BONFIRES were lit in the middle of the street in Maidstone to celebrate VE Day and people sat around them in deck chairs, singing far into the night.

Effigies of Hitler were burned, according to newspaper coverage of the celebrations in the May 11 edition of The Kent Messenger.

Headquarters of the Kent County Council, County Hall, Maidstone, was floodlit and decorated with flags and banners. A minute’s silence was observed in Maidstone police court, which sat on VE Day.

Churchwardens and sidesmen were unable to cope with the hundreds of people who attended a thanksgiving service in All Saints Church, Maidstone, on VE night.

Believing there had been an accident or that someone was ill, police and ambulancemen fought their way through a dense crowd in the town centre on Victory night. When they got to the middle of the crowd they found four soldiers sitting on the ground, playing an imaginary game of cards, but without a pack or money.

At midnight in Maidstone on VE Day, people were still kneeling in prayer at church. Three sailors entered, singing somewhat irreverently.

One, noticing the silent worshippers, said to his friends: "Ssh, remember where you are." All three took off their hats, entered a pew and for five minutes knelt with bowed heads. Then they tiptoed out.

Elsewhere, among a big crowd of revellers in Maidstone, "Good-bye-ee, don’t cry-ee", was the refrain taken up when an effigy of Hitler, with gallows, was hurled into a bonfire.

Five pounds was promptly collected for the Red Cross and St. John.

The climax of an unforgettable VE Day at Maidstone came at midnight on May 8 when thousands of people waited for the official end of hositilities at half a minute past the hour and then sang Auld Lang Syne.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, thousands of people, carrying flags and cheering, gathered outside the Town Hall for the Mayor, Alderman C. Gordon Larking, to make the official peace announcement.

There was wild cheering when the band of The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, turned from Week Street into High Street. Following them were soldiers carrying the flags of the United Nations, escorted by an armed guard.

The Mayor paid tribute to the three Services and the Merchant Navy, but asked everyone to remember that there was still the war against the Japanese to be won.

He hoped it would not be long before they saw the Emperor of Japan and his satellites grovelling in the dust, in the same way as the Hun was doing today.

The Mayor and Corporation then marched in procession to the war memorial, accompanied by the band and flags, and the Mayor laid a wreath in memory of the Fallen.

Canon A O Standen, vicar of Maidstone, said prayers, the hymn O God Our Help In Ages Past, was sung, the Last Post and Reveillie sounded, and the band played the National Anthem.