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Nostalgia: VJ Day remembered in Leeds PHOTO GALLERY
65 years ago this weekend Leeds was celebrating the end of the Second World War.
Jayne Dawson takes a look back at some scenes of joy and relief
* Click here to view the YEP picture galleries of Leeds nostalgia.
August is a month of holiday and outdoor celebrations any year – but in Leeds 65 years ago this weekend it was as if the whole city had turned out to party.
And there was much to celebrate – for on August 15 1945, VJ Day (Victory over Japan) was declared.
Victory in Europe had been won three months earlier, and now the war in the Far East was over too. It meant the Second World War was finally finished and six long years of fear and sacrifice and loss had come to an end.
In Leeds, over the next few days, Yorkshire Evening Post photographers went out across the city capturing moments of pure joy as those who had lived through the war demonstrated their relief at its end.
Today, to mark the anniversary, we are reproducing from the Yorkshire Evening Post archive some of the amazing pictures they took.
The photographs show a world that is very different from the one we live in now.
On one, women dance outside Leeds Town Hall wearing sensible shoes,
turbans, and clothes they had managed to hang on to through six years of privation.
On another, Albion Street is visible as a jubilant gang run towards the camera, but it is a different version of the Albion Street we know now. The picture shows buildings that are grimier than today, and there is a NAAFI club clearly visible.
Our photographers captured the scenes at many street parties too, and some of them are also shown here.
They show old-fashioned Leeds before the era of modernisation. There are cobbled streets, backyards, gas lamps, and boys in long socks and short trousers.
At a time before there was such a thing as lightweight, plastic garden furniture, people have pulled out their heavy dining tables and chairs to set up a party outdoors.
They have little that we now take for granted in modern life but they are all smiling - because 65 years ago this weekend, for all those who had survived the years of war, Leeds was brimming with promise.
* If you recognise anyone on these pictures or have a story about VJ day let us know. Write to Jayne Dawson, Features Editor, Yorkshire Evening Post, Leeds LS1 1RF, or email jayne.dawson@ypn.co.uk
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Weather for Leeds
Sunday 12 February 2012
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Temperature: 0 C to 5 C
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