Now the job is done... no more killing and fighting

As the nation celebrated, news of victory over Japan brought profound relief... especially for British servicemen poised to join the fight to the death in the Far East

- By John Willis

LATE on August 14, 1945, Clement Attlee, who had just replaced inspirational war leader Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, announced on the radio: "Japan has today surrendered. The last of our enemies is laid low." Schoolboy Stanley Jones was immediately roused from sleep by his father who told him: "It's all over.

"I rolled over and went to sleep - I could not remember a more peaceful night. No more fighting, interrupted nights, bombs. Peace had come," he recalled.

This is just one of a remarkable 47,000 memories collected by the BBC 20 years ago for the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, a huge war archive called The People's War, which I have now curated into a book. It is not an archive written by generals or politicians but by ordinary British men and women, a street level view of the war.

It is raw, vivid, funny, and very human.

On August 15, the nation woke up to a Daily Express headline proclaiming Peace on Earth. By the evening joyful parties were in full flow across the country.

John Wilkins, 17, a trainee Air Mechanic, headed into Manchester's city centre, where, he recalled: "We discovered a vast crowd celebrating... a public address system was broadcasting the popular tunes of the day and people were singing and dancing... leaving a pub we were embraced by countless women and one old lady grabbed me and kissed me saying, 'God Bless all you lovely boys'."

In London, tens of thousands crowded into the West End to celebrate as they had done on VE Day three months earlier on May 8. As before, the Royal Family would appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

"We were with the crowds that squeezed through Admiralty Arch and swept down The Mall to see George VI and the Royal Family come out onto the palace balcony to wave and be cheered by thousands below," recalled one anonymous contributor, whose memories were collected by Braintree Library.