It's Over!

by Anon

It was a grey, drizzly, dull afternoon in May 1945. I was seven years old, waiting with my mother at a bus stop, for a bus that would take us home to Folkestone in time to make supper. The bus was late, as usual. No point in complaining - the stock answer was "What do you expect, there's a war on, you know."

There must have been about eight to ten people at the bus stop. No-one was talking, all were wrapped up in their own thoughts, huddled against the damp.

Just then, a newspaper boy appeared, running down the street towards us. Instead of his usual cry of "Read all abaaaat it!" he was shouting "It's over! Gerry has surrendered! It's PEACE!
Suddenly all of those people at the bus stop were talking, laughing, crying with joy - even hugging each other.

It wasn't over, of course. The war was still raging over in the Pacific. Mines kept blowing up on the cliffs and beaches of Folkestone. My best friend's father was killed by a sniper in France two days after the war was supposed to have ended.

But for that little group of people and that newspaper boy, the sun had come out, and there was hope, at last, of peace.