Island stories
I enjoyed the May issue features on VE Day, particularly the article on the differences across Europe. But as a Channel Islander born in Guernsey and resident in Jersey, I’m disappointed that historians still don’t seem particularly interested in the experiences of British subjects whose lives were turned upside down by five years of German occupation.
The islanders, and the islands themselves, were forever altered. My mother, sisters and grandparents remained, and their home was near the enormous Mirus Battery which was regularly fired as practice, shaking the ground. My father left Guernsey intending to volunteer, and was needed in a factory producing Spitfire parts. He was separated from his island, his mother and one of his sisters but was on the first possible boat back. My husband’s parents were also affected: a stranded volunteer soldier, his father was eventually arrested and imprisoned.
Cut off from supplies after D-Day, every islander struggled desperately and suffered from a lack of basics, until a Red Cross ship, the Vega, was finally permitted to bring life-saving food parcels. There are many stories of the occupied islanders, those serving in the forces (both British and French), and evacuees and deportees that deserve to be more widely known.
There is a special poignancy to 2020, as those left from the occupation generation faced the 75th anniversary of liberation, on 9 May, in lockdown.
Marlene Morris, Jersey