Engagement Editor

Published 6th May 2025, 15:30 BST

My Grandfather’s ‘VE Day’ story is legendary in my family - a tale of real-live romance as a country finally emerged from the darkest depths of war.

It’s not like I only ever think of my grandpa on VE Day. I think about him, about all my grandparents, all the time, wondering what they would make of the world today.

But VE Day does feel like an incredibly fitting day to pay tribute to him.

I loved my Grandpa

My grandpa was wry and funny. He was kind. When I was young, he would send me really interesting letters, typed on his old typewriter, that contained facts like what the longest word in the dictionary was, or what the highest mountain in France was, and I always felt like a grown up getting a letter through the post.

I knew him in the way a child knows an adult, with awe, acceptance of authority, and only able to see them within the context of my own life.

To me he wasn’t a soldier that fought in a war, he wasn’t a divorcee, a father, a businessman. He was my grandpa, who picked me up and hugged me when I saw him, and smoked like a chimney outside the house, the smell of stale smoke forever reminding me of him.

He was the man who, when our flight to London was extremely delayed, refused to go with the paramedics after he had a stroke in the restaurant because “his family from Scotland were on their way” and then gave me my first taste of whisky when we arrived.

The Second World War

My grandpa, Derek Mackie, volunteered for Army service in the Royal Armoured Corps in October, 1941. He served in North Africa and Italy before being called home to train for D-Day.

“Much training, invasion preparation, waterproofing of vehicles etc,” he would write later.

His regiment landed in France a day or so after D-Day - “when a lot of the hoo-haa died down,” he casually mentioned to my aunt once - and advanced into Belgium, where, near the city of Ghent, he was wounded.

He ended up in a specialist hospital in Wales where he was subject to penicillin injections, saving his arm.

“Initially right arm to be amputated, but saved by penicillin injections every two hours day and night or a fortnight,” he wrote.

After the treatment, he was transferred to a hospital in London.

When the news of VE Day arrived, he and a friend commandeered a motorbike with a sidecar, and heading through London, in his words “stopping at every pub on the way there”.

Finally alighting at a party at St Pancras Town Hall, he bumped into a beautiful, tall and mysterious brunette Lily - my grandmother.

I asked Nana once, years after grandpa’s death, about that meeting.

“I mean, he must have been absolutely wasted,” I reasoned to her. She smiled and said: “Oh God, yes, but then we all were.”

Though war in Europe was over, my grandpa’s regiment was drafted back out to Berlin, to monitor the British sector, which happens to be a story all of its own.

He later wrote: “22 Oct 1946 - demobilised, almost five years to the day.”

This year saw him in a civilian suit with a new job, starting a new life, and on April 3, 1948 in London, my grandparents married.

A story told through generations

This story through the years has had bits added to it - depending on the family member telling the story to the next wide-eyed generation of Mackies.

Flourishes added, comic touches perfected, dramatic pauses essential, details mangled.

Though as much as this story plays out like a beautiful film or book you’d pick up at the airport, the truth was that grandpa carried his time in the army with him, not the black-and-white movies or the drunken parties in St Pancras, nor the romantic stories or sepia photographs, but the reality of war.

It shaped who he was. His part in the war was a life-long sacrifice.

He strongly believed in discipline and could be very strict.

My grandpa was flawed and scarred, funny and generous, intelligent and often furious. He inspired me and was slightly intimidating at the same time.

I remember him in a series of photos and video clips in my head, like my own personal TV show, watching through a screen a million miles away.

I remember him as if I’m still a child, growing up too late to ask him all the questions I wish I’d asked.

I have a written account of his time in the war - written by him as part of a family tree competition I entered in primary six.

I read it at least once a year, around this time of year of course, my hand running over the typed pages created by that beloved typewriter.

It’s clinical and to the point. Not once does he talk about how it felt. Whether he was homesick, scared, angry.

I’ve heard from others small details about his time in the war, some frightening or bizarre nuggets of history that aren’t written down anywhere, but occasionally tumbled into conversation at family meet-ups, long after my Grandpa passed away.

We have a responsibility to tell these stories

I’ve written this story down before and I’ve enjoyed writing it down again.

It feels important for everyone to remember, not just the big, monumental moments in the war, but the small ones. The people, their lives, their stories.

This story is one in our family, and there’ll be millions more in families across the world. Now feels like a good time to tell them.

VE Day 80th anniversary: A story of love and war handed down through generations about my grandfather

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