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June 15th 1940 was and still is a memorable day in the lives of my sister, Joy, and of myself. Our father had recently come through Dunkirk and was home on leave. It was our school sports day and also my birthday. The nuns at Blanchelande College were eager for news of their homeland and asked Dad many questions about the war in France. Later, I had a party with a few friends down on Moulin Haut beach, never dreaming that a week later we would have left our island home. We only had hours to pack one small suitcase each, say good-bye to our relatives and have our lovely dog put to sleep.
The first day we were due to leave we waited all day at our school but no boat came to the island to collect us. I remember it was a beautiful summers day, we heard rumours ships had been sunk in the Channel, and that Russia had entered the war. Next day we returned to our school and buses took us to the harbour where the SS Viking, a ship from the Isle of Man, was waiting for us. We had an unpleasant voyage to Weymouth where we waited ages to dock. We were very fortunate indeed to have our mother with us; she came as a helper from the school as the nuns were not then leaving. There was a sister convent of our school in Weymouth where we were first taken and stayed for four days. I remember feeding the ducks on Radipole Lake. Our teacher went to find out what was going to happen to us as she was in charge of our school group. We had gone on the beach and were swimming when she came to us to say that we had to be on the train in under an hour! We did not know where we were going and had an all night journey sitting upright in an old railway carriage, opposite us there was a young family from Alderney and the little boy cried almost continuously as his father had not come away with them (later, he did join them). We were taken to Glasgow via a long journey around Wales lasting about forty hours. We were billeted in a church hall in Jordan Hill sleeping on dark grey blankets. My chief memories of our time there are of the daily orange looking stew served to us (I can still see it!), a noisy party of young women from Jersey who talked and laughed late into the night and I contracted impetigo, but most of all the wonderful kindness of the local people who brought us food and goodies for us children, took us to their homes for baths etc. and especially of a sixteen year old girl called Margaret Saunderson who took us children out every week using her pocket money to take us to places and give us treats. We remained friends for the rest of her life.
We were very fortunate to be adopted by the Minister and his wife and taken to live at the Manse for the duration. However, our father, who had been in transit and did not know what had happened to us, eventually found us. He was stationed down in South Cambridgeshire and came up to Scotland to fetch us. I missed Guernsey terribly, especially the sea and the rocks, I remember during the few weeks at the Manse teaching the little daughter to make mud pies as there wasn’t any sand to make sandcastles. I don’t think the Minister was very impressed!
Our father was posted to the Middle East and we spent the war years billeted with various families. Our mother managed to find and old cottage for a while, it was a very difficult and worrying time for her. Although surrounded by aerodromes we did not have a great deal of bombing like the big cities. We had little news of all our relatives left in Guernsey; eventually we had Red Cross letters of a few lines.
So the liberation of the Channel Islands on 8th May 1945 was a time of great relief. Joy had left school, It was at the time I was sitting my exams, but on 7th May we were listening to the radio in class and it was thrilling to hear the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, say the war was over in Europe and our dear Channel Islands would be free on the morrow. I remember how the girls turned around and say how pleased they were.
We still have our three small suitcases with which we left Guernsey sixty-five years ago.
Recently I have been into our local Primary School to tell the children about our experiences. Afterwards, they began to talk about what they would put into those suitcases — one little boy choosing to pack his dog!

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