Description
Object description
British civilian clerk worked for Food Office and student teacher in St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, 6/1940-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1923-1939: family; education; employment as seasonist at General Post Office; tomato growing on Guernsey. Aspects of period as seasonist with General Post Office in St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, 9/1939-6/1940: reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939; attitude during Phoney War period, 9/1939-5/1940; receiving telegram relating to German invasion of Belgium, 10/5/1940; Italian presence on Guernsey; question of family evacuation, 6/1940; German Air Force bombing of St Peter Port Harbour, 28/6/1940; fear of German Air Force attacks, night 28/6/1940; reaction to evacuation boats leaving; belief in ultimate British victory. Recollections of period as clerk with Food Office in St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1943: hearing of arrival of Germans, 30/6/1940; sight of German Junkers Ju 52 aircraft flying into airport, 1/7/1950; attempt of telephonist to warn authorities about German Air Force raid, 28/6/1940; question of St Peter Port being declared an ‘open town’; move of General Post Office out of centre of St Peter Port.
REEL 2 Continues: rationing; question of sight of first German Army soldier; erection of German signs; requirement to hand in radios; illicit supply of new sheets; how some German Army troops had been told they had been sent to Isle of Wight; billeting of German Army troops in empty houses; acquiring food on black market; fish supplies and need to queue; question of country people having more town dwellers; recreational activities; need to be careful speaking in front of Germans. Recollections of period as student teacher in St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1943-1945: background to becoming teacher at St Martin’s Primary School; number of qualified teachers on island; presence of German language teacher; training as student teacher; question of effects on civilian population of an invasion by Allies; German camouflaging of fortifications and artillery positions; Royal Air Force night-time flights over island to bomb Brest, France, 7/1944-8/1944; funeral of crews of HMS Charybdis and HMS Limbourne sunk off Channel Islands, 23/10/1943.
REEL 3 Continues: post-war annual memorial service for crews of HMS Charybdis and HMS Limbourne; state of children in her reception class, 1944; need to conserve paper; problems with winter conditions and clothing sent from France; description of makeshift night light; background to arrival of Red Cross parcels, 1944-1945; cutting off of islands after Normandy landings, 6/1944; sight of hungry German Army soldier, winter 1944-1945; question of German garrison not surrendering until 9/5/1945; presence of ‘free’ Germans on island after Liberation Day, 9/5/1945; memories of Liberation Day, 9/5/1945; visits by Home Secretary Herbert Morrison and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, 5/1945; German religious services; question of German treatment of islanders.
REEL 4 Continues: German treatment of forced labourers; contact with Belgian forced labourer; sight of transportation of concentration camp inmates from Lager Sylt on Alderney to mainland France, 1944; rations and methods of supplementing them; prior recollection of deportations from island; studying as teacher during occupation; question of effect of occupation on childrens’ education; varying experiences of children evacuated to GB; attitude towards Germans and female collaborators.