When VE Day was announced on 8 May, 1945, the ‘Cambrian News’ produced a special edition on the day, reflecting the importance of the occasion.

A picture of the King and Queen appeared above the headline, ‘Peace in Europe’. The page cost threepence and proceeds from the sale of it went to the Welcome Home Fund.

Eighty-years later, the date still holds a special place in our hearts and much is being done to mark the anniversary.

Authors Hugh Morgan and G J Lewis, who spent 30 years interviewing Ceredigion World War Two veterans, have collated them for new book, ‘World War Two: Voices from Wales’.

Some interviews go back several years, including Iori Lewis, of Aberystwyth. Recalling VE Day, he said: “I was in Kiel in northern Germany with the 7th Armoured Division early in May.

“We were packing up [to carry on into Denmark] when they announced the war was over. Didn’t expect it. I can’t describe it. Flummoxed – you know, it just didn’t sink in. It took days to realise that the thing was finished. You felt lost. I looked at the gun and I said, ‘I don’t need that any more’.

“If only it had finished a few days before, we’d have kept a few more lives, because some people were killed in the last couple of days.”

Pauline Penrose of Llechryd, a WAAF plotter during the war, said: “We had our mess right on the edge of the airfield [North Weald] and we could see planes going off... And so often they didn’t all come back. It was very upsetting because you got to know them, some of the pilots.”

The memories of Aberaeron’s George Duffee, who survived thanks to members of the resistance in France who helped him after he had been shot down, John and Adelaide Martin of Tan-y-groes, near Aberporth, Jean McKay, also from Aberporth, and Ceredigion primary school teacher Mary Bott MBE are among many others featured in the book, for which the authors interviewed more than 50 airmen, sailors, soldiers, members of the special forces, and women from the Land Army, the Women’s Royal Naval Service (the Wrens), and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

“As a child growing up during the mid-50s and swinging 60s, I was accustomed to living in a society of men and women, including several close relatives still only in their early 40s, who had been through the hell of WW2 just 20 years earlier,” said Mr Morgan.

“Sadly, the veterans I knew back then are now almost all gone. But the joy and immense privilege of interviewing so many over the years has always stayed with me, their jaw-dropping memories so vivid and powerful.”

‘World War Two: Voices from Wales’ (£12.99, Y Lolfa) is published on VE Day, 8 May.

As the 80th anniversary of VE Day approaches, writer Lucy Matthews has been recording Doreen Simson’s story.

At four years old, Doreen took a train journey that changed her life forever. She had only ever known thick city smog and the hustle and bustle of London until she was evacuated to Borth. Lucy grandmother and great grandmother came across a crying four-year old Doreen at the evacuee collection point, and welcomed her into a life so different from the one she had in London.

Doreen was one of 800,000 children evacuated in 1941. She specifically remembers her mother Nell telling her to not leave her brother Dennis’ side, as they were greeted with ‘children holding jam jars full of water for us to drink’ shortly after arriving in Borth. But her brother was picked prior to her and Doreen remembers “crying so much”.

“My mum had told me to stay with my brother and within minutes of ending up in this new place, he had gone. That’s when Jean Sharpe came along, and I became a member of the family. She took a look at me, saw me crying and said ‘I’ll take this one’.”

Walks down country lanes with Mrs Sharpe were Doreen’s favourite.

“Those walks have played a huge part in helping me become the woman I am today, especially when it came to my career as a florist. I was the first in my family to take up floristry, and this originated from my time spent in Borth in the countryside.”

Doreen said the train journey back to London “is a blur”. “My brother greeted me at Paddington and the next thing I knew, I was being dragged down the stairs and into a house with a new baby. Some things had definitely changed during my time away.”

Nell and Jean never got the chance to meet, but Doreen knows how relieved her mother was for her to be taken into a family that continued to extend their affection towards Doreen later in life, even joining them in the family car for the funeral procession of Jean Sharpe, the woman who took in a distraught four-year old Doreen at the collection point.

“I just know that I was so lucky to be taken in by your great grandma,” Doreen told Lucy.

“My sister was one of the thousands of children that returned home due to mistreatment. Being a member of the evacuee association makes me realise my luck with the experiences I had across those four years.”

Meanwhile, author Rob Moffitt has published his first book, ‘Just A Forgotten Hero’ about William Griffiths from Barmouth who had extraordinary adventures with the RAF in WW2.

This true story tells how the chance discovery of some memorabilia that had belonged to a heroine of the Belgian Resistance in WW2 led to five strangers coming together to uncover the dramatic events behind them. The story of how this man became an RAF Air-Gunner and was shot down in a Lancaster bomber over Waterloo returning from a night-time raid on the Rhur. His adventures while evading capture by the Germans and how he returned home through Belgium, France and Spain aided by courageous local patriots.

Life after the war was not kind to our hero and he became estranged from his family and on the margins of society. He died alone and was buried in an unmarked grave, unmissed and unmourned. That is not a fitting end for any war hero.

Having learned so much of his fascinating past, could the group find his surviving relatives to tell them his story? Could they restore his honour so he can rest in peace? Find out in ‘Just A Forgotten Hero’.

VE Day street parties were held in celebration, and the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth has wonderful pictures of parties in Aberystwyth’s Lisburne Terrace and Powell Street. This year, HAHAV Aberystwyth’s Caffi Cofion dementia group will have a tea party on 8 May from 2pm-4pm at Plas Antaron, Cilgerran’s Rhosygilwen will mark the anniversary from 7.30pm on Thursday, 8 May, with traditional food, memories, singing around the piano, and vintage hits with The Hornettes. In Gwynedd, Criccieth Memorial Hall and Town Council organised a commemoration afternoon on Sunday, 4 May, with music from Llandudno Swing Band.

Eighty years on, our war heroes are remembered with pride throughout the ‘Cambrian News’ region and beyond.