Forum Topic

VE Day in Chiswick 1945 and celebrations in 2025?

I recall Street Parties in Chiswick after the Second World War.Tressle tables down the middle of the Road in Wolseley Gardens ...with bunting on display too.Hardly a motor car to be seenalong the kerbs in those daysLot's of children and their familieswere enjoying the meagre goodies available at that time. Remember Food Rationing & the FR books to control what you bought!(There was a limit on sweets too until the early 1950s and how we made up for lost goodies then!)Mrs Sheridan at No 37 was the star organiser and her family are still around today. Many of us benefited from the use of the Air Raid shelter in her back garden ... where we enjoyed bread and sugar sandwiches etc.I believe that we had a Street Party on both VE and VJ day ... and Whitehall Park Road had a Street Party too which I attended.It was at the railway end.Life was tough for our parents ...listening out for the Air Raid Siren... and when we did we hid under the iron Morrison Shelter erected in our Parent's bedroom.In February 1944 a bomb had dropped in Wolseley Gardens ... demolishing some 4 houses and killing 5 adults.(no memorial plaque there ...sadly)Mrs Sheridan and her family were 2 houses away from the Bomb. The doddlebug had 10 second's earlier dropped a bomb on the United DiariesDepot in Sutton Lane ...killing some 9 horses.I recall also being taken to the Victoria Embankment, Westminster to watch the mighty VE day processionwhich included Service Men andWomen from all over ... INCLUDING RUSSIA(!) ...as at that time ... we were on the same side.Parties and bunting continued after the War as Service personnelreturned from their postings abroad ... eg Burma. Sadly many never returned. God bless them.

Jim Lawes ● 39d6 Comments

Thank you for the information about the Ravenscourt Park event Adrian. It seems to have been very underpublicised.Are there many street parties taking place in Chiswick this weekend?

Diane Brown ● 31d

RAVENSCOURT PARK SATURDAY 10th 11am-5pm.Armoured Vehicles. Best dressed competition, Historical re-enactments, Street Party Food Zones, Live Entertainment from the era, Vintage traders, Historical Displays, Residents Photos and Stories.

Adrian Irving ● 36d

"There was a limit on sweets too until the early 1950s and how we made up for lost goodies then!"I was at boarding school when rationing was abolished.  Our sweets had been carefully distributed by the powers that be at the school in line with rationning limits.  When rationing was cancelled we naively thought we could splurge.  No such luck, the headmaster decreed that the limits would still apply.  Much metaphorical weeping and wailing among small boys!

James Roy ● 36d

To second Denis's comments: Jim thank you for sharing the recollections of your experiences. Possibly I'm not alone in pondering any possible impact on Chiswick, were the current global tensions - God forbid - to (quite significantly) escalate.I believe my paternal grandfather also served in the home guard (albeit in Derbyshire), sadly he passed before I had an opportunity to take an interest in his experiences.

Charles Vessey ● 37d

One is reminded of the first V2 rocket bomb that flew across the English Channel in September 1944.It landed in Chiswick!In Staveley Road to be precise ...in the middle of the road ... andoutside Staveley Road School and that key entrance to Chiswick House Grounds.My father (in the Home Guard) took me along to view the scene days later. I recall (aged 5 years old)just the huge hole in the middle of the road and not the damaged houses all around. Chiswick Reference Library keep a small blue 'Civil Defence' booklisting all the WW2 bombing in the area.

Jim Lawes ● 38d

Jim, thank you for your interesting recall of the bomb damage and many street parties which prevailed in Chiswick just after war ended 80 years ago. I expect quiet reverence will be paid on 8th May to the ending of the war in Europe; the next street parties likely to be when either Prince George or his sister Charlotte tie the knot.The Post Office is issuing a new set of stamps commemorating stalwarts in the five year long fight for freedom. I do wander who will see these stamps as so few of us actually send mail now.

Denis I. Fox ● 39d