9 May 2020
By Tim Koch
No, Tim Koch is not done with VE Day75.
Following my post yesterday on the 1945 Royal Henley Regatta marking the 75th Anniversary of VE Day, Greg Denieffe sent the above picture showing the three trophies competed for at the one-day, three-event regatta. This inspired me to find some more images of wartime Henley-on-Thames.
The online Henley Herald has some nice interviews with locals who remember VE Day including one recorded for YouTube with Richard (Dick) Charlton (b.1920) who they claim is Henley’s last surviving Second World War veteran. Dick talks about his time in action and as a prisoner of war.
Finally, YouTube also has a morale boosting film from 1940 showing scenes of wartime Henley-on-Thames and talking lyrically about how normal life and the Regatta will return one day. The film ends with shots of a pre-war Henley Regatta and the words, ‘May these times come back soon’. A couple of months ago, this would have been just an historical curiosity, but today we can relate to the sentiment expressed only too well.
Hear The Boat Sing 
My father, L.A.F. (Adrian) Stokes rowed in the Winchester College first VIII in this first post-war Henley and again the following year where they competed in the inaugural Princess Elizabeth Cup. In 1945 they took part in the Hedsor Cup for schools. In the first heat Winchester College, with my 17 year old father at 4 seat, beat Owen’s School. In their second heat, they ended up on a third place behind Bedford School and Monkton Combe School in a three-boat race. In his memoirs he wrote: “We had only clocked up about a dozen outings in a proper VIII before going to Henley to face crews from such schools as Eton, Radley, Shrewsbury or St. Paul’s with their endless sweeps of water and a tradition of superior ‘wet-bobs’, by whom, though defeated, we were never humiliated. At those first peace-time Henleys everyone made a huge and successful effort to recapture the feel of the old pre-war days, and to me they provided a tantalising glimpse of another world, to be savoured nostalgically through the continuing greyness of ordinary life with shortages of everything and tougher rationing than in the war years.” I have a photo of his crew on Flickr here, Adrian is fourth from left.
