Ruth Bourne, 98, remembers the “electric buzz” among the crowds partying outside Buckingham Palace on VE Day.
She was one of hundreds of thousands of people that swarmed into central London on 8 May 1945 to celebrate in the streets after such a long and gruelling war.
“There was the most amazing atmosphere,” she tells Sky News as we take a black cab to the palace to retrace some of the route she took on foot 80 years ago.
“All of a sudden the future was here,” she recalls with a beaming smile. “Everyone was so happy!
“I was there with a million others, or so it felt. It was a wonderful experience. There was the most amazing atmosphere – it was like an electric buzz in the crowd.
“We all thought, well, the king is bound to be around, you know, we’ll go and see if he’s there.”
People began chanting “We want the king” outside the gates of the palace and then the royal family came out on to the balcony to celebrate with the crowds.
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“It was like a great big family and you all surged forward together… it was the best place to be,” Ruth says.
Ruth was a teenager during World War Two and had served as a Turing Bombe operator – a machine invented by Alan Turing that helped speed up the process of codebreaking and intercepting secret Nazi messages.
She remembers feeling exhilarated by the sense of relief and freedom on VE Day.
“We all went crazy cheering,” she says. “There wasn’t an empty lamp post to be seen, they were all clambering up the lamp posts like swarming bees.”
She remembers meeting countless people that day, sharing stories and dancing with anyone.
“You went into the street and with complete strangers, you stood one behind the other and clasped each other around the waist and did the conga. You sang ‘Aye aye conga!'”
She remembers ending the night in a park next to a fire somebody had lit, laughing and singing with groups of people who had become instant friends.
After so many years of blackouts, the light of the fire was symbolic.
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“The lights were up,” Ruth remembers. “The bonfires were lit in the open air…we were glad to see the back of the blackouts.
“People might not realise now what it was like, it was like lockdown almost.
“Everything was lit up, including a lot of the servicemen, I must say. They were very, very excited to be free of all this!
“Nobody wanted to go to bed, nobody wanted to let it go… we felt free on that day, we were just young and having a wonderful time.”
