I was upstairs in the mill during the week looking for something.
The first thing I found was a sharp reminder that my start on clearing the mill has now been in abeyance for almost a year.
The task is back high on the 'to do' list but that is not the point of this entry.

I failed to find the object of my search but, as I hunted, I came across a copy of The Observer newspaper, dated Sunday, May 13 1945.

The date jumped out at me for a series of reasons.

13 May 1945 was just five days after V-E day, four days after my mother's forty-second birthday and seven days before my birth.

I was bemused as to how this paper could have found its way into the mill and that I had not previously noticed it.

It could not have come down the route of my family because on 13 May 1945 we were either on our way to, or had just arrived in, Jamaica where I was born.

Sue considers it highly unlikely that it could have arrived via her family. She did not think it likely that their parents would have been Observer readers and, frankly, the likelihood of the The Observer having been available in Bagenalstown in 1945 - for that is where her parents lived at the time - is remote.

It is even less likely that it will have been here since I purchased the mill in 1972/3. Neither John Gaffney, off whom I bought the mill, nor Gerry Meegan, the miller, would, by any stretch of the imagination, have been Observer readers.

There is another means by which old newspapers found their way into my possession over the years.
Newspapers were regularly used as drawer-liners and, as a dealer in old furniture, I have come across many a page with an interesting date or notable content in the drawers of furniture that I acquired.
But I do not think this is the means by which this paper found its way here because it is intact, all eight pages of it, still folded in their original collation.

So it remains a mystery.

As you can imagine, the entire issue is given over to war-end issues and there are some remarkable headlines and stories within it.

For instance:

London Crowds Stranded
The hottest day of the year - the temperature reached 85 deg - yesterday brought great crowds to London to celebrate the first weekend of peace.............

Allies Must Send Food To Germany
An authoritative statement on the food Europe may expect from democracy's larder in the first year of victory disclosed yesterday that the German people in the British and American zones of occupied Germany will receive a substantial portion of the 12,000,000 tons of food which the U.S. is planning to ship to Europe.
Officials describe this as "an unpleasant necessity"..............

Himler Reported Captured............

700,000 Surrender
More than 700,000 Germans surrendered to the Russians between Wednesday and yesterday, said last night's Soviet communique.

I could go on and on but I will end with the front page advertisement which has a certain pertinent charm don't you think?