My late mother, Ruth Heppel (1926 – 2023), had an elder brother Keith Matthews who with his wife was living in India during WW2.
Keith kept all the letters his family wrote to him during the war, and after his death, his daughter handed the letters on to me. The letters from my mother from early adolescence to late teenage years were entertaining and revealing of life in London during the Blitz, in which her house was bombed more than once.
On 8th and 9th May 1945, the 19 year-old Ruth, by then an art student, took part in the celebrations in Trafalgar Square and Whitehall and wrote an astonishingly vivid and detailed description to her brother Keith and his wife. Soon afterwards, she painted a glorious pen & watercolour picture (uploaded here) capturing the joyous uproar.
