The return of his father made VE Day bittersweet for six-year-old Roy Palmer
My mother said, “Your father’s coming home – come to the station to pick him up”. I was only six months old when he left and had no idea who he was, so I didn’t want to stop playing. Anyway, she made me get in this car and go – it was a little Austin 7, the first car I’d ever been in. When we got to the station they put their arms around each other. And he said “Where’s Noel?”. Noel was my brother and he got killed during the war in an accident. My mother hadn’t told my father because he was in the prisoner of war camp and he was sick. So, she told him on the station and he said “Well who’s that then?” and she said “That’s Roy” – but he didn’t know me and I didn’t know him.
“When we heard the war had ended the village went crazy”
This must have been just before VE Day because he was there for the party in the village, in Northamptonshire, a knees-up you know. When we heard the war had ended the village went absolutely crazy! At the party – which was in the village hall and outside – the adults had beer and we children had blancmange. We had to pool the food because we hadn’t got much. The party was in the village hall and outside. We used to have a radio on in them days and they were playing the war time songs – It’s a long way to Tipperary, The Siegfried Line – “hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line, all these songs – everyone was singing and we kids were playing. I can’t remember hearing about anyone who wasn’t there.
