Ormeside, just as the sudden outbreak of war can throw everything into utter chaos, so indeed can the sudden outbreak of peace. All those who have related their story here, including yourself, reflect that truism. It must have caused a mass of conflicting emotions to say the least, relief that potential mortal danger on a daily basis was at last past, mixed with regret that the powerful sense of purpose that was its corollary was also now a dying ember.
You youngsters (!) that graduated in your study of war late in its progress must have felt that all the more keenly. At least you had been engaged in offensive action against a tyranny that threatened your freedom, and as boots on the ground in the front line at that! Many never had that opportunity, one thinks of those (1 in 10?) that were instead sent into the alien and also dangerous depths of the mines to hew coal instead of being in the Forces.
This had been The People's War before such tags became debased. Women were now to be released from war work, be it in the factories, on the land, on the Railways, or as Forces Auxiliaries, whether they wished it or not. Our landscape was set to become the grey postwar wasteland of shortages, until the 60's at least, that I grew up in (punctuated only by the state funfair that was the Festival of Britain).
But at least there was now freedom and hope, in place of the ever possible threat of defeat or even an enforced suing for peace. Whatever befell one after that was bound to be an anti-climax and it was perhaps those who had been in the thick of things for years rather than months who faced the greatest challenge in adjusting to the new tempo of life. Everyone's story was different (hence the unique value of this thread). They did however have one unifying quality, they were all part of the amazing group that was the wartime generation, to which we later ones must be forever indebted!