Liss Parish Council chairman recalls father's VE Day experience

Tindle News

Liss Parish Council chairman, Keith Budden, spoke to villagers about his father's VE Day experience during a moving speech at Newman Collard. His father, George, was a soldier in the Alps at the time, but there was some confusion over whether the war was actually over..

Transcript

00:00My father George was part of the 8th Army and probably like most people who went through the war,

00:07very rarely spoke to me about the war or what he'd seen or what he'd experienced.

00:13I did remember asking one day about BE Day.

00:17I said, where were you dad when BE Day happened and what did it mean to you?

00:24He said, we were just crossing into Austria from Italy.

00:31He said, we heard on the radio that the peace had been declared.

00:44But it was confusing because we were with some Yugoslav groups who of course got all their information from the Russians.

00:53And the Russians didn't declare the end of the BE Day until tomorrow.

00:58So he said, they didn't actually believe us that the war had finished.

01:03So at that point, I actually became most scared that I had been in all the last 6 years.

01:10Because I thought, if they don't know the war was finished, what if we come across a group of German soldiers

01:19and they don't know the war was finished either?

01:22So I think it just makes me realize that although there was lots of celebration here and rightly so,

01:27for a lot of the troops it was still a dangerous time and I think it's important to remember that.

01:33or something.

01:34Do you think it's difficult to remember?

01:35It's difficult to remember this time.

01:36Well, I think we just keep forwarding this time for the war.

01:38I think you probably have all the weight of the war.

01:39But I think we need to be the first time.

01:40So I didn't even know that when we come across a row,

01:41there's no shame for that, but the two of you came across the border.

01:43Maybe the two of you came across the border.

01:45Do you think about that?

01:46Maybe the other two of you came across the wall.

01:48Duned by here, I see the end of the up due to another day.

01:51I think I'm doing so.

01:52I see the end of theneny.

01:53I think this is a very careful thing.

01:58And I think we're doing so much.

Category

Transcript

Recommended