Victory turned into right royal night on the town
London streets pulsed on the evening of May 8, 1945. Hitler was dead, the Nazis eliminated and a decade of uncertainty settled after six years of wartime fear, loss and grief.
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London streets pulsed on the evening of May 8, 1945. Hitler was dead, the Nazis eliminated and a decade of uncertainty settled after six years of wartime fear, loss and grief.
Germany had surrendered: Britain and her allies could claim total victory in Europe.
Who wouldn’t want to celebrate? But as millions of jubilant revellers spilt into Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly, two teenage girls could only watch the action from their ivory tower. Eager not to miss out, the teenagers convinced their parents to allow them to join the jubilant crowds.
And so Princesses Elizabeth, 19, and Margaret, almost 15, slipped out of Buckingham Palace to join Victory in Europe celebrations 70 years ago.
A fictional account of their night on the town is the basis of British movie A Royal Night Out, opening in Sydney on Thursday. Details of their exploits are scant, although their cousin Margaret Rhodes, daughter of Mary Bowes-Lyons, sister of then Queen Elizabeth, reported on the evening in her 2011 memoir The Final Curtsy.
Rhodes, a year older than Princess Elizabeth, recalled the euphoria of VE Day, when a huge party was held at Buckingham Palace where she was staying with elder brother John who, along with another cousin, had been released from a prisoner of war camp just days earlier.
Britain had waited almost two weeks for Germany to finally surrender. At about 3.30pm on May 8 the princesses had joined King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to greet crowds from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Prime minister Winston Churchill joined their second appearance at 5.30pm. That evening, Rhodes wrote, the King and Queen gave permission for the princesses to join their “gang” of about 16, escorted by a King’s Equerry, a “very correct” Royal Navy captain in pinstriped suit, bowler hat and umbrella.
“No one appeared less celebratory, perhaps because he took his guardian responsibilities too seriously,” she wrote.
But it took more than a stern equerry to quell the enthusiasm of the Buckingham Palace gang.
In her journal entry for May 8, 1945, Princess Elizabeth noted, “PM (Winston Churchill) announced unconditional surrender. Sixteen of us went out in the crowd, cheered parents up on the balcony. Up St J’s (St James’s Street), Piccadilly, great fun.”
In A Royal Night Out the future queen wears a short-sleeved, gold-embossed pale pink frock and a string of pearls. Princess Margaret’s frock is of similar fabric and shade, but has long sleeves adorned with a fox-fur stole. In reality Elizabeth wore her Auxiliary Transport Service subaltern uniform, initially with the cap pulled low over her eyes as a disguise.
Rhodes recalled that London had gone “mad with joy. We could scarcely move. People were laughing and crying, screaming and shouting and perfect strangers were kissing and hugging each other.”
The evening ended with the royal revellers joining crowds on the street outside Buckingham Palace. Just a few months earlier, Rhodes recalled, the Queen had practised revolver shooting in the palace gardens, using rats as live targets.
On the evening of May 8, the princesses joined a public chorus chanting, “We want the King; we want the Queen”. Tipped off by the equerry that his daughters were outside, the King duly appeared for the eighth time that day.
Elizabeth noted that her rare taste of freedom continued into May 9: “Out in crowd again — Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly, Pall Mall, walked simply miles,” she noted in her diary. “Saw parents on balcony at 12.30 am — ate, partied, bed 3am!”
In 1985 the Queen recalled the joy of peace celebrations, explaining: “My sister and I realised we couldn’t see what the crowds were enjoying … so we asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. After crossing Green Park we stood outside and shouted, ‘We want the King’, and were successful in seeing my parents on the balcony ... it was one of the most memorable nights of my life.”
AUSTRALIA JOINED THE PARTY
Sydney greeted victory in Europe with a “paper snowstorm” as merrymakers at the Taxation Office pelted trams with waste paper. Prime Minister John Curtin declared May 9 a public holiday but as Australia was still at war with Japan in the Pacific, discouraged wild revellery.
Undeterred, from 4.30pm a carnival atmosphere began to bubble up in Martin Place, while at Kings Cross up to 15,000 people celebrated with bonfires, kissing contests and firecrackers.
Melbourne was more subdued, as crowds streamed along St Kilda Rd to the Shrine of Remembrance (pictured) for a thanksgiving service.
Originally published as Victory turned into right royal night on the town
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