JOY was unconfined when the war finally came to an end in August 1945. VJ Day - Victory over Japan - was the occasion for street parties, bonfires, open-air dancing and other public celebrations.

As this newspaper reported on August 16, 1945, Edinburgh went on holiday as it had rarely, if ever, done before. “By last night, celebrations had worked up to a climax of excitement which packed the principal streets with an almost immoveable mass of people, singing, cheering, and letting off fireworks.”

Indeed, the only thing that marred the day, apart from the uncertain weather, “was the old story of the queue, intensified by the housewife’s recollections of difficulties of VE Day. Every food shop had a long queue from early morning, and by ten o’clock there was hardly a loaf to be bought in the city. Patiently the crowds had to resign themselves to waiting until the next deliveries.”

The photograph was taken in Stockbridge, where the queue of shoppers was glad to note a fresh delivery of bread at the local baker’s.

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Herald Diary

Everywhere, people were making merry.

In Glasgow, almost every city-centre pub, and many in the districts, ran dry on the 15th, and closed two hours before the end of their permitted hours. George Square was a cacophony of bagpipes, whistles, drums, mouth-organs, shouting and singing

In London’s Piccadilly Circus, elated crowds devised a new game. Uprooting a bus shelter, they challenged revellers to jump on the roof, and stay on.

As a picture agency reported: “If anybody kept their seat for ten seconds while the ‘bearers’ shook and slanted the roof, it would have been a record.”