VE Day in Harringay 1945: the importance of saying it again 80 years later

1. Dancing in the Streets of London on VE Day (© London Museum)

On 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies. This marked the end of six years of fighting in Europe, and the beginning of the end of the Second World War. Britain declared 8 May a national holiday where people could celebrate victory and remember those whose lives were lost. It was called VE Day, which stands for Victory in Europe Day.

There was joy all over. People sang and danced together, joining conga lines in the streets. Strangers hugged and kissed each other. The partying went on after dark as pubs and dance halls were allowed to stay open late. Most of the pubs had been drunk dry by last orders.

On top of the joy, exhaustion, grief, worry and anger were mixed into the atmosphere of the day. This wasn’t a time of celebration for many of those who’d lost friends or family, or knew someone still serving overseas. Churches including St Paul’s Cathedral held thanksgiving services where the public could go to reflect and commemorate peace in Europe.¹

That was 80 years ago; generations ago. Some think it's time to stop remembering. Giving the lie to that notion, in the closing remarks of a short television retrospective on his father's time as a war correspondent broadcast this bank holiday, Jonathan Dimbleby captured the essence of why it is is still important to continue remembering the last war on VE Day. I'm sure that in this year of all years, he'll be acutely aware how his words may resonate.

"In my job, I've travelled over the world, I've seen some pretty awful things as well as some rather wonderful things, and I'm absolutely convinced that it is only too easy for a mood to collect, coagulate, and become a poison and become very powerful as a poison. It only takes extreme populous leaders, playing on the fears and anxieties of individuals, exploiting them, and finding a language which ignites hatred. And I think that to record the event (WWII) and to say it again matters for each generation as it comes through, and it doesn't get less important."

Jonnathan Dimblebey, closing words in Jonathan Dimbleby: My Father and Belsen BBC, 5 May 2025 

The best sense I can get of what Harringay was like in the first week of May some eighty years ago is from the report of an unnamed journalist for the Hornsey Journal. Wandering the streets of Hornsey on the night of VE Day celebrations, the journalist finally arrived on the Harringay Ladder. This is what he saw:

Out of the twenty roads connecting Green Lanes and Wightman Road, practically every one of them resembled the scene I had just left in Nelson Road; young and old dancing around bonfires, all kinds of instruments being used, laughing children romping and eating, tables on trestles filled with food. Down Cavendish Road I spoke to Mr and Mrs H T Welland whose home was the HQ of their street party. They told me how everybody had banded together like one family to give the children the best of everything – bags of sweets, oranges, tinned and bottled fruits, homemade cakes and tarts etc.

In Duckett Road the party had linked together in a mammoth circle, doing a victory dance – “The Okey Pokey”. The features of this party were ice cream, jellies, blancmanges, egg and spam sandwiches, fireworks and savings stamps for the winners of races. Hewitt Road was celebrating in grand style. A compere, complete in top hat, white tie and tails, a pianist and a banjo player were making the party go with a swing. There were two parties in Allison Road. A feature of the Tottenham half was a large iced cake bearing the inscription, ‘God bless the kids of Allison Road’. A resident dressed as a clown riding a child’s tricycle caused screams of laughter. A bun-eating competition was one of the many popular items in the party at the other end of the road.

Hornsey Journal, 18 May 1945

The local grief in Harringay on VE Day wasn't captured and the conga lines spilling out of The Salisbury, the Queen's Head and the Beaconsfield escaped the scrutiny of the lens. Children's parties however, were recorded for posterity and over the past 18 years I've been publishing photos which for the most part have been sent to me from members' personal collections. A selection of those are republished below. Two, marked accordingly, have been added from the archive of the Hornsey Historical Society. Also interspersed are a few extracts from memoirs. I've added links to a one other.

2. VE Day on Frobisher Road. Original image provided by and copyright of Irene Neil (nee Withey).

3. VE Day at North Harringay School Original image: Hornsey Historical Society.

4. VE Day on Beresford Road. Original image provided by and copyright of HoL member "Flower" who lived in Harringay during the war until the 1960s and joined us from Sydney. in 2008, she sent me some of her war memories to publish.

Recalling the VE Day street party in Allison Road, Michael Shaw wrote:

The street party could not be held on the slope so was held in two places on the top flat part and the main party outside our house No 110. I was about four and a half and can still remember the party because we children were allowed to stay up late and there was a lot of cake and nice food to eat. Rationing was still in place but mums had saved for weeks to ensure that the party was a great success.

5. VE Day on the Wightman Road end of Warham Road. Original image from and copyright of Doreen Russell whose family lived at 125 Wightman Road, right opoosite Warham Road.

6. VE Day on the Wightman Road end of Warham Road. Original image from and copyright of Doreen Russell whose family lived at 125 Wightman Road, right opoosite Warham Road.

7. VE Day on Warham Road. This may be the same event as the one pictured in Figs 5 and 6. Original image: Hornsey Historical Society.

Mr Skeats recalling one of the parties on the Woodlands Park Estate:

I can remember V. E. day we had a big bonfire in the road and it burnt a hole in the road surface about 9 inches deep but we had no fireworks or anything like that but we did bake jacket potatoes in the fire. 

8. VE Day on Glenwood Road in the Woodlands Park area of Harringay. Original image from and copyright to Jayne Gosden.

And the last photo is from one of the small roads that used to stand directly to the north of the former Hornsey Gas Works in Wood Green.

9. Street party in Ampthill Road, a short road that led from Coburg Road to the Timmins Screw Factory, which is visible in the photo with one of the gas holders beyond it. Nearly all the prewar buildings in Cobury Road have been demolished. The spot where this photo was taken is now occupied by some rather pleasant 1960s buildings.

To commemorate VE Day, Hornsey Historical Society has mounted a small display of original newspaper cuttings on the noticeboard outside the Old Schoolhouse, Tottenham Lane. 

They have also republished an article about VE Day from the Hornsey journal on their website.

NOTES

1. This paragraph and the precdeing two are taken from the London Museum with minor edits.