VE Day 2025: Rare VE Day stories and objects uncovered for 80th anniversary

8 May 2025
ve day party portsmouth

Their Finest Hour project digitised over 25,000 Second World War memories, including powerful accounts and artefacts marking Victory in Europe Day 

"This really is it!! I can hardly believe it [...] we have all decorated our houses with flags + everywhere simply shouts Victory..." 

So begins a newly uncovered letter written on 8 May 1945, the day the war in Europe officially ended. 

To mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Oxford University is sharing a remarkable collection of newly unearthed stories and artefacts – gathered not from official archives, but from kitchen drawers, family photo albums, and attic boxes across the UK and beyond. 

These powerful first-hand accounts, photographs, and keepsakes were gathered through Their Finest Hour, a major Oxford-led project that digitised over 25,000 memories and artefacts of the Second World War. A dedicated VE Day section of the archive is now live at https://theirfinesthour.english.ox.ac.uk/veday. 

Among the newly uncovered materials are: 

  • A red, white, and blue decorated letter written on VE Day describing disbelief, exhaustion, and joy. 

  • A red, white, and blue rosette picked up during spontaneous celebrations in Oxford Street, London. 

  • A teddy bear named Victory, given to a child in Warwickshire as the war ended. 

  • A souvenir programme from RAF Takoradi in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where 'Victory week' was marked with boat trips, football matches, and films. 

  • Photographs from Hackney, South Wales and elsewhere capturing bonfires, street parties, and decorations. 

  • Rare photograph of a WREN (Women's Royal Naval Service) victory parade in Portsmouth. 

  • Diary entry from a Marine on a ship bound for India, who recorded celebrated VE Day with a bottle of beer and corned beef. 

  • First-hand accounts from evacuees from Jersey and Guernsey 

Professor Stuart Lee, project director of 'Their Finest Hour' and member of Oxford's English Faculty, said:  "Very few families in Britain and across the Commonwealth were untouched by the war. We knew from previous projects that people have so many wonderful objects, photos, and anecdotes which have been passed down from family members and which are at risk of getting lost or being forgotten. We're delighted that we have been able to preserve so many of these stories and objects and make them available to the public through our archive of memories." 

Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Their Finest Hour was based at Oxford's Faculty of English and ran more than 70 free 'Digital Collection Days' in 2023 and 2024. Over 2,000 people came in person to share and digitise stories, objects and photographs; many more contributed online. 

Dr Matthew Kidd, project manager, said: "The success of the project would not have been possible without the voluntary effort of thousands of dedicated volunteers and contributors. Thanks to their efforts, we've been able to create a 'people's archive' of the Second World War that showcases both the extraordinary and everyday objects passed on by those who lived through the war." 

Collection events took place in schools, libraries, museums, churches, community centres, and places of worship, with support from organisations including the National Memorial Arboretum, the Wiener Holocaust Library, and the National Museum of the Royal Navy. 

Their Finest Hour is the latest in a series of digital memory projects led by Professor Lee since 2008, using the award-winning Oxford Community Collection Model. 

Photo information: An image of a VE Day celebration in Portsmouth which was submitted to the project