For Annie Moore, then 26, the celebrations of VE Day were tinged with the memory of those that had lost their lives in the fighting.

“It was a happy day but a sad one as well,” she said.

“We knew that there was a lot of people that weren’t going to come home, or had been killed during the bombing.”

In 1945, Annie was a young mother living in the now non-existent Albion Street, off Barking Road, East Ham.

“There were parties going on in the streets for a couple of days,” she said.

“We were on rations but people put whatever they had together to provide food.”

“I didn’t go up to the West End but a lot of people did.”