Victory Parade - 1995

Service veterans turned out in force in Bourne on Sunday 20th August 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Victory in Japan and the ending of World War II. The main event was an open air service at the War Memorial in the Wellhead Gardens attended by the Mayor, Councillor Alan Jones, the president of the Bourne and district Royal British Legion Colonel John Thompson and the secretary of the Bourne branch of the Royal Naval Association Hubert Johns. The service at the cenotaph was led by the Vicar of Bourne, Canon John Warwick, who is also the Legion's chaplain, and the thanksgiving was given by Canon Murray MacDonald, a retired colonel who was also chaplain to the RNA. Prayers and the blessing were said by Canon Warwick.

There was a silence of remembrance and the famous words When You Go Home were read by Mr Lloyd Hughes of Bourne, who was imprisoned by the Japanese and was released from captivity 50 years before. The chairman of the Bourne branch of the Legion, Mr George Barber, read from Laurence Binyon's Lines for the Fallen:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

The moving service ended with hymns before the veterans, some in wheelchairs, paraded through the town to the Legion club in Burghley Street where they were presented with commemorative mugs by the mayor.

The previous evening, 3,000 people attended a grand fireworks display at the Wellhead Gardens organised by Mr Ted Kelby, a veteran of the Japanese campaign, Councillor John Kirkman and Mrs Mary Redshaw, clerk to Bourne Town Council. There was also music by the Bourne Salvation Army Band and a variety of stalls.

A celebration party was held on the Sunday evening after the parade at the Bourne Conservative Club which was filled to capacity with the clubroom decorated, wartime music played and an VJ exhibition of memorabilia. Another veteran of the Japanese campaign, Mr Ted Dolman, cut a special cake and toasted the end of the war. Other veterans present were Mr Frank Austin and Mr Joe Payne.

Photographs: Courtesy Hubert Johns, Bourne branch Royal Naval Association

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