Amongst the polite mingling, finger sandwiches and Union flag-themed slices of cake was the serious feeling that this would be one of the last gatherings of Second World War veterans to ever take place. Six decorated attendees, aged 96 to 100 years old, convened at London’s glamorous Ritz hotel on Friday, marking almost 80 years since the famous VE Day outing of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in the same hotel. The tea party, organised by the Royal British Legion (RBL), was the official launch of the charity’s commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day .
It brought together Bletchley Park Enigma machine operator Ruth Bourne, 98, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) transmitter hut attendant Joyce Wilding, 100, Private Joe Mines, 100, codebreaker Bernard Morgan, 100, RAF soldier Gilbert Clarke, 99, and former child evacuee Doreen Mills, 96. The high tea was billed as “one of the last opportunities to come together and say thank you” to those who served the country from 1939 to 1945, ahead of the RBL’s formal VE Day celebrations on May 8. “This is one of the last major opportunities for the whole nation to pay tribute, to say thank you, to those that served, and to pay tribute to their courage and fortitude,” Mark Atkinson, director general of the RBL, told The Telegraph ahead of the poignant anniversary .
“There’s not so many of us that are with it [any more] in a way,” Ms Wilding, who enlisted as a FANY aged 18 in Surrey, said ove.
