Maureen, 86, recalls street party in Skegness to celebrate VE Day

Maureen Barrand lived in Alexandra Road in 1945 and said the party she attended stretched the full length of the street.

"I was just six years old when the war ended – all I had ever known was war,” she said. “I didn’t even meet my father until I was 7.

"I can remember my mum coming down the road shouting ‘The war’s over!’

"Our street party stretched the full length of the street. There was a big bonfire at one end on some waste ground.

"There was a brewery at the bottom of the street, Bellamy’s Mineral Water, and they gave all the men a bottle of beer and the children a bottle of pop – and Fravigars sweet factory provided ice-cream for the children.

"We were lucky in Skegness during the war because for 6d we could go to Fravigars and they would fill a pudding basin with ice-cream so we were not so affected by rations like the cities were.

"My grandad had an allotment with vegetables and chickens too. I can’t say we were short of food.

"I can remember when a grapefruit boat sank in the Wash and all these grapefruits washed up and the adults and children went to collect them.

"I had never had any grapefruit before – I didn’t even see a banana until I was 7.

"But there were dangers. The town’s big gasometer was near us and if the German’s had bombed it it would have caused massive destruction.

"I can remember going to Cavendish Road school with my gas mask.

"We couldn’t go on the beach because it was mined and the waterway was full of barbed wire in case the Germans tried to invade from the east.

"At home we had a Morrison shelter. I can still remember the bombing – it’s something you never forget.

”I can remember being in Lumley Road when an unexploded bomb fell and when I could drive I never went past where it fell wondering what happemed to it.”