As millions of people rejoiced in the news war in Europe was over, allied soldier Harold White - stationed in Nazi Germany - began a letter to his parents back home.

Eight decades later, as Kent prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, his proud daughter Melynda has shared her father’s moving first hand account of the moment peace was declared.

Coming from a family of funeral directors - an occupation that offered exemption from service when war broke out in 1939 - Harold White could have avoided going to the battlefields.

Nonetheless, determined to do his bit for King and country, he volunteered for a position in the Eighth Army - also known as the Desert Rats - a unit that would come to see harsh conflict across the unrelenting terrains of north Africa.

Tasked mostly with getting much-needed supplies to troops on the frontline by lorry - which made him a prime target for enemy fire - Melynda’s father served in countries including Tunisia, Egypt and Crete, was part of the battle of El Alamein and was understood to have even been captured temporarily as a prisoner of war before escaping through the bottom of a train carriage.

Suffering from malaria and shell shock he also endured a three-month stay in hospital in Sicily - moving eventually into Italy, before Austria and then Germany where he found himself with the army when German forces surrendered in early May 1945.

With Hitler dead and the Nazis having negotiated an end to the fighting - households back home began to hang out the bunting in readiness for VE Day celebrations on May 8.

But it was from his British convoy parked on a road in northern Germany that Harold described soldiers’ reactions and how allied searchlights in the sky signaled the end of the conflict to those waiting below.

“That letter was written at midnight when it was announced the war had ended” explains Melynda Quinn, who lives in Lydden, near Dover, and holds dear her father’s first hand account of the hours and days that followed the end of the war.

“He sent this letter back to his mum.

“It described how he felt. The feelings at that time.”

Many people in Britain, say the Imperial War Museum, couldn’t wait for the official day of celebration chosen by Churchill and so triumphant gatherings began as soon as they heard the news on May 7.

After years of wartime restrictions, rations and blackouts historians say people were eager to let their hair down and so across the UK bonfires were lit, people danced and the pubs were full of revelers even before the clock struck midnight.

Hundreds of miles away a not too dissimilar experience awaited Harold, who was born in 1912, and his comrades too - with him describing the moment soldiers lit a huge bonfire in the front garden of a German house as men danced and enjoyed wine and champagne that army officers brought ‘from out of a hat’.

Having eventually received her son’s message and believing others too would be keen to read his first hand account of the end of the war from the front line, Harold’s mother - Melynda’s grandmother - took her son’s letter to newspaper offices.

Editors in East London, near to where his parents were living at the time, printed his account as titles continued their coverage of events as conflict in Europe came to a close.

With fighting in Europe over, Harold returned to England and his parents and two sisters, however, it wasn’t long before he decided to rejoin the war effort.

Melynda said: “He came home at the end of the war. His family was so relieved to have him home but then he wanted to volunteer to go back.

“He went back to try to help repatriate the displaced and homeless people.

“She (his mum) really didn’t want him to go again.”

After almost another two years abroad, Harold eventually returned to the UK in 1947 where he married, had three children - of which Melynda is the youngest - and continued life as a funeral director.

He passed away from heart problems and cancer in 1980, aged 68, when Melynda was a young mother to her own five children.

The fact that Harold had been in Germany for VE Day came somewhat as a surprise - explains Melynda - some years later.

While it was not uncommon for those in her father’s generation to keep many details to themselves, Melynda says she regrets not having asked him more about his wartime service before he died.

“I was told that he was taken at one time as a prisoner of war” she explained. “But I don’t have all the details. I so wish I had.

“I would have asked him, but you didn’t speak about those things that much.

“He would talk about the fun times but I so wished I had asked him about more of his experiences.

“I didn’t even know he was in Germany until many years later when I read this letter.

“There’s so many questions we could have asked about his time during the war. When you have a young family you’re busy with that.

“You think over time to ask questions.”