At Wessex Film and Sound Archive you can see and hear history, from late Victorian times to the present day, through moving images and sound recordings. The Archive contains over 36,000 film and sound recordings relating to Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, including film and tapes of local TV and radio.
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Bishopstoke VE day celebrations and seaside holidays
Bishopstoke casts off the war in this celebratory record of VE Day - with street parties for the children and dancing for the grown-ups all to the tune of fiddles and an accordion.
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Overview
This home-movie features family scenes at home in Bishopstoke and on post-war holidays to the Isle of Wight and other resorts. Then we flash-back to VE Day where tables are laid out for street-parties. While the children eat, musicians play and soon the grown-ups start dancing in the street. A fancy-dress procession follows and then cadets march through the streets with their bugles at the ready. Finally, a car is pushed along by members of the local Youth Club.
Look closely at the boy at the head of the fancy-dress procession and you'll see a small placard saying 'Victory for China Soon'. This reminds us that despite the VE Day celebrations, the war would continue in the Far East until August 1945.
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