大象传媒

Miss Daphne Oliver
Edited transcript of a taped interview

I worked for Marie Randall, the States lady for over forty years. And we were occupied by the Germans, we had two moves in ten weeks, But they were cruel, the Germans were very cruel. I must admit, I shouldn鈥檛 say this, but I was with them all the War, and we had two moves in ten weeks, and it was funny. I said to them, Miss Randell wasn鈥檛 home at the time, can we take our furniture, and he said 鈥淰erboten Verboten鈥�. Get out, get out, you know, and you couldn鈥檛 argue with them, if you argued with them they put you in clink. So that was that. We lived at Magnolia, Candie. Right next to the Poats. And naturally all the Randalls went away but this lady didn鈥檛 go away, they were all deported to Laufen and Biberach, most of them, and I stayed with her and we had two moves in ten weeks, and the first one we went was Doyle Road, and the Germans came, and I wish you could have seen it, I laughed the other day when I was telling you about it, he clicked his heels like that, and he said 鈥淰erboten. Go.鈥�.So we went the other side of the road, to the Daffodils, the Plummers. We hadn鈥檛 been there five minutes, he came again, he clicked his heels, 鈥淰erboten. Go.鈥� It was getting dark by that time, and as Miss Randell worked for the States, she must have said to the Bailiff, which in those days was Sir Victor Carey, 鈥淲e have to move again, we have had already two moves., and left everything for the Germans, where do we go?鈥� He said 鈥淵ou can come to Michael鈥檚 house鈥�, out at the Fainel, St Martin鈥檚, and we stayed there for the rest of the war. They wanted to turn us out, but as Miss Randell could speak German, I don鈥檛 know that it helped very much, but she could argue a bit, and naturally we couldn鈥檛 do very much, used to do the garden, they were naughty with the garden, because if you put any vegetables in the garden you could guarantee the next morning the roots would be there but there would be no vegetables. They鈥檇 taken them all. And we had a gentleman who let us have a sack of carrots, really cattle carrots, but you were glad to have anything in those days. They were gone the next morning. I reckon to be quite honest, I know there鈥檚 been a lot of robbery with the war, but I reckon we had the worst of it, because we left a big house with furniture 鈥� all gone, the brothers had gone to Germany, or Biberach, or wherever they had to go, Laufen, because they were military men, and that was the end of that. But I still say that Sir Victor Carey was very good to us, and he used to take Miss Randell to her meetings in the mornings, when he could, because he had to be very careful with the Germans as you know, He certainly did his best for the Island, and the People, and for the old lady as well,

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