大象传媒

In Prison in Guernsey during the German Occupation.

Edited transcription from a taped interview with John De Jersey

I also started making crystal sets, which I had been doing for about two years I suppose, and I supplied several of my friends with them, and then unfortunately someone sent an anonymous letter and a short while after I was working on the bikes one morning when the German Gestapo arrived at the house and the two of them walked in and said I was making crystal sets, unfortunately there were a couple of them available and so they knew very well that I was doing it and I was taken off to the house in St Jacques where was where the Wesley Monument is and questioned there. And we had ten days solitary confinement which was the usual thing in those days and you got called out several times for questioning and we got down to our sentencing and one other gentleman who was in there at the same time as me was, what was his name, Mr De Putron , Tommy De Putron who had the Greenacres Hotel, and he apparently had a transmitter he had made and he was getting in touch with a friend of his on the mainland, and I was sat outside the court, both of us had been taken down under armed guard, we had an armed guard each, and I could hear what was going on in the court, and the judge said 鈥淭he sentence is six months, have you anything to say鈥�, and Tommy turned round and said 鈥測es sir, I think the sentence is rather long鈥� To this German judge turned round and said 鈥渨ell in that case the sentence is twelve months鈥�. So I went in and got questioned, he said the sentence is six months, have you anything to say, I said no, nothing to say. And we were then marched back to the prison and straight into the office where the officer there said 鈥淩ight, get your things from your cells, go back home, and report back in two weeks,鈥� there wasn鈥檛 room for us in the prison, because only half of the prison was run by the Germans, the other half was for the locals. And so we went home, and returned after the two weeks, and we were then put into working parties, and I worked up at Grange Court for a while, our first job, I had another chap, there were two of us in a cell, this chap was named Raymond, I won鈥檛 give his surname, because if hes about he might not want it, apparently he had come home and found his young lady out with a German, and then he waited, and he got her into a chair or something and shaved all her hair off, which was the general thing during the war years. Our first job, actually, was in Sausmarez Street, a terrace of houses there had been turned into a brothel, and our first job was to clear it out, and we refused to touch anything there until they got us pitchforks, and I remember we pitched all the mattresses out through the windows and burnt them in the garden later.
When I was making crystal sets I took the precaution [tape fault] pair of trousers and believe it or not it was with an old car blanket which had a tartan one side and dark blue on the other, the tartan was on the inside and I asked her to put me a pocket in each leg down near the knee and I鈥檇 made a tiny crystal set. In those days we used to get toothpaste from France in a very tiny square plastic case, I made the set in that, and I managed to get hold of a deaf-aid earphone, so I had the deaf-aid earphone in one pocket, the little crystal set in the other one, and also a coil of very fine wire, and when they took me into prison I wore these trousers, and I would use the bars on the cell window to get my aerial up and I would sit there and listen to the news while I was in solitary confinement, and the thing was, all the chaps that were coming back from their day鈥檚 work would say had you heard the news, so-and-so, and most of the time, and most of the time it was exaggerated, it was a bit distorted, but I already knew the news.
That would have been in [?November] 1944, I suppose, because I didn鈥檛 get caught till October, so we did that, and after three months I was released, and went back home.
I would go into St Peter Port and get cigarettes for the lads, you see. I think we were paying I think it was a mark a packet, and one day I bumped into the prison officer as I came through the Arcade, he asked what I was doing down there, so I said I鈥檓 getting cigarettes for the lads, he said can you get me some, so I said, (and the cigarettes we had in those days were commonly named the Island Germs, they were supposed to be Island Gems but we christened them Island Germs) I said how many do you want, he said 鈥渃an you get me five packets?鈥� As I was saying we were paying a mark a packet, but I said they are five marks a packet, so when I got back I gave all the lads their money back and their cigarettes. That was it. I had one or two amusing thing s that happened.
We had two chaps came into prison, one was Steve Picquet, at the time I was in a cell that overlooked St James, and I was looking out of the window and I saw this smoke coming up, and I called out 鈥淲hat are you doing down there, Steve?鈥� 鈥淪hut your mouth, I鈥檓 drying some tobacco leaves鈥� - he was drying tobacco leaves in his cell, and it was funny, because when you had a half-hour exercise, you鈥檇 go out, and Steve with pink packing paper that they used to wrap the tomatoes in years ago, he鈥檇 use that for cigarette paper and he鈥檇 have a long cigarette smoking away.
And the other we had that came in 鈥� what was his name 鈥� played the organ at St Martin鈥檚 Church. He was one was shell-shocked in the first world war and you鈥檇 hear him going off down in his cell, I think it was only about two nights he was there and the Germans put him out 鈥� they said he was mad, but no, it wasn鈥檛 his fault, he was shell-shocked. He used to say something like 鈥渆 e oo oo鈥�
You never knew what he was going to come out with. He used to sit, we went to some dances at the Normandie, and there was a little stage there with a piano, and he would sit there and play the old piano, really terrific on the piano, really good.
A German that was in prison the same time, he had his hands and feet handcuffed and everything, and he was waiting to hear from Germany and ordered to be shot, his crime was he had stolen a cauliflower. We used to light cigarettes and flick them through the cell for him, so he could roll over and have a puff .but after three weeks the orders came through for him to be shot.
When the Vega came in with the first lot of Red Cross parcels I actually saw the ship enter St Peter Port harbour from my cell window, and the ship arrived on the twenty-seventh of December, which was also my mother鈥檚 birthday, so it was a good day. But if it hadn鈥檛 been for that wonderful ship there would have been a lot of people would have died of starvation in Guernsey.

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