Based on interviews I conducted with locals who lived in the parish in 1945, VE Day was a quiet affair in Platt. The church bells rang out, the children at the village school had a two-day holiday, and anyone who was old enough appeared to have headed to London, where, as I was told, ‘the real party was happening.’ Of course, the fighting in the Pacific continued and involved several local men, at least one or two of whom had spent much of the war in Japanese POW camps. A whole year would pass until the village held victory celebrations in King George’s Field, but by then, parishioners were war-weary and had moved on, looking to the future. The parochial mood can be gauged through a special parish meeting held at the Memorial Hall on 24 June 1947, wherein the proposed memorial for all those who fell in the war was discussed. Of the 853 people eligible to vote on the plans, only 39 turned up, and eventually, less than half of Platt voted. Fifty years later, in 1995, a significant, extremely well-attended VE Day was held in the village. In 2015, I remember a very popular event at the old Memorial Hall to mark the 70th anniversary. The 75th anniversary was cancelled due to the pandemic, though residents decorated their houses, took advantage of the fine weather, and held socially distanced gatherings in the streets. This year, the 80th anniversary has seemed somewhat muted, and aside from events at the Blue Anchor and the Scout Hut, I wonder if people are now weary of commemorating the Second World War, which, for many now that that generation is rapidly diminishing, must seem like a very distant piece of history?

Wandering around the country lanes, through the woods, and across fields, I tried to imagine the sense of relief 80 years ago that six years of heartbreak and hardship were ending, that the skies above Platt would fall silent, and the threat of death from enemy bombs and rockets was no more. Although the start of May 1945 had been cold in the southeast, by the 8th, the mercury was rising, and conditions not too dissimilar to those in 2025 prevailed. Still, as I walked along Crouch Lane, I noticed a cold wind from the east, perhaps in a portent of times to come. On the edge of the field in Stonehouse, a large black crow lay on the grass, folded up, silent (I reported it.) Spring wildflowers and blossoms are everywhere; this year’s farmer’s crops appear somewhat behind compared to previous years. A Sunday cricket match, a cat warming itself on an old stone wall and a sheep with her lambs taking shade under a tree on Pigeons Green.

This is Platt in the first half of May 2025.