VE Day: How people across Sussex celebrated

Across Sussex, residents dug out the digestives and deckchairs to enjoy street parties – at a distance – with their neighbours to celebrate the end of the war in Europe.

On May 8 1945, there was dancing in the streets as peace returned after six years of fighting a war which claimed millions of lives.

Every year since, we celebrate the men and women who returned and remember the those who were lost.

Mike and Julie Ince, 75 and 68, entertained neighbours in Bigwood Avenue in Hove with their lindy hop dancing.

Dressed in 1940s outfits, the couple danced outside their home, which had been decorated to look like a bomb site. Speaking near the rubble, Mr Ince said: “This project is from my kitchen being knocked down and I thought ‘well, it looks like a bomb site’. I thought I would decorate it a bit more to make it look like a real bomb that’s gone off.”

The pair turned cardboard into a V2 Rocket and wrote the words “near miss” on chipboard leaning the against window.

Asked why celebrating the day was important, Mr Ince said: “My father Albert Ince was in the war, this is about the people who sacrificed their lives and those who came home. People realise the sacrifices those people made, the families which were wiped out — imagine sons going off to war and never coming back.”

Bigwood Avenue was one of many streets across Brighton and Hove marking the occasion with bunting and biscuits.

In Vale Avenue, Tom Lowrie, 35, helped arrange a socially distant street party, delivering flyers through his neighbours’ doors.

All four of Mr Lowrie’s grandparents helped during the war, including grandfather John Frederick Lowrie, who was part of the D-Day landings and Elise May Skelly, who worked in a plane factory.

The Hove Park School PE teacher said: “This is incredibly important, especially for my children who never got the chance to meet my grandparents. It is about the commitment and sacrifice of the men and women involved, who united together.”

Brighton and Hove city councillor for the area Lee Wares visited the street on his daily exercise.

He said: “It made a wonderful change on my daily walk that rather than checking for dangerous pavements and blocked drains, I saw residents respecting social distancing but at the same time celebrating VE day in their front gardens.

“It was a particular pleasure to see again our very own veteran, 98-year-old David Young. He was awarded the George Cross and served in Burma with the Royal Engineers and was seconded to the Indian Army.

“He said to me that he spent a lot of time building bridges and roads. He then added with a wry smile on his face, we also blew a few up.”

The George Cross is awarded “for acts of the greatest heroism or for most conspicuous courage in circumstance of extreme danger”.

The veteran was presented with some Spitfire beer from Veterans Brewery to enjoy while sitting in the sun.

In Spencer Avenue, Hove, one family created a Second World War scene with barbed wire, a bomb fashioned out of a fire extinguisher and some 1940s tins.

Billy Dennison, 55, was giving history lessons to the children in the front garden, and also to those walking past. Partner Lorraine Osbourne, 55, said: “We’ve got the speech from Churchill which is going to be on the TV, but we have also got it on the CD. My partner is ex-Army so he is explaining World War Two to the children.

“It’s important as my grandad Herbert George Smith died on the Normandy beach on June 6 and he never met my mum. She passed away nearly two years ago, but it’s important for the children to understand what happened to keep history alive.”

Amid the festivities in the bank holiday heatwave, a spitfire was flown across the perfect blue sky.

People waved Union Jacks from their gardens as the SM520 aeroplane flew over the coast. It took off from Boultbee Flight Academy in Goodwood before flying over locations, inducing the home of wartime sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn in Ditchling.

The plane then made its way across the coast at about 1pm, passing over locations selected by a national newspaper’s readers.

They included Blind Veterans UK in Greenways, Ovingdean, Care for Veterans in Worthing and the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.

D-Day veteran Len Gibbon, 96, cheered as the plane flew over Worthing.

Conservative councillor Mary Mears, who had been keen the council celebrate the occasion, said: “I’m really, really pleased that residents in the city are out celebrating VE Day, even just flags in the garden or virtual tea party.

“This is a celebration of the end of war in 1945 when all these men and women came hone to their loved ones.”

We want to see your pictures from VE Day, send them ton jody.doherty-cove@theargus.co.uk.