Rare pictures of VE-Day celebrations in Yorkshire, 75 years ago

VE-Day was, then as now, a public holiday and an excuse at last to put up the bunting and throw a street party. In Leeds, the scenes in the city centre were repeated five days later, when more than 2,000 people took the Lord Mayor’s salute at an official victory parade.

The faces in the pictures tell their own stories: of overwhelming relief but also of the pain of the previous five years and eight months; memories of those they had lost, and perhaps of those still at war in the far east.

The war had taken a terrible toll on Yorkshire’s cities. Sheffield, a major centre for armaments manufacture, was hit by two raids in December 1940, which left 750 dead and nearly 3,000 homes and shops in ruins.

The vital port city of Hull – referred to in censored news reports only as “a north-east town”, was badly hit in March and May 1941 and again in June, after the worst of the Blitz was thought to be over. Some 450 people were killed and 10 per cent of the population made homeless. Leeds and York were among the cities also blitzed.

Set against a struggle from which no-one had been left untouched, the release that victory had brought was palpable and public. But for those who had survived it, the hard years of austerity were still ahead.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson, Editor