Remembering the date

 May 8th 1945                                May 9th 1945

Victory in Europe Day                  Liberation Day

Ever since 1945 annual celebrations have taken place across Britain and the Channel Islands following the sudden relief felt by most people alive at the time.  Huge happiness for the future had arrived; great sorrow as they remembered family members were lost during the Second World War; and tired relief even though some of the difficult times still lay ahead.

In special years commemorations were held in 1950, 1970, then 1985. As the key years lay behind us, and more of us forgot the date until too late, we were beginning to realise for an increasing number of young people the year 1945 and the date 8th May meant little or nothing to them.  Not only had they not been born in 1945, an increasing number of their parents weren't around then either.  More families weren't in a position to talk about the events.  The question turned from being "what did you do in the war dad/grandad?" to "Did anyone in our family know anything about the war?" to "What was this 1945 thing?"

Probably not surprising; after all, no-one today remembers celebrations at the end of 19th century wars and battles, nor even the First World War.

But in St Albans the Herts Advertiser did their best.  All the printing was in black and white on very poor quality paper.  The skills required to produce quality photographs were just not there yet, as you will see in these re-prints below.  In 1945 everyone knew the name of the Mayor (it was Mr William Bird, whose house was in Beaumont  Avenue at the time).  Masses of uniformed (mainly) men standing guard outside the Town Hall with crowds of residents gathered behind.  The jubilation was guarded and restrained.

May 8th 1945 in Market Square; Mayor William Bird gave a formal speech.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

But the fun came in the suburbs with a certain amount of dressing up and instant drama along the streets; everyone seemed to let down their hair.

COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

In parts of our district families hailing from Guernsey had been living here, having left their island (and from Jersey) just days before the enemy began its occupation of the islands.  So when 8th May arrived and the surrender signed off it was not until the following day, the 9th, that "our dear Channel Islands" could be freed.  So in Britain the date was known as Victory in Europe Day (VE), because that is what it was – though there was a lot more still to do – and tomorrow the Channel Islands will be commemorating Liberation Day, because that is what it was for the islanders.

In Liberation Square, St Helier, Jersey they selected something altogether more permanent in Philip
Jackson's highly symbolic sculpture.  Islanders are daily reminded of their return to freedom.

Islanders in Guernsey carry their reminder of freedom daily in their pockets.

So, friends and families, wherever we are, we'll hopefully have conversations, not just today and tomorrow, but every 8th and 9th May.

Cover Pictures 5

The former T E Smith printing works, Hatfield Road

 We could hardly publish a book all about the city's east end and its best known local area, Fleetville, and not include a photograph of the printing works one mile out of the town's centre.  After all, the building was known as the Fleet Works, and gave its name to the new development around it.  The Fleet refers to the river (sadly below ground and incorporated into an ancient drainage network) and the well known printers' street close to where the owner's home printing factory was based.  The gentleman in question was Thomas E Smith, who brought a significantly larger works to St Albans as colour printing became popular.  Space-hungry colour print works were often built on the outskirts of towns where land costs are lower.

We should add, Thomas Smith's works was not the first to open here; two years earlier another Smith, Orford Smith, began his fine quality  colour works nearby in what was then known as The Camp Fields. Later, the Salvation Army took over the site and it became Campfield Press – but that is another story.  

The T E Smith Colour Printing Agency as shown in the company's own advertising pages inserted into
a publication it had printed in 1907.  The inset illustrated the firm's headquarter building near Fleet
Street where, at the time, most of the country's national newspapers were published and
printed.

The road outside the factory c1914.  Many of the people shown are likely to have been
leaving their shift, walking and cycling along a Hatfield Road devoid of motor traffic.

The red brick factory following the closure of Ballito hosiery mill in the 1960s

All of the currently known and publicly available photographs of the Hatfield Road building were taken by, or for, Smith's themselves and  appeared in a large brochure/programme produced in 1907 for the 1907 Pageant at Verulamium – more than two decades before it became a public park.  Smith's was commissioned to undertake the publication, and naturally it wished to undertake a little publicity for itself.

Thomas Smith, however, was only able to acquire the land because its owners, a partnership between Earl Verulam and the Trustees of St Albans School, required funds to expand the school estate at and around the Gateway.  This expansion was the flint block we see today  adjacent to the Gateway itself.  The Fleet Ville grew on the two arable fields on which the factory was built on the south side and a further field for shops, homes and an institute on the north side of Hatfield Road.

Early photographs of a selection of printing processes within the building c1907. Here a 
rotary press is surrounded by drums of lined up nearby for the work to be done.

One of the machine rooms in the huge compartmented space, designed to limit the damaging
effect of fire.  The company operated its own fire brigade and also gave assistance to the 
neighbourhood of Fleetville.

The backbone of any printer was what was known as jobbing work – a steady stream of small scale
work requiring basic machinery or tools for the production of small quantities of leaflets, forms,
letterheads and so on.

One of the finishing departments was the bindery where multi-page documents are formed into
pamphlets or books.

As with so many commercial enterprises, Smith's was caught up in the manpower and materials issues of the First World War, and although it managed to keep going until 1916 its skilled staff were called to the front, work for the firm was seriously depleted, and the government had a serious requirement for wartime factory space.  The expansive factory was turned over to secret submarine optical research work.

At the end of the war the now government-owned property permitted  Howard Grubb to turn its attention to telescope design and manufacture, which it did until 1925 when it was absorbed into the larger enterprise of Parsons in Newcastle.

Almost immediately two American brothers who had been looking to expand the manufacture of ladies' silk stockings into the UK in order to bypass the heavy import taxes on a number of luxury goods, spied the newly empty building in Fleetville.  The former print and then optical works was acquired and converted into the Ballington Hosiery Mill.  Ballington was the name of the original Tennessee cotton mills, and the name was adjusted to become the brand for the products manufactured in Fleetville: Ballito.  It continued in Peace, War and Peace again until forcibly closed by its new owner, Courtaulds, in 1965.  Although as Ballito new buildings were added post World War Two, three successful businesses thrived in the original 1997 buildings for nearly seventy years before the site was cleared for the St Albans Co-operative Society's centralised supermarket in their own building.

Hundreds of employees were engaged in printing, engineering and hosiery during those times, and brought prosperity to both the city and especially its east end.