Eighty years on, QE musicians celebrate VE Day once again

Many of the School’s instrumentalists turned out in the sunshine to provide their classmates with a lunchtime concert as the nation celebrated the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

Musicians from five ensembles performed for pupils and staff on the Stapylton Field lawn, with senior boys enjoying the chance to participate just ahead of the examination season.

The front of Main Building provided an attractive, historic backdrop for the celebration of VE (Victory in Europe) Day. There was Union Flag bunting, and the audience were invited to bring along mini-picnics.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “On the first anniversary of VE Day, in 1946, King George VI sent the nation’s schoolchildren a message: ‘I know you will always feel proud to belong to a country which was capable of such supreme effort; proud, too, of parents and elder brothers and sisters who by their courage, endurance and enterprise brought victory.

“May these qualities be yours as you grow up and join in the common effort to establish, among the nations of the world, unity and peace.’

“That royal message of peace – and the need to actively work for it and in its defence –resonates today,” said Mr Enright.

“It is vital that each new generation should understand the sacrifices that were made in order to protect our values and freedoms. We should remember that 65 Elizabethans were killed during the Second World War, among the huge number that served in different capacities at home and overseas.”

The concert featured a varied repertoire. There were musicians from:

• Junior Jazz
• Senior Jazz
• Junior Strings
• Junior Winds…
• And some from Senior Winds.

The concert came in a busy period for QE’s musicians, with the Chamber Choir spending the eve of the VE Day anniversary singing Evensong at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

In 1945, VE Day was declared a national holiday, so the School is likely to have been closed on that day, with street parties and church services taking place in Barnet.

School life had continued uninterrupted during World War II, but there were many changes because of the conflict: a dip into the School archives at QE Collections reveals that the ending of hostilities in Europe brought about a return to pre-war normality.

An editorial in The Elizabethan magazine of July 1945 states: “Schools that are in touch with their old boys are not likely to forget that the war in the Far East is a long way from ended. But the end of the European War, almost visible in its approach, has at last arrived and inevitably brought some changes in school routine. First, the obnoxious and rather archaic custom of carrying respirators to school on certain days, which must have caused the inhabitants of Barnet no little wonder, was discontinued. Next the throb of the flying-bomb was no longer to be heard, and then the occasional thud of a rocket became less frequent.”

With the threat of bombing lifted, protective boards on doors and windows were swiftly removed and sandbags discarded. Such activities seemed like “a production by the Dramatic Society – such as few of us can now remember”, the editorial continued.

“On top of all these novelties (novelties to the majority, to the aged a fascination) luxury returns, for some school teams now even make their journey to distant adversaries by aristocratic plush coaches instead of by jarring petrol-buses.”