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VE Day was people 'dancing, singing and drinking'

Alexandra Bassingham
BBC News, West of England
Maddie Simpson
BBC News, Gloucestershire
Family handout A black and white headshot image of Carol in her twenties looking down the lens of the camera. She is wearing drop white ball earrings and her hair is highly styled.Family handout
Carol Hanley was a cabaret performer working in London at the end of World War II

As the nation prepares to celebrate VE Day, one woman shares her feelings of fear and joy as she remembers the day World War Two in Europe ended.

On 8 May 1945, Carol Hanley was a cabaret performer in London's West End and remembers seeing a "seething mass of hundreds of people" on the streets.

"They were dancing, singing, drinking, letting off fireworks.… it was terrifying," she said.

Ms Hanley, 100, who now lives in Northleach, a town near Cheltenham, was leaving work and decided - with other performers - to stay inside rather than pushing through the crowds to get home.

But after the partying died down and she found her way home, she said "everything was wonderful after the war".

Family handout Carol in a dance cropped top and shorts in a split dancing pose. She has a side parting and curls with lengthened arms away from her body in a dance pose.Family handout
Ms Hanley said on VE Day, customers were a "bit more boisterous and probably had more to drink than usual"

Ms Hanley was living in Surrey when she decided to do her bit for the war effort by using her skills as a dancer.

She joined the Entertainments National Services Association (Ensa) thanks to her childhood dancing lessons.

"I [was 18] and going round the country... entertaining troops stationed here - all nationalities; Polish, American, Canadian, British," she said.

She finished with Ensa just before the end of the war and joined with three girls she knew to become a cabaret group.

Performing was her passion and she enjoyed working in London's Piccadilly nightclubs which were "very exclusive, very sophisticated and expensive," she said.

She said even as VE Day was announced, the performers were a bit isolated from it inside the club.

"I seem to remember it was quite boisterous," she said. "It wasn't anything untoward but everybody was very happy, probably more to drink than usual...

"The next day, Winston Churchill was speaking to the crowds and then the royal family came out on the balcony. I didn't get home that day [either]. So really, VE Day itself for me [in London] was quite frightening."

Family handout Two black and white images with Carol on her own in the left photo, dressed as a fairy queen with a long white dress and 'winged' style shawl. She has a silver star on her forehead and is standing with arms extended in a dance pose. The right-hand picture is of Carol and two other women wearing black corset-style tops with black mini skirts. They are standing with one knee bent in a dance pose. They all have their hair style in a half up, half down do.Family handout
Ms Hanley entertained troops "of all nationalities" stationed in the UK during the war

Ms Hanley said it was during the Blitz - when the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other UK cities between September 1940 and May 1941 - that she was particularly frightened.

She was working for a publisher in Fleet Street, she said, and "all the bombing and the doodlebugs and the rockets would come out of nowhere".

One day she missed her train connection to work because Clapham Junction had been bombed and the train stopped.

"When I arrived I was called into the office and asked why I was late," she said.

"I explained the trains stopped because of the bombing and they just said, 'well you should have got an earlier train, then you wouldn't have missed it'. You couldn't be late for work in those days."

Family handout A black and white image of Carol with friends outside a theatre after a show. Carol is on the left wearing a dark coat and grey and black chunky scarf. She has her hair half up and half down. A man in the middle is wearing a grey overcoat with a shirt and tie beneath. The woman on the right is wearing a big black bow in her hair and a light-coloured overcoat and scarf. Family handout
Ms Hanley spent years performing through the war and afterwards too

After the war, Ms Hanley's younger sister, who had been evacuated, returned home and her father was demobbed.

She said this was particularly lovely for her "poor mother" who had spent much of the war living with Ms Hanley's aunt and grandfather.

"During the war, my dad was in the army and my uncles were in the forces - one in the mortar siege, one in bomb disposal and one in the navy.

"But we didn't lose anybody so [compared to] the majority of people, we were very fortunate and after the war I remember being very happy," she added.

Carol in a colourful printed blouse and a pink, purple and white chunky beaded necklace looking at a photo album of her past. She is in a living room with a fire and side table beside her.
Ms Hanley met her husband through performing and they married in 1950

Ms Hanley married her husband John in 1950, three years after meeting in a show they were both in.

She said after travelling and performing together "he decided that showbusiness was no place for a marriage.

"We lasted 70 years of marriage which we probably wouldn't have done if we'd stayed in showbusiness [so he was right]," she said.

Ms Hanley stopped dancing and lived a "normal life", becoming a stay-at-home mum to her son Phillip before discovering yoga in 1970 which she went on to teach for about 45 years.

She said in spite of the war, she had been very fortunate to have a lovely childhood and a happy family life, especially "after the war".

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