A Penrith resident and former lecturer at Newton Rigg agricultural college has shared his recollections of a jubilant VE Day celebration in Keswick in 1945, which his family helped to organise.
Keswick born and bred John Rigg, aged 93, was just 13 at the time when he attended a very special dance party at Keswick’s Pavillion arranged by the Keswick PUPs (Pushing Young People), a voluntary group set up by his uncle Tom Wilson after World War One. Fate had it that the PUPs had pre-booked one of their regular dance and social functions at the Pavilion on the date that was to become a national holiday celebrating Victory in Europe.
“My uncle Tom was quite a good organiser,” explained John. “Tom joined the 4th Border Regiment territorials in 1914, serving in Burma and after the war he set up the PUPs. My uncle got a few together to create a group of people who would do good things for Keswick. He set up the PUPs in 1929.”
One of the PUPs first major achievements, says John, was raising funds for Keswick’s town hall clock. Other fundraising initiatives included a ‘fags for the lads’ project to help soldiers during World War Two. Their programme of events in 1945 fortuitously included a dance at the Pavillion that was set to be an unforgettable occasion for everyone associated with it. “They got a date fixed for a function in the Pavillion, and of course on the day Germany capitulated it was announced that VE Day the following day would be a holiday, and just by sheer chance the PUPs had got a dance booked on that day,” said John.
VE Day was officially announced for 8th May, 1945, marking the formal acceptance by the Allies of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, leading to the end of World War Two in Europe. The young John attended the Keswick celebration, with his parents Clem and Mary Rigg who as PUPs were co-organisers of the event.
He recalls being the youngest person there and marvelling at the euphoric celebrations. “I can remember being taken into the cafe area of the Pavilion, and you walked through these doors onto the balcony above the dance floor. You could not have put a pin between people; there were so many people. People were dancing, hugging and kissing.”
John, who may well be the last surviving person to have attended the event, says there were well over a thousand people there; numbers bolstered by soldiers from the British Army’s vehicle driver and maintenance school which was based at Keswick at the time. Coincidentally, John also recalls witnessing VJ celebrations (Victory over Japan) later that year when he was in London on holiday with his family. “London was heaving with service people waiting to be demobbed,” he said. “We were in London walking down Regent Street to Piccadilly when news came over that Japan was to surrender. The whole of Piccadilly exploded,” he said. “There I was, a hick from the sticks stood in the middle of Piccadilly going absolutely berserk.”
John was born in 1931 at the former Waverly Hotel and Cafe in Keswick, which used to belong to his grandfather, and which his parents managed. A former Newton Rigg student and agricultural worker, he later graduated from Durham University in agricultural science, and went on to be a lecturer at Newton Rigg. He also played rugby for Penrith in the 1950s.
He is now retired and lives in Penrith and expresses great pride in the work of the PUPs and his family connection to the organisation. John shared with the Herald a number of the original PUPs newsletters that were sold to help support their work in the community. An early edition of one of the booklets states: “The society responsible for this innovation consists of young persons, and others feeling young, who, having the interests of the town at heart, are prepared to do something in return for the privilege of being Keswickians.”
The achievements of the Keswick PUPs during the 1930s and 1940s were indeed many, and there is a commemorative plaque to the PUPs on the wall of the town’s council chambers honouring their work.
