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Edited transcript of a taped interview with Herbert Nicholls

I left the Câtel school at thirteen and I went to work for the Star, the Guernsey Star, a newspaper, and I started three days after my thirteenth birthday. I had to have a special pass to leave school then because leaving school was fourteen. Well soon after that my dispensation came through and I started work at the Star.
When I had my fourteenth birthday, I had a year in my trade already, and I learnt my trade there, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the work, but I used to have to ride in from Cobo every day, push bike, and in the end there were no tyres or tubes, it was hosepipes and very very hard going. But it was exciting, because there was the damaged German submarine in the Old Harbour, and the British was trying to get it, trying to bomb, and there was glass, there was everything all over the place, like, you know, and as the Occupation went on things got less and less, paper and that. When we were printing the paper, because we had the German headlines every day, and the front page was theirs, and they’d bring their orders down, and you’d type them out, and you’d set up your paper, and of course it, the composition was all by hand, and you’d set up the headlines and whatever it was, and you had to pull a proof, and take it up to the Grange, that was the German headquarters, and I’ve taken them myself, we used to have a different turn, you’d just walk up the road and you’d take it, and you’d wait, sit inside, and wait, and after a bit they came, and you’d have the signed paper, and they’d stamp it, and you could go, and print the paper. And then when the gas ran out, for the Linotype machines, because they were electric, but gas to heat the lead, to keep the newspapers and that going, they moved then down to the gasworks, the machines, and we all mucked in, it was the mechanic of the firm that stripped them, we all pulled them down in boxes and that, they were carried down to the Bouet, and they were set up, there’s a shop there, it’s a little grocery store now, The Star had two there, and the Press had two, and they were there in the window, we used to have to take the copy down to the gas, and you’d get the copy, you’d take it back to the Star, and you ‘d start printing it. The shop is still there, I don’t suppose they knew there was Linotype machines. It’s the Tonnelle stores, in the Bouet, right by the main entrance to the Gas
We were only working three days a week then, and I got myself a job on the farm, mainly to scrounge what you could in food, and especially milk and that. When you go milk the cows, because it was all by hand and in the fields, and you would have a quart bottle and you’d fill it up and you’d hide it in the hedge and you’d pick it up on your way home. Used to do that every other day because I used to go every other day, and there was so much going on for a young lad, I suppose, gunnery practice and all these things, you know, it was exciting. and when the war finished, well we knew the end of the war was coming, I left home at about half past five in the morning, to start work at six, and I used to go all along the Baissieres and those places on account of the hills, you miss the hills, because with these bikes you could not ride up hills, not with hosepipe, and when I came up the little slope there by the Longstore — along the Front there, where you turn, just before all the big building. Anyway I got there, up the slope, I saw the Bulldog , H.M.S Bulldog, so I turned round and ride back home, and tell them the news, and went back to work. And when I got to the Weighbridge, the soldiers were coming up the White Rock. So I stopped, and everyone was shouting and cheering, and they went off, and I think they went up to the Royal Court, up through the Town, so I went back to work, and I apologised to my boss, Mr Sims, because I was late, and he hardly answered me, because he was excited so I went back to work, because he was excited, and in no time there was some British officers there, and they there came with all the do’s and don’t’s, like, to print out, notices, and we worked all night, I didn’t get home till two o’clock the following afternoon, we worked right through printing, and they used to bring us sandwiches, and cups of tea, and things like that. The Liberation Day newspaper.
There was excitement everywhere. And it was Mr Gartell was the Editor, Mr Ken Gartell, and within two or three days, I can’t tell you the date, he had his calling-up papers, because he’d volunteered for the R.A.F. before the war, before the occupation, and his papers came through. And within a few days he was gone, he went to whatever base he had to go to, and he gave us a real good party, with food and drink from the British Officers, we had cans of beer and all sorts, we had a good party which lasted until the early hours of the morning. And I never saw him again.

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