us what your name is?
00:01It's Maureen Barrand, but it was Maureen Stannard.
00:05And are you from Stegnes originally?
00:07Originally, I'm from Swirlsby, but we moved here in 1940.
00:12And can you remember the New Year Day?
00:13I can remember my mum coming down the road, shouting, the war's over.
00:20Yes, I can.
00:21Excellent. And was there lots of celebration?
00:25Alexander Road had a great big street party.
00:28There was a brewery at the bottom, which was Bellamy's.
00:35Bellamy's gave a bottle of beer to all the adults and a bottle of pub to all the children.
00:42And Frogger's Ice Creams had a factory down Alexander Road and they gave all the children ice cream.
00:51I can remember we had a big bonfire on some waste ground and all the adults at night doing the conger down Alexander Road.
01:04So that's the party we had in Alexander Road.
01:09But because I was at Cavendish Road Junior School, or Infant School, I can't remember.
01:15It must have been Infant at that time.
01:16The YMCA down Grover Road put on a party for the children in the area and the children from the schools went to the YMCA for this big party that they had.
01:34There was also, I remember when she moved, there was a scout hut.
01:40They had a street party.
01:43There were parties everywhere, literally everywhere.
01:48So that's what I remember about B-Day, but I remember it really clearly.
01:54I do remember the dancing in the street and, you know, that sort of thing.
02:01And of course I've lived here through all the bombing and everything.
02:05So all my childhood, really, all my early memories.
02:10I was brought up in the war.
02:12I can remember the first time I went to the cinema, which was a parade on the front.
02:21And I can even tell you the film was called Murder in the Blue Room and it was being cross-breaking.
02:29And we weren't allowed to take a torch with us for fear that the Germans from us would see the light.
02:38So we had to walk in complete darkness from Alexander Road to the front.
02:46I started school and I had to take my gas mask with me when I started at Cavendish School.
02:55What was it like being a child in the war in Skligness?
03:03Didn't know anything any different.
03:05My whole life was the fact that it was a war.
03:09With my grandad who had been at the Somme, although I didn't find that out until later, he was quite elderly then.
03:19We weren't allowed to go to the beach because the beach was mined.
03:24What is now Bottoms was owned by Billy Butlins and that reopened around 1946 at the end of the war because they weren't allowed to have amusements during the war.
03:38And that was a big event when they actually opened it up.
03:42I mean, I went to school and I think they make a lot of song and dance about rationing and it might have been that in the cities, but there wasn't that much.
03:53There was rationing, obviously, and it was very austere, but there was plenty of fish coming off the wash and I can remember having cockles and mussels for breakfast because memory.
04:10I remember also, I don't know, I don't know if you've heard about the grapefruit being washed up.
04:17No?
04:17A boat sank somewhere up the coast and it was carrying grapefruit.
04:25I don't know where it's in and what, but all these grapefruit were being washed up on the beach and the wash and everything and all the kids and adults all went down to the beach to get these grapefruit because nobody had seen anything.
04:44I mean, I mean, I didn't see it, but not until I was seven and they were coming back with pan loads.
04:54They were coming back with pan loads of grapefruit that were being washed up, covered in oil, but that didn't matter to anything.
05:07No, they could see washed underneath, didn't they?
05:09Yes, yes, yes.
05:11There was no fresh fruit.
05:12That's a treat then.
05:15It was, yes.
05:16A shark treat.
05:17Yes, yes.
05:20Do you remember the waterway being filled with?
05:24Oh, yes, the waterway.
05:25It was always thought that the Germans may land on the East Coast features and the waterway was filled with roll.
05:37It was.
05:51Uh, yeah, it was very late.
05:54Let's go.