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David Martel interviewed by Becky Kendall of Radio Guernsey at the Guernsey Museum March 2005, transcribed from CD by John David Nov 17th 2005

I………. So just give us an idea of what it was like, being here those five years?
Oh well!
I………. You were thirteen, so it must have been about the age when you stopped going to school?
Yes, well I never went back to school, because the schools took a while to reopen, and by then I was fourteen so I never went back to school. So I took a job with the States at the Seed Farm, they had a seed farm at Brookdale Nurseries which is now where the Corbet Field is. All the seed was stored there, there was a man by the name of Mr Lihou in charge, I worked there for possibly six months to a twelve month, then I left there and I went to work on a farm. I suppose after about a twelve month then. There were quite a lot of the Hitler Youth over here,
I………. What would be the Hitler Youth?
They were fourteen-year-olds to sixteen-year-olds that joined the German Army.
I………. Young soldiers
Young soldiers, and they used to train early in the mornings, pitch dark, and I’d be taking the milk to the dairy, and it’d be nothing unusual for three or four to pop out of the hedge with their guns, because they were practising, they were training, that was their training business, and that was a bit scary at times. But you got used to that sort of thing, you know.
I………. But did you know that they weren’t there to harm you?
You were perhaps a bit nervous at first, but you knew that they weren’t there to harm you, it was one of those things. You felt in the end that the German army was so disciplined, particularly on the island I think, because it was part of the British Isles, you couldn’t resist over here, there was no way, like the French, there was the French Resistance, they could hide, but on an island the size of Guernsey there was nowhere to hide, but that didn’t stop us, we had crystal sets and we used to listen to the news on the radio during the Occupation, and I can remember well, my brother and myself we were sitting down, we’d had lunch, and we were listening to the one o’clock news on the crystal set, with earphones, and we heard sudden footsteps, and there was a German Officer walking in the room, and we were listening to the radio, and of course the radio was banned, so we were a bit alarmed, but for some unknown reason, he was one of those German officers he didn’t take it any further, he just let it go. So immediately the crystal set was put in a biscuit tin and buried in the garden for a while. We didn’t take it out just in case they notified the German police and came and searched the place, because they used to. Clothes lines were used for the aerials, and of course if they saw a clothes line, sometimes they would go and search the property to find a radio
I………. You and your family worked in the growing industry, so did you find that life continued as normal and food that you were growing went to the islanders?
Well yes, it was sold. It wasn’t taken by the Germans, it was sold. For a while my father, like all the other growers, had to work for what was then the States’ controlled growing, but after perhaps a year or so they freed the growing, you could please yourself, you could carry on working for the States, or you could grow privately, and sell it to the local people, whatever you wanted, and after a year or so my father decided he’d grow to sell to the local people.
I………. So to an extent life continued as it would have done. How restricted did you feel, knowing that you were being policed constantly?
To an extent, one didn’t notice it, one didn’t feel really restricted, at first one was apprehensive, one had heard the stories, but after perhaps the first six months, and you’d seen the German troops around, and they never bothered you, there was no question of them ever bothering you, so you weren’t afraid
Another occasion when we were a bit alarmed, we’d left Candie here, and of course we were on our bikes, as youngsters, and we were riding back home, we used to go down the Rohais, that way, from Candie here through Brock Road. My brother was riding his bike, and then you were very restricted to lights, because of the blackout, you could only have a little beam of light on your bike, and of course everybody had left Candie Auditorium here together, and the Germans were walking in the centre of the road, and with not sufficient lights and perhaps riding a bit fast, my brother hit one of the Germans from behind with his bike and knocked him over. We did not stop to find out what had happened, we were gone, you know, for a while, we were a bit concerned that they might search further out, like, to see if they could find three or four on bikes, you know, but we never heard no more of it, I suppose he was just bruised, it was just one of those things that happened, you know.

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