Welcome to
Haywards Heath United Reformed Church

REMEMBERING MAY 1945

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On VE Day in May 1945, 80 years ago, our family were in Desford, Leicestershire.  In 1943 my father had volunteered to work in the coal mines. He came home to Essex some weekends but at age 6, I hated the Sunday afternoons when we waved him off on his train back.

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By 1944 we were able to join him, living with a Desford family, attending the village school and going along to the village chapel. But happy when VE day came, happy the day when we all came home.

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When I was 12, I chose German as an additional O-level language and at 16 went on a school trip to the Rhineland (Where I was initiated into real wine!) Some church friends had German students to stay for a while so we could get to know them. In these ways I hoped I was doing my teenage bit towards peace-making.

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Now I am musing that one day God might ask my generation “Tell me, what were the 1940’s like for you?” and God might further say “I was there and my Son Jesus was there”. There in the suffering of the terrible bits and in the joys of the good bits. Often silent, often invisible, but always there. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1)