Flag Raising With A Mug Of Tea & A Slice Of Cake

Today was the 80th Anniversary of VE Day and our local town of Maidstone was holding a flag raising ceremony to both celebrate and commemorate it.
It was a moving and understated ceremony, held in the town's Jubilee Square, that whilst acknowledging the joy that everyone felt at the ending of the war in Europe it was also a day for reflection and remembrance. We should never forget those who gave their lives so that we could be free from the forces of fascism and tyranny.
Alongside the ceremony itself there was a host of re-enactors - in American and British uniforms and those dressed as land girls and wartime housewives - as well as a collection of military vehicles.
I captured my main image when one of the re-enactors had taken a well earned break for a mug of tea and a slice of cake, with my first extra showing a spanning of the generations as the pointing youngster being held aloft seemed to be fascinated by proceedings and my last image a close-up of a jeep's windshield and its newspaper based confirmation of VE Day.
Watching the coverage of the day, and on previous anniversaries, what has struck me about the testimonies of those who served is how little they talk about themselves, how they consider that they were only doing their duty and that it should always be about their friends and comrades in arms who did not survive and never got the chance to return home to their loved ones.