Special Collections & Archives: Snapshots from the Archives

Snapshot from the Archives: VE Day 80 years on

As we celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8th May, our archivists share some memories of former students who studied during, and despite, the ravages of the Second World War. 

Southlands memories 

Above: the improvised VE day bunting.

Margaret Picksley was a student at Southlands College from 1943-1945, when it was evacuated to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Ten years ago, on the occasion of the 70th VE day anniversary, Margaret wrote this colourful account of studying in wartime, featuring chickens, GIs, tea dances - and an inspired, improvised substitute for VE day bunting: 

“Living in evacuation circumstances meant that we were accommodated on four different sites, with lectures in various locations widely spread throughout Weston, no tutors allowing for travelling time! 

I remember keeping chickens on the tennis courts and being served pilchards in tomato sauce for evening meals, which were mainly uneaten and served up again for breakfast! 

We had lectures until 7pm and nobody was allowed out after that except for three late passes per term ‘til 10pm, enforced by senior students checking and we obeyed!  

There was a free entry Tea dance, both inside and outside on the promenade, at the Winter Gardens. Once a term college dances were a highlight when we were allowed to invite the American G.I.’s stationed in Weston, prior to being sent into Europe. The college Principal, Miss Wood and her secretary, Miss Mason, sat primly at the side, assuring that all was ordered with true decorum! 

My detailed recollection of the 8th May 1945, after 70 years, are somewhat clouded, but I well remember the sense of both joy and relief that the war was over, at least in Europe. We wanted to mark the occasion in some way, but had no flags or bunting, so we had to improvise. As the college Domestic Officer, with the help of friends, I came up with the idea of using our clothes! Red, white and blue garments were collected – I’m not sure whether a restriction to outer garments was imposed! Nor do I remember whether permission from ‘on high’ was obtained but I expect it was. Where the rope came from I do not know but ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’. 

We took college life and evacuation in our stride, enjoying a wonderful two years of excellent training and the formation of enduring friendships!” 

Froebel memories 

Above: Offley House

Ruth Barbara Barnish (nee Armstrong) studied at the Froebel Educational Institute (FEI) from 1943 to 1946, so she experienced student life at Froebel both in wartime evacuation at Offley, Hertfordshire, and back “home” at Grove House after the war. In 2000, she recalled the following, in correspondence which is held in the Froebel Archive: 

“At Offley we had about sixty students, several of us were billeted in the village. Two of us were with Mrs Robinson (a keen naturalist and bird-watcher). When we returned from Offley Place at night she would often give us 'dripping on toast' (a treat in wartime!) …We always cycled to our teaching practices in Hitchin or Luton, and on a Saturday we quite often went to London for the day by “hitching” a ride in a lorry …After a good breakfast at Lyons Corner House we went to the Royal Albert Hall to sit in on a rehearsal for that night’s concert. Music was my main subject and we all enjoyed Miss Mendoza’s lectures. She and other staff were housed at Knebworth  …other highlights of my time at Offley were acting ‘Twelfth Night’ in the village hall and the day the “Yanks” descended on us and we played ‘party games!’ 

When VE Day was declared most students from Offley went home, but two of us went to London for the day, by bus and train…We also used buses and the tube in London despite the crowds! We got breakfast and lunch too without difficulty. I wrote a 24 page letter to my parents the next day! I quote: ‘ We surged with the crowds from Piccadilly to Trafalgar Square, everyone waving flags, twirling rattles, shouting and laughing and cheering. We tacked on to the parade down Whitehall and heard the Prime Minister speak, sang the National Anthem and eventually arrived at Westminster. Colossal cheers broke out and there was Winston, standing in his car, with mounted police clearing the way for him, cigar in his mouth, face wreathed in smiles, waving his hand as he passed into the Houses of Parliament.’ After returning to Offley we went to the Church (packed with people) for a Thanksgiving Service. Supper at Offley Place was followed at 10.30 by a bonfire on Offley Hill with fireworks. 

When the College returned to Grove House it was completely new to all of us…We had several Indian students that year and one evening they dressed some of us in their saris for dinner.” 

Above: Froebel students undertaking Delcroze Eurythmics at Knebworth, c1940.

Correspondence held in the Froebel archives shows that the agreement for the Institute to evacuate to Knebworth was made directly with the country estate's proprietor, Lord Lytton. Further documents reveal that the girls were strictly forbidden from picking flowers or pond dipping in the grounds, "even for the purpose of nature study"!

Digby Stuart memories

Above, left to right: a bomb crater under inspection at Digby Stuart campus; the bombed remains of the original Elm Grove House; contemporary newspaper reports of the bombings.

In 1939, the Society of the Sacred Heart school at Roehampton was one of the foremost girls’ Catholic boarding schools, whose pupils at the time included nine European princesses and three daughters of the American Ambassador to Britain, Joe Kennedy. The four daughters of the  Hohenzollern family, who were claimants to the German throne,  were sent to the school in order to avoid becoming members of the League of German Girls. When the Second World War broke out, the girls returned to their home countries or were evacuated to other parts of the UK. In the summer of 1940, Lord Haw-Haw, in one of his propaganda broadcasts from Berlin, proclaimed that the Luftwaffe would bomb Roehampton in order to snuff out those rogue German royals. In the autumn of 1940, the Convent was severely bombed on four separate bombing raids. The chapel and the community wing, Elm Grove House and the main school block were gutted; these buildings remained derelict until the War Damage Commission sanctioned their demolition in 1957. 

At the end of the war, the boarding school was relocated to the Surrey countryside. The Society’s teacher training college had also been bombed out of its home in Kensington, so this was moved to the Roehampton site. In 1946 about 100 students commenced their teacher training here, surrounded by the ruins of war. The college was renamed Digby Stuart College to commemorate Reverend Mother Digby and Reverend Mother Stuart, each of whom had been instrumental in the success of both the school and the teacher training college. 

Eileen Isabella Catherine Ryan, a Digby student from 1945 to 1947, recalled these details of the immediate aftermath of war:

"When we joined St Charles College, in September 1945, it was still located at Cold Ash, Berkshire – the College had been evacuated from its campus in Kensington early in the war. It was towards the end of the first year that we were informed that we would be returning to London – not to the original home of St Charles but to Roehampton to what had been a boarding School and that the College name would change to Digby Stuart Memorial College (quickly changed to Digby Stuart College).

We returned to: bombed buildings, broken windows, locked doors, no doors, broken furniture, no furniture, food rationing, cold food, lack of food.

Builders, more builders and not enough buildings.

No heating, lukewarm water, cold water, no water and taking blankets to lectures. The winter of 1946-47 remains one of the coldest on record! We were called ‘THE YEAR’ because we saved the College and the Governing Body thanked us. They wrote:

Dear Student President

The Governing Body of Digby Stuart College at their last meeting on Feb 13 asked me to transmit to you and all the students their appreciation of the courageous and loyal spirit in which the initial difficulties of the work at Roehampton have been met and overcome. You have 'made possible what would otherwise have been impossible'.

Yours sincerely

Clerk to the Governors."

The Digby Stuart College Chronicle of 1966 marked the 20th anniversary of the students' return to London at the end of the war, noting that they returned "to face, in what remained of the old boarding school,  a building programme which [in 1966] has yet to be completed." The magazine, held in the Digby College Archives, includes the recollections of student Mary Rose Murphy who was stationed at the College's wartime home at Cold Ash in Berkshire, where, she writes:

"all the time the war clouds darkened. Sometimes they touched us. Clare Jukes' sister was killed along with her class when their London school was bombed, and the utter silence throughout the College that night was more eloquent than any mourning. One afternoon, bombs fell on Newbury and we ducked under the tables, but we saw more of the offensive than of anything else, for the great strings of gliders used to float overhead towed by planes, and we knew that D-day was very near. We were awake most of the night before with all the activity, and many went about murmuring the Air Force hymn, God Guard and Guide the Men who Fly. They were anxious, troubled days."

Above, left to right: The evacuated College's accommodation at Cold Ash; some of the students; and nuns working at the site.

Whitelands memories

Whitelands students were evacuated to Durham for most of the war, but in 1944-45, some studied at St Katharine’s College in Tottenham. This excerpt from the 1945 Whitelands Annual records their VE Day activities:

"VE Day was celebrated in vigorous fashion both in Durham and London. Two whole days were devoted to rejoicing. In Durham, students joined the University parade, sang in the market place, danced at the Castle, took part in the Victory service at the Cathedral and enjoyed themselves heartily. Tottenham students took full advantage of being in London."  

Roehampton's archives and special collections contain many more snapshots of life in wartime London, such as the theatre programmes that are held in the Monica Collingwood Collection. The notice below appears in the programme for Giselle, performed at Sadler's Wells on 21 July September 1941, showing that The Show Must Go On even in the midst of bombings:
"If an air raid warning is received during the performance, the audience will be informed from the stage. Those desiring to leave the Theatre may do so, but the performance will continue."

With special thanks to our contributors:

Gilly King, Southlands College Archives Historian; Kornelia Cepok, University Archivist; Gemma Bentley, Whitelands Archivist; Ginny Jordan-Arthur, former Digby Stuart Chaplain; and Professor Marilyn Holness OBE, Head of Digby Stuart College.