YOUR essential guide to six days of national commemoration marking the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe.
Find out what’s happening over the holiday weekend and through to VE Day itself on Thursday.
The Red Arrows flying over the Churchill statue in Westminster in 2020[/caption]
Wartime PM Sir Winston Churchill addresses crowds from a Whitehall balcony on May 8, 1945[/caption]
Bletchley Park hosts a weekend of code-breaking, wartime re-enactors, swing dancing, and a street party[/caption]
SATURDAY, MAY 3
11am-4:30pm: Top-secret Bletchley Park, Bucks, where the Nazi Enigma code was broken in World War Two, hosts a weekend with code-breaking challenges, wartime re-enactors, swing dancing and a street party.
7:30pm: Party like it’s 1945 with Glenn Miller-style big band music to raise the roof of the great hall at Scotland’s Stirling Castle.
SUNDAY, MAY 4
Dumfries Street in Treorchy throws a party for residents who joked with King Charles during his 2022 visit[/caption]
Noon-3pm: Dumfries Street, Treorchy, in the Rhondda Valley claims to be the “most patriotic street in Wales”.
Locals are throwing a party for residents who joked with King Charles when he visited the village pub in their mining village in 2022.
12:30pm to 4pm: Budleigh Salterton, Devon, is hosting one of Britain’s biggest street parties for 600 revellers in the High Street.
MONDAY, MAY 5
The royals will appear on Buckingham Palace balcony for a fly-past of 23 military aircraft, old and new. Led by a World War Two Lancaster bomber, it will fly over the Mall[/caption]
MILLIONS of people around the UK will celebrate on Bank Holiday Monday with thousands of street parties and picnics.
11am-5pm: Cardiff Castle is hosting Britain’s biggest VE Day 80 party, with up to 5,000 expected to attend.
The free, unticketed bash is Wales’s official VE Day 80 event. It features a bandstand with wartime music and walkabout entertainers, including circus and puppet performers.
12pm: As Big Ben strikes noon, more than 1,000 servicemen and women will parade in Parliament Square, where an actor will read some of Winston Churchill’s famous wartime speeches.
Place of honour goes to 100-year-old Royal British Legion veteran Alan Kennett, of Lichfield, Staffs. The former RAF battlefield engineer will carry the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Torch for Peace flame during the parade.
Major General James Bowder, head of the Household Division, leads soldiers on horseback from The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery and Household Cavalry.
They will be followed by hundreds of servicemen and women from the Army, Navy and Royal Marines. Nine military bands from the Irish Guards, RAF and garrisons at Tidworth, Catterick and Colchester will march into Whitehall where they will pass the Cenotaph, decked out for the first time ever in only Union Flags.
The parade will also include 10 officers from the Ukrainian army.
Military nurses, cadets and civilians will bring up the rear of the procession that will march up Whitehall to the Mall.
At the Queen Victoria Monument, the procession salutes King Charles, Queen Camilla as well as William and Kate, who will be sitting with PM Keir Starmer and 50 people from the greatest generation on a specially built platform.
These men and women include Royal British Legion veterans and those who lived through the war, such as evacuees, land girls and Bevin boys who worked down the mines.
Royals are set to appear on Buckingham Palace balcony for a fly-past of 23 military aircraft[/caption]
1:45pm: The royals will appear on Buckingham Palace balcony for a fly-past of 23 military aircraft, old and new. Led by a World War Two Lancaster bomber, it will fly over the Mall.
The Lancaster will be followed by modern RAF planes – a Voyager transport aircraft, P8 Poseidon and Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft, Typhoons, F-35 Lightning fighter jets and the Red Arrows. Battle of Britain Memorial Spitfires will not be in London on Monday but they are doing fly-pasts over Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, West Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
2pm: The Marble Corridor in Buckingham Palace is decked with bunting and flags as the King and Queen host a VE Day party for the 50 veterans.
4pm: HMS Belfast, which fired some of the opening shots in the D-Day sea battle off Normandy, now moored on the River Thames near Tower Bridge, is holding a VE tea party onboard, hosted by the Imperial War Museum.
TUESDAY, MAY 6
A yeoman holding a ceremic poppy in tribute at the Tower of London[/caption]
AT the House of Commons, Ceremonials Minister Stephanie Peacock leads the debate on VE Day and VJ Day – the end of World War Two after the defeat of Japan in August 1945.
6:30pm: Queen Camilla officially opens the return of ceramic poppies to the Tower of London. More than 30,000 of the near 900,000 poppies which were first shown in 2014 are back. But this time they are inside the Tower, which was bombed during the war.
7:30pm: Edinburgh’s Usher Hall hosts Scotland’s Salute - A Tribute to VE Day 80th Anniversary Concert.
Bagpipers will star as thousands attend Scotland’s official VE Day 80 concert, which is organised by Royal British Legion Scotland and Poppyscotland.
Band of HM Royal Marines, The Band of The Royal Regiment of Scotland, The Military Wives Choirs Scotland, as well as Amy Hawthorn and solo violinist Iona McDonald will perform.
9pm: Some 98 historic buildings around the UK will be lit up, including Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Marble Arch. St Paul’s Church, Perth, York city walls, Cardiff Castle and Llangollen Town Hall in Mid Wales will have similar displays.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7
IN the evening of May 7, 1945, the BBC interrupted its radio programmes with a newsflash announcing that the next day would be Victory in Europe Day.
On Wednesday, the Parliament Choir will host a Victory in Europe Day Anniversary Concert in the Westminster Hall.
- At Imperial War Museum North in Salford, some of the Letters to Loved Ones that families who lived through the war shared will become part of a film screening called The Next Morning.
- A National Service of Remembrance for Wales will be held at Llandaff Cathedral.
THURSDAY, MAY 8
Look out for beacon lightings to celebrate VE Day[/caption]
PUBS can stay open an extra two hours until 1am for VE celebrations.
9:30am: Town criers throughout the UK proclaim VE Day.
10am-12:30pm: Tower Gardens in Skegness, Lincs, hosts a free event – a Battle of Britain fly-past and ukulele band.
11am: Celebrations in Morecambe, Lancs, begin with a VE Day proclamation by the town crier, followed by a reception for veterans and families plus a free evening concert by Morecambe Brass Band.
12noon: National two-minute silence. Westminster Abbey’s Service of Thanksgiving begins.
Just like on VE Day 80 years ago, speakers of the Commons and Lords will walk from Parliament to Westminster Abbey for a televised service of thanksgiving attended by the Royal Family and veterans.
On May 8, 1945, services were held at the Abbey every hour, and 25,000 people attended that day.
2pm: A Battle of Britain Spitfire and a Hurricane will lead a fly-past over the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, where the British Legion is hosting a tea party for around 40 World War Two veterans plus families and carers.
4pm: The veterans will hold a service at the Arboretum’s Navy Memorial.
2pm: HMS Wellington, which served in the Atlantic during the Second World War and is now moored on the Thames at Embankment, is holding a VE Day tea party on Thursday and Friday for fun and fundraising.
6:30pm: Churches and cathedrals across the country ring their bells in celebration.
7-9pm: Birmingham is throwing a massive family-friendly city centre street party in Broadgate with wartime nostalgia, a big screen, VE Day 80 tributes, live music performers and beacon lighting.
Three Dames – Joan Collins, Mary Berry and Sheila Hancock – who all remember VE Day in 1945, will be on stage at a TV concert taking place at Horse Guards Parade in London[/caption]
8pm: Zoe Ball hosts a star-packed TV concert from a huge stage in front of 10,000 invited guests at Horse Guards Parade in London. The live two-hour show on BBC One is bringing back Dad’s Army, starring Larry Lamb, Nigel Havers and Derek Jacobi.
Three Dames – Joan Collins, Mary Berry and Sheila Hancock – who all remember VE Day in 1945 will be on stage. Succession’s Brian Cox reads Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s historic Victory speech. Fleur East opens the show with Strictly dancers Amy Dowden, Carlos Gu, Karen Hauer, Neil Jones, Lauren Oakley, and Kai Widdrington.
8pm: The Royal Albert Hall hosts music concert VE Day 80: The Party, where the war generation will tell their stories in aid of military charity SSAFA. Broadcast on Classic FM.
9:30pm: A thousand beacons will be lit across the UK, from Land’s End to Golspie, 70 miles south of John O’Groats. Locations vary, from Anglesey, North Wales, to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, as well as at armed forces museums, castles, town squares, halls, seafronts and parks.
As the beacons blaze, Chelsea Pensioner Colin Thackery, who served with the Royal Artillery in Korea and won Britain’s Got Talent in 2019, will lead the country and community choirs singing the hymn I Vow To Thee My Country.
Chelsea Pensioner Colin Thackery will lead the country and community choirs singing the hymn I Vow To Thee My Country[/caption]
TELLY
NEWSREADER Sophie Raworth is presenting live coverage of the events in London on Monday in VE Day 80: The Nation Pays Tribute on BBC One.
She is also hosting VE Day 80: The Nation Remembers from Westminster Abbey on Thursday.
Alex Jones and Roman Kemp present an hour-long One Show VE special on Monday.
Military history expert Al Murray interviews Britain’s oldest world war veteran, 110-year-old Donald Rose, who fought in North Africa and Italy before being one of the first ashore on D-Day.
Look out for One Big Thank You on Thursday’s One Show.
EastEnders has a special episode where Walford comes together to mark the historic milestone in The Queen Vic.