The Book of Lies
Page 26
13 There is at least one definite example of this, when 100 slave workers were caught in a rock fall in the tunnel they were digging by La Vallette, which is, by the way, just under Clarence Batterie. Nobody could get them out and so they were left for dead, but no one will admit it (see E.P. Rozier, BUNKER BAEDEKER, The Patois Press, 1977, p. 34).
14 (Hitler clearly didn’t have a clue.)
15 ‘Sarnia, dear Homeland, Gem of the sea, Island of Beauty my heart longs for Thee’. The Guernsey anthem, composed by George Deighton in 1911.
16 Note also the ‘Village de Courtils’, which has no shops but is called a Village on account of its postbox. Note else, the Priaulx family’s house, which is called ‘Vue du Lac’, although there isn’t even a pond, and ‘Les Paradis’, so-named on account of its two dwarf palm trees. Guernsey is so small people have to exaggerate.
17 ‘Kentucky Fried Cat!’ ran the headline of the Guernsey Evening Press.
18 An Ormer is an intriguing mollusc-thingy unique to Guernsey’s beaches. It tastes of nothing and is therefore pointless, but people still like to collect it, and can only do so at certain times of the year, which makes them call it a delicacy. (This is a good example of how Guernsey people have too much time on their hands.)
19 The Village = the Village de Courtils (see note 16). The original occupants of these houses were turfed out by the Germans during the Occupation, and they became lodgings for lower-ranking German officers. Our house was the mess, which is appropriate if you look at my room. Donnie’s house was built after the War, but the house that was there before was used by the German Field Police for orgies/interrogations/torture (apparently).
20 There is no class system on Guernsey, only Open Market and Local Market housing. Open Market houses are limited in number, very expensive and deliberately ugly (so as to make the rich foreigners who buy them suffer).
21 Alderney is the island nobody likes to go to/talk about, because it was completely evacuated during the Occupation and the Germans built real-life concentration camps run by real-life SS officers. It was the only place in the Channel Islands that had SS officers, and these officers had been sent to Alderney as a punishment for being naughty somewhere else. So, in theory, everyone on Alderney was being punished (and it still feels like that now).
22 E.P.R. notes 34 dead and 67 injured, as in fact was later reported.
23 With its smelly and dark bunkers and blocked up tunnels, it’s probably the second-worst tourist attraction on the island, with the German Underground Hospital in St Andrews coming first (because there they actually charge you an entrance fee).
24 Guernsey does not have any VALUE ADDED TAX, which means you get 15% more alcohol for your money. This also means most people have a drink problem.
25 Guernsey is made up of granite and greenhouses, and in these greenhouses grow mostly tomatoes. In 1940 two-thirds of Guernsey’s population were growers. There is even a Guernsey Tomato Museum. (Not that I’d suggest you visit it.)
26 I now know Michael was talking about the town of Luxembourg, which is in the country of Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a bit like Guernsey, because it is also small and boring, has no taxes and is full of rich people. You might argue that this is a good recipe for suicide.
27 Aka Batterie Generaloberst Dollman. This covers a large area of clifftop land and includes an impressive Naval Direction and Range Finding Tower with adjacent two-storey bunker. Nearby ammunition bunkers and personnel shelters were buried in 1948 during the island-wide tidy-up, as was a radar installation and radio room. All gunsites were removed and rubble dumped over the cliff. (Sufficient evidence that Hitler could have been planning a major offensive from these islands?)
28 Aka Anton August Vern: sent to the Russian Front January 1943. Later interned in a POW camp near Nantes. Now believed to be living in Vienna. E.P.R. to write again.
29 There are two types of Sunday-Afternoon-Drivers on Guernsey. The first are the Dispossessed Youth (see earlier), and the second are OAPs. They are most often found at Cobo or Vazon, sitting in their cars, staring at the low concrete wall (built by the Germans, of course). They do not seem to notice this wall, but this might be because they are half-blind/mad as per Grandma and therefore should not drive at all.
30 The States of Guernsey (our local government) has embezzled all the money it was supposed to spend on road safety and thus cannot afford traffic lights. This has led to a system whereby at certain crossroads car drivers are supposed to take it in turns. This means many excellent car crashes, but mainly amongst the tourist population, which of course doesn’t matter.
31 Three times on each cheek.
32 See Jackie magazine, January 1984, p. 12, ‘Boyfriends and Best Friends: How to Spot a Liar’.
33 E.P.R. notes: by 1942 it was estimated that three-quarters of the local population were working directly or indirectly for the Germans.
34 As per its traumatic History (see earlier note), there are more pubs than people on Alderney, which could be good but is in fact VERY BAD. It is often referred to as ‘25,000 Alcoholics clinging to a Rock’.
35 Translation: ‘Only the brazen thrive.’
36 E.P.R. notes: Jim Collard and Peter Woods were arrested for disorderly behaviour at the Mare de Carteret public house, 2nd January 1942. Sent to Alderney to work as fishermen for the next ten months.
37 Unless that island is Australia.
38 Cf. Blanche Agnes Gaudion’s (generally dull) diary extracts first published in The Occupation Today, 1969, Vol. 3. Wherein she reports ‘Low-life quislings’ received a reward of up to £100 for informing on people. That’s a lot of money, even now (unless you’re buying French cheese and wine in Best Foods Ltd).
39 During the Occupation the Germans made reports about the large number of subnormal people on the island, blaming it on the intermixing of resident families. Obviously this applies to ferret-face Collenette.
40Brassica oleracea longata (Acephala group) was principally a Jersey crop and looked nothing like the present-day vegetable to which I’ve been (most cruelly) linked. It grew up to 20 ft on giant stalks which were made into excellent walking sticks (see Southcombe Parker and G. Stevens Cox, The Giant Cabbage of the Channel Islands, Toucan Press, 1974. Yes! A book Dad didn’t write).
41 The rumour is that Hitler ultimately planned to make the Channel Islands ‘Strength Through Joy’ holiday camps. They were going to be called Julius, Gustav and Adolf. (No wonder people doubted his sanity.)
42 It’s hard to know how many. Dad reckoned there were around 200 but mud-slinging English journalists have pushed the figure into 1000s. (NB: In France the Germans claimed to have fathered 85,000 babies, so really, the English should just get over it.)
43 Torteval is on the northernmost edge of the island and is where the crazies live. They have a whole other language and never leave the parish, for their own safety.
44 E.P.R. notes: Charlie is referring to Leslie Chardine (1880–1946). For property maps see 23/45/AVTTH at Greffre Registry.
45 E.P.R. notes: during the Occupation, fishing boats were permitted to leave from Bordeaux, Portlet (Torteval), St Peter Port, and St Sampson, although no boat was allowed to leave without a German soldier present.
46 C.A.R. is referring to the articles that appeared in the Guernsey Evening Press on 6th and 10th May 1957, which gave details of Ray Le Poidevoin’s ‘heroic’ escape from Bordeaux. A longer version of the story was subsequently published in a national newspaper.
47 It would be REMISS of me not to mention that my grandparents and Uncle Charlie are all named on the Memorial and Dad would’ve been, too, only he was given to a neighbour to look after because he was three years old, and the Nazis were (rightly) scared of toddlers.
48 The Bailiff is in charge of local government and gives long and boring speeches, just like the English Prime Minister, but not like English bailiffs, who are scary and go round collecting debts/kneecaps.
49 Pages 74–6 to be precise.
50
The theory was that the underground tunnels were intended for a far more sinister use than the British government/States of Guernsey/Guernsey Tourist Board would have us think. (Yes! Gas Chambers!) See also the testimonies from former slave workers vis-à-vis their brutal treatment (and tunnels being mass graves), E.P. Rozier, GUERNSEY GAS CHAMBERS AND OTHER MYTHS, ibid, op.cit, blah-blah, pages 1, 4–6, 23–56.
51 9th May 1945 was the day Guernsey was officially set free. (NB: This is some time after the War was won.)
52 Although it could be argued the British were only going on what they’d been told by islanders themselves. This is because the ones who managed to escape slagged off the ones they left behind, and this tale-telling got worse as the Occupation went on (see The Occupation Today, Vol.17, 1978).
53 Vale Castle aka Chateau du Val. No one knows how old it is, so it obviously dates back to a time when no one could write. It was garrisoned during the French wars of 1793 and 1815, and the proof of that is the graveyard next door. The Germans also used it during the Occupation (and added ugly new concrete bits as per typical). It is now only good for local rock concerts, which sadly involves local rock bands.
54 Sark is very small and has worse TV reception than Guernsey, therefore everyone sleeps with everyone else from a very early age and at the same time, and often in public. There is a special Summer Clap Clinic because of it.
55 Aka Major Klaus-Michael Wessel, formerly of the Gestapo. Wessel was well-known as a sadist, whose hobby it was to flog his victims with a rope. Died of a brain haemorrhage 1962 (see PRO (Public Records Office) WO 23.34.43 ).
56 Dad didn’t like foreigners but he wasn’t a racist. There is no racism on Guernsey. This is because there are no proper dark people, only the Spanish and Portuguese, some of whom are descended from the slave labourers brought over by the Nazis. PS: There were also Russian and Ukrainian and Alsatian (not the dog) slave workers, and Polish and Czech Jews, although no one wants to talk about Jews ever ever ever.
57 French drivers are notoriously bad, plus they drive on the wrong (i.e. German) side of the road.
58 ‘Let them starve . . .’ was what he scribbled in the margin of a liberation plan. Quite outrageous, considering his belly.
59 Because it burned down.
60 A ‘Guernsey’ is a sweater, as well as an island (yes, like a ‘jersey’). It is made of indestructible wool, and it is heavy and warm, and has special patterns at the shoulders. Different Guernsey families had different patterns, so that when they pulled a bloated, drowned corpse from the Channel they could identify it and bury it in the right parish. (Nice.)
61 The Night and Fog decree came into force in December 1941 and was designed to curb the rising tide of resistance activities in Occupied Europe. It stated that any offender who could not be brought to trial and sentenced within eight days of capture could be held incommunicado by the authorities, before being tried by Special Tribunals. This ensured the ‘efficient and enduring intimidation’ of local populations by denying them any knowledge of the fate of the offender.
62 The camp records revealed the full extent of the systematic shootings, hangings and gassings, medical ‘experiments’ etc. Further research required.
63 Turrell later corroborated this: he was the nephew of Blanche Gaudion and had heard the news directly from his aunt (see interview E.P.R. 12/2/68 – Gaudion Family file).
64 Brewed in St Peter Port since 1868, Pony Ale is so-named because it smells of horses and is best used to clean stables. It is also very effective at getting the rust off pots and pans (Mum says).
65 The German Underground Hospital was built by slave workers, many of whom died/were buried in it. Even so, it’s now a museum and café, and because it is very successful as a museum and café no one questions why the Nazis needed a hospital underground and miles from the fighting zones. We all know the Germans only built hospitals because they were going to do horrible experiments.
66 Cf. earlier note re: Guernsey being small, i.e. Bluebell Woods is, in fact, the size of a paddock.
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
12TH DECEMBER 1965
13TH DECEMBER 1985, 5.30 A.M.
13TH DECEMBER 1965
13TH DECEMBER 1985, 5 P.M.
13TH DECEMBER 1965
14TH DECEMBER 1985, 9 A.M.
14TH DECEMBER 1985, 5.12 P.M.
15TH DECEMBER 1965
15TH DECEMBER 1985, 7.32 A.M.
15TH DECEMBER 1965
15TH DECEMBER 1985, 1.34 P.M.
15TH DECEMBER 1985, 4.30 P.M.
16TH DECEMBER 1965
16TH DECEMBER 1985, 11.56 A.M.
16TH DECEMBER 1965
17TH DECEMBER 1985, 5.30 P.M.
17TH DECEMBER 1985, 9 P.M.
18TH DECEMBER 1965
18TH DECEMBER 1985, 5.30 P.M.
18TH DECEMBER 1985, 7.30 P.M.
18TH DECEMBER 1965
19TH DECEMBER 1985, 12 P.M.
19TH DECEMBER 1965
19TH DECEMBER 1985, 7 P.M.
20TH DECEMBER 1985, 9 P.M.
20TH DECEMBER 1965
21ST DECEMBER 1985, 12.18 A.M.
22ND DECEMBER 1985, 2 A.M.
22ND DECEMBER 1985, 2.30 P.M.
22ND DECEMBER 1985, 6 P.M.
23RD DECEMBER 1985, 6.30 P.M.
23RD DECEMBER 1985, 9.30 P.M.
24TH DECEMBER 1985, 5.30 A.M.
24TH DECEMBER 1985, 7 P.M.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS