TO: Louise Toftling

FROM: Parish Clerk

SUBJECT: RE: VE Day 75th anniversary

DATE: Friday January 10th 2020, 07:12

Dear Miss Toftling,

Thank you so much for your email. I read it last night and was so touched you had written, and so excited to see the scan of the photo, but I thought it was late and I should wait and reply to you properly.

You certainly aren't too late to contribute, we are just at the stage of starting to plan things in more detail. It's lovely that your grandmother has such fond memories of the parish, and that is certainly something we'd like to celebrate. I personally wasn't aware that we'd had evacuees here during the war, so this is a very interesting link. I will definitely ask around and see if anyone else remembers anything about it.

May I print off your scan? I'd like to show it to the VE Day committee at our weekly meeting later, if that's all right. It's a lovely photo, what seems to be a street party? I wonder if it was taken around the time of the original VE Day? I think I can see the village pub in the background – which is recognisably the one which is still there – so it is quite an easy job to put this particular image almost exactly into a place, if not a time.

We are very much looking forward to marking the occasion, so I thank you again for taking the trouble to get in touch with such a lovely story of a local connection.

Best wishes,

Vicki

Victoria Shepherd

Clerk, Ealsby-le-Wold cum Southwood Parish Council

4, Back Lane

Southwood, near Ealby-le-Wold

Lindsey

**

TO: Parish Clerk

FROM: Louise Toftling

SUBJECT: RE: RE: VE Day 75th anniversary

DATE: Friday January 10th 2020, 14:48

Dear Ms Shepherd,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

Please feel free to make a copy of the photo. I was intending to offer you the originals for your exhibition of course, but in the meantime please feel free to do as you see fit with the scan.

How nice that you can place the scene so exactly. I believe it is indeed a picture of the impromptu party in the village around the time of the original VE Day. The young woman to the left, near the piano, is my grandmother, Polly (née Kirk), and the young officer with his arm round her waist is my grandfather, Arthur Toftling. The rather shy-looking woman at the piano is, I think, the lady with whom my grandmother was billeted as an evacuee. That's all I can tell you about it at the moment, I'm afraid (although I do wonder where they got the piano from, and how they got it onto the street.)

I am seeing Nan again tomorrow, and I will see if I can get some more information about the photo out of her. She's 93 now, and although still pretty spry for her age, can be quite adamant when she is not in the mood to talk about the past. I shall mention your commemoration efforts to her, though, and hope that will prompt some more memories under the guise of conversation.

I notice that the correspondence address in your email signature is Southwood – forgive me my ignorance, but what is the relationship between Ealsby and Southwood? Nan talks sometimes as if they are the same place, but a quick glance at a map shows they are not, so I am a little confused (I know she isn't). If it's not too much of a presumption, do you have a reasonably current photo of Southwood you could email over, showing a view Nan might recognise? It might prompt her to start talking about it again. Perhaps the church? They tend to be relatively unchanging over time, don't they, and her landlady played the organ there during the war apparently, in the absence of the normal organist who'd gone off to join the Air Force.

Best wishes,

Louise Toftling

**

TO: Louise Toftling

FROM: Parish Clerk

SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: VE Day 75th anniversary

DATE: Friday January 10th 2020, 22:01

Dear Miss Toftling,

Thank you. I'm sorry not to reply sooner, but I thought I'd wait until after we'd had the committee meeting, which was earlier this evening. I was surprised to see the piano in the middle of the street too! Your grandparents look very happy in the photo. The poor pianist looks a bit overwhelmed.

The committee were all delighted that you'd got in touch, and although none of us were around 75 years ago, one or two are going to ask around amongst the older and more long-standing residents. The presence of refugees was news to us all, so you've certainly started a talking point there. We wondered as a committee whether you and your grandmother (and anyone else from the family, of course) would like to come up at some point over the VE Day weekend? (If your grandmother is able to travel?) We can issue a more formal invitation in due course, so please don't feel you have to commit to anything just now, or at all, but we'd be delighted if you felt able to come and see us at some point nearer the time.

The parish is officially Ealsby-le-Wold cum Southwood – the main village being Ealsby, where the church and pubs and shop and so on are. Southwood is a small hamlet about half a mile away, really only a collection of cottages, a couple of farms and the small Methodist chapel, but within the parish boundaries. The parish council normally meet in the church hall in Ealsby, but I have found that post can sometimes go astray from there (the letterbox is not obvious) so it is easier to have council-related post directed to my home address.

I wonder where you grandmother lived while she was here, as there is not much for a lively city girl to do in the village – and even less in Southwood! (I assume she was lively, she looks so on the photo...)

I don't have any photos to hand, so took the attached on my phone before the light went completely. I'm sorry it's rather dim anyway. It shows the main road (Ealsby Lane) through Southwood, leading up the hill to Ealsby on the left. Back Lane runs behind the large house on the corner. (Just for reference, you can just about see my chimney pot over the big house's hedge, between the two cherry trees in their garden.)

I hope you have a nice day with your grandmother tomorrow, and I hope we can keep in touch. I will let you know what we can find out about what you've told me so far.

Best wishes,

Vicki

(Also a Miss, actually, although I don't usually bother if I don't have to. Please call me Vicki...!)