Harry Puttick

Harry recalls chatting with the Commonwealth troops

In 1945 ,I was in the 3^rd Queen’s Cadet Force, Queen’s Royal Regiment with Roy Knight, another Chelsea Pensioner. Roy was a drummer, I was a bugler and we were in the band and thoroughly enjoyed it. We went away to camp in Portsmouth with the cadets. Some of the warships were in then, and the cadets went onto HMS Lion, a battleship. It came over the tannoy that the war had ended. There was a big cheer and everyone got talking, saying how relieved they were it was all over. 

When we got back to London, we were caught up in all the celebrations. People were having street parties. Everybody was going around kissing and hugging. Roy and myself and a few others went up to London. There was a big victory parade for VJ day and we were watching the guys getting ready to go on parade and talking to them – the Scottish pipers tuning up and all the different Commonwealth troops. We were wearing our cadet uniforms, so we thought we’d carry on where they left off! We had a couple of days of heavy celebrating and really enjoyed it. There was a lot going on all over the place – we were only about 14 or 15, still boys, so we didn’t drink.  

I remember feeling euphoric. As youngsters we didn’t really realise the implications of it all.  It was a very interesting time and the general mood was good. People took out their pianos for street parties and we never went short of food – god knows where they got the stuff from!

I met Roy again here. One Sunday he knocked on my door and said, I’ve seen your name and thought I’d come to see if it was the Harry Puttick I knew. We had a full afternoon reminiscing.