MESSAGES OF LOVE IN 25 WORDS Parents’ letters from Nazi-occupied Guernsey

AS the Nazis were about to occupy Guernsey in 1940, families were forced into heartbreaking choices about whether to stay together or split up.

For those parents who evacuated their children to safety it was a time of immense separation anxiety.

The only news they received about their loved ones were 25-word letters that would take months to arrive.

One such divided family were the Hills, greengrocers who sent two of their three boys to England and Scotland in May 1940. Weeks later the Nazis invaded the Channel Island.

Now the moving correspondence between parents William and Florence and their sons Bert and Ken, aged 11 and 12, has been released by the Imperial War Museum.

On the eve of the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the letters are reminders of what some people had to endure during the Second World War.

The Channel Islanders, like British prisoners of war, had to send letters through the International Red Cross which meant they travelled thousands of miles across Europe.

They had to go via Portugal, Spain, France, Red Cross HQ in Geneva, Switzerland and then the German postal system.

They arrived stained with blue lines from chemicals used by the Nazis to check them for code.

The boys were sent to Scotland. Bert stayed with a relative on the Isle of Bute, while Ken later moved to his Aunt Margaret’s in Heston, West London.

A letter from their parents in June, 1942, reads: “Dear boys. Everyone well. You have grown tall Bert. What is Ken’s height? Relieved to know you are happy. Longing reunion. Fondest love. Mum. Dad.”

Another dated July 7, 1943, reads: “Hope all well. Same here. Will and I busy in garden. Potatoes rationed. Weather none too warm. Ask Peggy to write us. Love Mum. Dad.”

Ken and Bert have died but Bert’s son, Rick, 60, a surveyor from Swindon, who is furloughed during the lockdown with wife Liz found the letters incredibly moving. He said: “I’ve got two grown-up boys of my own now and to think how my grandfather and grandmother must have felt letting my father and my uncle leave at such a young age brings tears to my eyes. The only contact they had was through those notes.

“They were a lifeline and

I guess a way of keeping the hope alive that they would all get through it and meet again. I guess we are all doing the same today by keeping in touch with our loved ones until the lockdown is finally over. But they had it a lot tougher than us.” The Hills sent their last letter on March 16, 1944, which arrived in England on D-day, June 6, 1944.

But the Germans axed the letters following the Allied invasion so Will and Florence received no reply. The boys were not reunited with their parents and brother Bill, just five when they left, until the Channel Islands’ liberation in May 1945. Will and Florence had stayed on Guernsey to care for their elderly parents and Billy. Ken, an art teacher, died in 2014, aged 86. Bert, 90, and Bill, 84, both died last year.

War Museum curator Simon Offord said: “These letters are very brief. But they can tell us a lot about one family’s experience of separation and anxiety brought about by war.

“What would we say today if our only means of communication with our family was a 25-word message that could take months to arrive?”