Queen To Mark VE Day Anniversary At Service

The Queen is due to attend a service at Westminster Abbey to mark the 70th anniversary of VE Day.

Events have been held across the weekend remembering the announcement of victory in Europe at the end of the Second World War.

There have been street parties around the country as people look to recreate the celebrations of seven decades ago.

At his home in Sheffield, Geoffrey Winter will be watching the commemoration events in London on TV. Now 92, he says he remembers the war as if it were yesterday.

As an officer with the First Battalion the York and Lancaster regiment, he fought in Italy and Germany and recalls one fierce battle in Italy during which he lost friends and colleagues.

"Within 36 hours we had lost 300, 60 killed, the rest of them wounded or missing."

With his medals, he keeps a photograph of the grave of a friend who died in the fighting.

His voice breaks with emotion as he says: "Hook was a wonderful private soldier and its when I think of people like that that I get very, very sad."

He describes how he was in Germany when he discovered the war had been won.

"The word came up, no more firing, no more shooting, the war is over."

But he said, far from the jubilant celebrations back home, the response among his fellow soldiers was muted.

"The men themselves were saying 'oh well, that's that, when can we go home?'

"That was their main thought."

He said he would spend the day remembering friends who did not make it home.

"People say 'how have you lived to 92?'

"Well I was very, very lucky to survive the war."