researched, anti-Channel Island programmes, and therefore will not be renewing my television licence, since I cannot agree with providing financial support for things I stand firmly against.
Yours sincerely
E.P. Rozier
Manager/Editor of The Patois Press
Sans Soucis
Village de Courtils
St Peter Port
P.S. There were no GESTAPO on the Channel Islands – only Geheimfeld Polizei. Lack of proper research only entrenches stereotypes and deepens the resentments we islanders feel towards those so intent on judging us.
17TH DECEMBER 1985, 9 p.m.
[In bed, dreaming of Michael Priaulx.]
Sex! Drama! Passion! Who needs TV?
I’ve just been on the phone to Michael. I called him up after boiling myself alive in the bath, and applying three coats of The-Body-Shop-Sage-and-Comfrey-Blemish-Minimiser to my entire body.
I welcomed him back to Guernsey and he asked me if I was being Ironic. I was impressed/surprised that he knew what it meant.
‘I get the feeling people are avoiding me and I thought you might be, too,’ he said. ‘We should meet, have a catch-up.’
Catch-up might be code for a Rampant Snog. (OK. Probably not.)
‘I’ve only been back five minutes and I’m going mad. Mum’s scared to let me out of the house and jumps whenever the phone rings.’
I can’t blame Mrs Priaulx for being a bit anxious. She remembers her youngest son drinking Meths/ head-butting cattle/crashing his motorbike a trillion times, and she probably just hoped he’d grow out of it. At least she’s letting him out of the house, though. We’ve arranged to meet by the old Military Cemetery tomorrow afternoon. Don’t worry, that’s not as grim as it sounds! The cemetery is actually very pretty and well-kept, with all the graves arranged in mathematical fractions, and the lawns neatly clipped, etc. Down the far end there’s a big cement cross with flowerbeds beneath it. You never see anyone there, though, so whoever does the gardening must be embarrassed to be seen doing it, because most of the graves are German.
But not all of them. My grandfather is buried there, par exemple. He was a soldier in the First World War and for a long time I thought that was how he died. I can’t believe he’s too happy about where he’s buried since he’s stuck between a Jerseyman and a German. But the German was quite famous and his death caused a scandal. At first they thought a farmer had killed him, then they decided he’d killed himself because he didn’t want to be sent to the Russian Front. Then they said he’d been robbed and stabbed by his own batman (who was promptly found down a well and so obviously had committed suicide). As this story demonstrates, Hitler only sent his youngest/most inept/injured soldiers to the islands because they wouldn’t be needed to fight. They therefore mostly had a holiday.41 Dad said it was a shame Syphilis didn’t kill them all. Have I mentioned the French-style brothels dotted around St Peter Port? And that’s not to mention what the local women were up to. Inevitably there were frequent outbreaks of Venerable Diseases, as well as some suspiciously blonde babies.42
Dad said the Occupation brought out the worst in everyone. One young soldier was shot because he didn’t want to be a Nazi and tried to run away, and another was killed for milking a cow. Of course, that was in 1944 when everyone was starving or eating their domestic pets, and although his death was tragic, it wasn’t his cow to milk. There’s also the story of the soldiers who were drowned because they refused to leave the rock they were standing on, even though it was slowly being covered by the tide. No one came to relieve them of their guard duty and they refused to be helped by a local fisherman.
FYI: There were four or five suicides a week among the troops in occupied territories in 1943. This is widely attributed to low morale, local alcohol and only pets to eat. Certainly by 1944 the German soldiers left on Guernsey were in a terrible state. They even tried to eat seagulls they were so hungry.
They never ate each other but I told Vicky they did. Unfortunately she believed me and dreamt there were flesh-eating Nazi Zombies lurking on the cliffs. For three weeks solid she woke up screaming and couldn’t be left alone. Dr Senner was understandably upset and came round to talk to Dad about it. He (wrongly) blamed Dad for putting ‘Sensational’ ideas into my head. At first I thought this was a compliment, but he then told Dad to