There’s an exhibition at the County Hall Museum called Abingdon 1945.

It begins with displays tracing the progress of the Second World War from 1939 to 1945, and shows how everyday life in Abingdon was affected by the conflict, with exhibits on gas masks, air raid shelters, evacuees, blackouts, rationing, Dig for Victory gardens, and women taking on manual work at the MG factory and on local farms.

The exhibition then looks at the celebrations that followed the end of the war, with displays on VE Day and VJ Day in 1945. Street parties broke out spontaneously on May 8th, with dancing under the County Hall, and one airman climbed up to kiss Queen Victoria’s statue in the Market Place. In the weeks that followed, street parties were organised across the town. Abingdon was decorated for a grand Victory Parade on 7th August, which included a Fleet Air Arm and RAF fly-past. There were more street parties after VJ Day on 15th August. (The photo above shows residents of Winsmore Lane at their VJ party, as reported in the North Berks Herald.)

After the war, freedoms returned: you could switch on all the lights in the house and leave the curtains open, have a radio in your car, release a racing pigeon without police permission, buy a large-scale map, or sleep in an uncamouflaged tent.

But recovery took time. Rationing continued for several years. Housing was in short supply, and Abingdon saw experimental steel prefabricated homes made — with seven-foot-low ceilings. Many women gave up the jobs they had taken on during the war, returning to domestic or clerical work, while men were gradually demobbed or returned from prisoner-of-war camps and found new employment.

The County Hall Museum is run by Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council.