Moray care home residents share poignant VE Day memories in new Parklands podcast
As the nation prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, a care home group has unveiled a podcast featuring residents who served during World War II.
Entitled Peace at Last: Memories of VE Day, Parklands Care Homes’ two-part podcast sees residents from care homes in Moray and the Highlands take centre stage, sharing their first-hand experiences of wartime.
Now in their late 90s and early 100s, these remarkable women recount personal stories of service, sacrifice and loss - from dodging Japanese attacks to top secret codebreaking at Bletchley Park.
The podcast also captures the sense of optimism that swept the country after years of devastating conflict.
Donald Morrison, Director of Communications at Parklands Care Homes, hosts the podcast.
He said: “It was incredibly humbling to meet people - some now in their 100s - who lived through the war and supported the war effort, whether as civilians or, in some cases, aiding our Armed Forces.
“There are some remarkable and poignant stories of service, sacrifice and loss and I feel so privileged that we were able to capture them. We all owe that generation a huge debt of gratitude.”
At Netherha in Buckie, Patricia Innes, who turned 100 earlier this year, recalls growing up in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and working in a naval office in the capital Colombo, helping to decipher top secret coded messages.
She remembers living under constant fear of Japanese attack and the pressure of wartime intelligence work.
She said: “I think I was too busy to be scared.
“I just tried to do the best I could.”
Codebreaking was also a vital task set Dr Jean Munro, now 101 and a resident at Lynemore in Grantown, who was a member of Hut 6 at Bletchley Park.
This team was responsible for deciphering German Army and Air Force Enigma messages. She was not able to reveal her work to family and friends until the 1980s.
Historians believe that breaking the Enigma code may have shortened the war by two to four years, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
“I never thought of it that way, but if I think about it now, I think I’m really glad,’ she commented.
Fellow Lynemore resident Edith McCreadie grew up in Battersea, London, and was just 15 when the war broke out. At the time, she was working at Harrods as a trainee seamstress, but at just 17 she joined the RAF.
It was a move which did not enjoy complete approval from her mother.
Edith recalled: “I had to ask my parents first because, otherwise, you couldn’t go.
“My mum wasn’t very pleased.”
She was later posted to North Africa where she met her future husband.
Glenisla resident Mamie Cree, who turned 101 recently, was conscripted from her home in Keith and sent to Dalkeith, a big upheaval since she had never been further than Elgin. She worked in an Army payroll office and remembers the wartime dances and meeting her future husband of 75 years.
A portrait of Mamie in uniform hangs on her wall, and for the recording, she proudly wore the same beret she was pictured in all those years ago.
Margaret Simpson, a resident at Weston View in Keith, grew up on a farm between Stonehaven and Montrose. She remembers wartime shortages and her mother’s ingenious workaround for sugar rationing - keeping bees to make honey for “jammie pieces”.
Occasional dances also helped keep spirits up.
Peace at Last: Memories of VE Day is available to download at podfollow.com/parklands
A short video has also been produced to commemorate VE Day. Watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiEL4Bz5ZCE
