THE children smile self-consciously at the camera. A couple of them have paper hats set at jaunty angles on their heads. Others are distracted. For them, this photograph was probably a tedious halt in the celebrations of the day.

They would have had no idea that, 65 years later, the picture would offer a tantalising glimpse into that most British of traditions: the street party.

The party, set up on the yard at the back of Bullock’s café, at the top of Droitwich High Street, was held for the children to celebrate VE day – the end of the war.

Among the adults crowded around the tables, which were laden with jelly and blancmange, was a woman carrying a baby.

Joan Jacobs, now aged 87, is not sure now how she and her six-month-old son John ended up at the party, which was mostly made up of shopkeepers and their families.

They had already celebrated at a street party in Elizabeth Avenue, where she lived, although she thinks the parties were held a few days after May 8.

She remembered being with her cousin Marjorie Harris and thinks she was probably asked to help out by her aunt and uncle, who ran a fish shop in the High Street. Mrs Jacobs said of the parties: “I remember making some sort of jelly. God knows where we got all the stuff from. I think there were sandwiches and jam and cakes.

“Everybody chipped in and the kids had paper hats and where it all came from I don’t know.

“I remember everyone carrying the tables outside and putting the cloths on ready for the party for the children.

“The tables seemed to be laden and they had races in the road and there was laughing and shouting going on.

“People had found bunting from somewhere. There were bits of red, white and blue flying about.

“Everybody was so pleased the war was over.”

All these years later, Mrs Jacobs, who helped make bullets at the Royal Ordnance factory in Blackpole during the war, remembers many of the faces in the picture.

She said: “That’s Mr Harris, he had Harris the Chemist; Mr Davis, who had the fruit shop and Mr Turner, who ran the fish shop.”

Also in the picture are Alfie Bullock, the owner of the café, which is now Wychavon District Council’s community contact centre, along with members of the Machin family, the people behind the town’s famous hardware store.

At the back, fourth in from the right is Nelly Copson, now aged 91, who also remembered the party and VE day.

Miss Copson said: “Mr Green ran the general store on Droitwich High Street. He was in the 1914 war and his head shook continuously because of shell shock.

“On VE Day, he gave threepenny bits to all the children. He was a very nice man.”

Mrs Jacobs, of Moreland Road, Droitwich, also remembered celebrating the evening of VE day with her husband Bert, a member of 7th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, who had been demobbed two months earlier after being injured.

She said: “We were living with my mum and we had got the baby and she said if you want to go out tonight you can. We hadn’t got much money, I think we had about six shillings.

“We thought we would stroll down the town to see what was happening as this was VE day and everybody was joyful.

“We got as far as St Andrew’s Street and my husband said, ‘How about if we go for a meal at the Raven hotel?’ I was aghast.

“It wasn’t for the likes of us. It was the posh place. I said, ‘We can’t go to the Raven!’”

The couple went to a noticeboard which featured the hotel’s menu and found they could have a meal for half a crown each.

However, Mrs Jacobs said: “I said, ‘We can’t walk in there and ask for dinner’. “So my husband said, ‘There’s a phonebox across the road, let’s phone’.

“It was tuppence to phone them and that came out of the shillings.”

“I was petrified at the thought of walking through the door.

“But we went and they showed us to the dining room and sat us down and I was absolutely mortified when I could see walking towards me was the waitress who lived next door to my mum.”

The couple ate cold meats and potatoes but could not afford to buy a drink.

She said: “It was lovely but how naïve we were. You can’t believe it now but then, we would never have dreamt of going to a restaurant like that.”

Mrs Jacobs’s memories have been recorded along with those of many other Droitwich people for the Our War, an oral history archive for Droitwich project.

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