Harlow, United Kingdom: Centenarian Dorothea Barron recalled the wave of relief she felt when she heard the Second World War had finally ended.
“Thank goodness, it’s over,” recalls the veteran of the British navy.
Eighty years later, the age of 100 – which now teaches yoga and has seen its big birthday with a celebration flight on a Spitfire fighter plane – is part of an always registered number with veterans with memories of the first hand of the war.
The number of former World War II services in the United Kingdom is unknown.
While experts believe that there are still several thousand, the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe, marked on May 8, will be among the last major commemorations in British wartime with a substantial veteran presence.
While Great Britain marked the anniversary of four days of Monday celebrations – including military parades, flies and street festivals – Barron said to Barron AFP How it felt that the war that had overshadowed his adolescence was over.
The news came as “a release, a huge weight on your shoulders”.
But that also marked a brutal change for members of the armed forces.
“It was” keeping the uniform, here are some coupons of clothes, a few food coupons, go home. “And that was all,” said Barron.
At the age of 20, she did not foresee how difficult British life would be. It was a “terribly difficult period,” said Barron.
“I will not say unhappy, but there have been uncertain times. You never knew what was going to hit you the next day.”
“Can you feel it?”
Speaking from his house near Harlow, north of London, Barron then recalled the years of post-war reconstruction with an extraordinary VIM.
She has been teaching yoga for 60 years, and every Monday, she takes a course near her house.
Its flexibility – as shown by its laying of dogs down, with heels on the ground and a perfectly flat back – even impresses its young students.
“Can you feel it at the back of your legs?” She asked during a recent course.
“If you want firm breasts, it’s pose,” she said a dozen students aged 20 to 95, imperturbable by their groans.
“I feel good, relaxed and stretched,” she said when I got home afterwards.
Spitfire flight
Barron celebrated his 100th birthday in October 2024 stealing in a Spitfire, a Royal Air Force plane which played a crucial role in the Battle of Great Britain in 1940 against the German Luftwaffe.
“It was really wonderfully exciting,” she said, radiating.
With such energy today, it is easy to imagine Barron’s determination at 18.
She wanted “desperately” to join the royal female naval service, or Wrens, as they were known.
“We did not go that the Nazis take control of our country,” she said.
But Barron feared that she was too short to cut.
“I cheated like crazy and cut cardboard heels to make myself look bigger, and I built my hair, I swelled it,” she said.
“I only had five feet two inches (157 centimeters), but I think they saw that I was so eager to become a Wren that they thought” that we will let it go “.”
Barron taught troops how to communicate using visual signals and Morse code.
And before the landing of D -Day of Normandy, she helped test the portable ports of Mulberry, which were towed through the Channel and allowed a large number of troops and vehicles to reach France.
But she did not know what the structures used at the time, and did not realize how they were deployed.
“I was rather delighted,” she said. “I thought:” Oh, I did something useful then “.”
She planned to mark the victory during the day of Europe in the Netherlands for the Dutch Liberation Day, before participating in a service in Westminster Abbey on May 8, which will also be assisted by the British royal family.
During the war, Barron met her husband Andrew, who was in the Royal Air Force.
They had two daughters and Barron is now a great-grandmother. Andrew died in 2021 and Barron always talks about him with love.
It takes a lot to prevent Barron from being cheerful, but it is concerned about current events – in particular the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which once again left conflicts in Europe.
“No one wins a war,” she said.
