VE Day ceremony in Bexhill, East Sussex, on May 8 2025

This ceremony took place at Bexhill war memorial on the seafront.

Transcript

00:00Thank you for turning out for this ceremony today.

00:04As you know, it's a day of celebration primarily.

00:09The day when 80 years ago exactly, the Germans surrendered.

00:16And Europe was once again free of the guns for the second time in the early 20th century.

00:23We owe a huge debt to our forebears, the generation who fought that war.

00:33Many are still with us, but most have gone.

00:37And we should be thankful for what they did for us.

00:42Britain was fighting the war throughout, from day one to the end in Europe.

00:52And later, to the end, in the Far East too.

00:58Without our part, Europe would be different today.

01:04After the defeat in France in May 1940, we stood alone.

01:11We were the only nation still fighting.

01:15Although, of course, in the occupied countries, resistance movements did continue.

01:23But had it not, if Britain had not kept fighting, what happened subsequently could not have happened.

01:29And it wasn't until the following year, in June 1941, that the Soviet Union changed sides.

01:36They'd started on the German side.

01:38They changed sides after they were invaded in June 1941.

01:44And then the Americans eventually joined us in December 1941, after they too were attacked.

01:50So, we were there throughout, and Europe owes a great debt of gratitude to what the British did.

02:02Sadly, although there were 50, some 50 years of peace in Europe,

02:07sadly, we had wars in the Balkans in the 1990s, and again, more recently, the Russian aggression against Ukraine.