Some will be alone, others with close family, and many in care homes, but all are confined by the threat of Covid-19. Seventy-five years on from one of the most memorable days of their lives, many of those who lived through the second world war and the euphoria of victory in Europe are unable to celebrate VE Day as they had planned or wished. The veterans’ parades, emotional reunions and cheering street parties they had looked forward to are all cancelled. Yet their disappointment is tempered by the same stoicism that got them through the war. ‘I’ll be alone with my tiny union jack’ Marie Scott, 93 “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am,” said Marie Scott, 93, who as a 17-year-old wireless operator heard first-hand the “bombs, gunfire, shouting and mayhem” of the D-day landings over the telephone in Portsmouth. “But in the present circumstances I think: what am I moaning about? All I’ve got is disappointment, whereas a lot of people have got far, far worse.” Scott, a retired secretary and grandmother, should have been in the Netherlands this week with the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, marking Dutch Freedom day with others. There was to have been a parade, too, in central London, and a service at Westminster Abbey, followed by afternoon tea in a hotel and a meeting with old comrades, she said. She joined the million-strong crowd in central London on VE Day “where you were swept up with this sense of excitement and exhilaration”. “There was lots of hugging and kissing, all totally indiscriminate”. She remembers being alarmed by the density of the crowd, and fearful of being crushed. Now, on Friday, “I will probably be alone,” she said, “ though there will be masses of phone calls, and I’ve got my tiny little union jack.” At the end of the two minutes silence, at her flat near New Malden, south-west London, she intends to “raise a glass of something pleasant”. ‘It might have been my last opportunity to go to the Netherlands’ Ron Johnson, 98 Ron Johnson, 98, from Shrivenham, near Swindon, was also expecting to be in Wageningen, in the Netherlands, with the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, where he and other veterans would have be cheered by tens of thousands on Freedom Day. The retired businessman and grandfather has been before, “and it’s the most terrific experience, with people coming up to shake your hands.” “But, it’s gone. Kaput. It’s completely understandable. The world has shut down because of this virus,” said Johnson, an infantry officer with the Essex Regiment, then a glider pilot, who survived the bloody Battle of Arnhem despite being wounded by mortar fire and hit by a sniper’s bullet. Taken prisoner, he spent six months on a near starvation diet at Spangenberg Castle camp, then escaped when the Germans marched them out, and hid in hills for eight days until he was picked up by Americans. He arrived home in Grays, Essex, two days before VE Day. “On VE Day I got dressed up in service dress and headed into London, feeling smart though a bit thin and worn through lack of food.” He headed to Buckingham Palace, then he and two comrades went to a pub, in the company of “three young ladies from Scotland”. He thinks he will spend the anniversary mainly alone, although his daughter will visit. “And I shall be thinking chiefly about the terrible loss at Arnhem, which was really shocking, but not to dwell on it or to be too sad,” he said. He hopes to visit the Netherlands again in the future. “But, I’m 98 now, and it might have been my last opportunity.” ‘It would have made up for what we missed in India’ Jim Healy, 95 Jim Healy, 95, a D-day veteran, missed VE Day as he was onboard HMS Persimmon in Bombay’s docks, preparing to head to Burma and “have a go at the Japanese”. “It was half-time for us,” said Healy, a former Royal Marine and retired printer from Middleton, Manchester, who lives alone. “The announcement came over the tannoy from the prime minister that they’d surrendered. It was quite joyful, to say the least.” They had to wait until the following day for their rum ration, “then it was quite a noisy party, but we were brought down to earth very rapidly because we were preparing for Burma.” He was to have been in London on Friday for the Royal British Legion celebrations and parade. Instead, his family will pay a distanced garden visit, and he plans to join the national singalong of We’ll Meet Again. “It would have been a joyful day. We missed the celebrations on VE Day, but saw pictures of people going mad in Manchester, London and Liverpool. I was looking forward to the anniversary. It would make up for what we missed when we were in India,” he said. ‘We were brothers. But we can’t risk it with this virus’ Jack Bracewell, 97 For Jack Bracewell, 97, VE Day was spent in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany. The following day, while visiting the house of a German family he had befriended, the door opened and the couple’s son entered in German uniform. No longer enemies, the two men shared “several drinks”. “It was over. And he was just another soldier,” recalled Bracewell, a D-day driver with the Royal Armoured Service Corps who experienced heavy fighting in Caen and at the Battle of Falaise. The retired driver, from Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, had hoped to attend three days of celebrations in London organised by the Royal British Legion. But his daughter and her husband, with whom he lives, are still pulling out all the stops. There will be bunting, bubbly, afternoon tea on the front lawn and 1940s music. Bracewell intends to wear a union jack sequinned bow tie. And though he can’t see his old comrades in the flesh, they will catch up on the day through video calls. “I’d love to have seen them. We were brothers. But, we can’t risk it with this virus,” he said.