大象传媒

The following is a letter written by Raymond Le Page in 1945, at the age of 18, to his parents in Guernsey, after five years enforced separation due to the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Nazis.

Ray was evacuated along with hundreds of other children (but not his younger brother) to England, the first time he had ever left Guernsey, and he had no contact whatsoever with his family during the entire five years.

Shortly before the end of the war, he had enlisted in the British Army, and it was while on a troopship bound for India, early in 1945, that he began the letter. Taking several months to complete, the letter was finally sent just as the cessation of war in Europe, and the liberation of the Channel Islands, were announced.

This is a verbatim typed copy of the original hand-written letter sent by Ray to his parents and brother. The original hand-written version is currently in his possession at his residence in Painswick, Gloucestershire, having been discovered in his mother鈥檚 private papers after her death in Guernsey in 1985.

Officer Cadet R.A. Le Page
14493220
c/o India Command

My Darling Mum and Dad,

At various times during my exile from home, I have taken up my pen, and begun a letter to you all, which I could send as soon as our beloved island was free again. Somehow or other, the complete letter has never been written, so here I am again, beginning at the beginning, and hoping that this time a letter will be finished which I can send you in, I hope, the very near future.
It is very strange really, because tonight, I feel myself much closer to you all back home than I have ever really done when I was so physically close to you in England, compared to where I am now.

For I鈥檓 on a troop ship at Suez, in the Middle East, on my way to India, and it may be that all the new scenes, the new interests, are bringing back memories more poignant than present facts, of past scenes, and past interests, which, because they are past and gone, are all the more deep sunk in the mind. Therefore I sit here writing, and if I want to write of all my emotions, ideas, ideals and hopes, as I would like to do, then I shall certainly not finish tonight. It鈥檚 already 10 o鈥檆lock.

You know, I feel rather strange, perhaps naturally, even writing at all. When one has been away from nearly everything that was so loved and cherished, as was my home, my family and my little world 鈥淪arnia鈥�, words, however expressive, are very poor and cheap, and I am no master of words. Therefore I am going to find it perhaps a little difficult to let you feel as I have felt 鈥� yet you should know, for if you don鈥檛, then no-one in this mortal world can either.

When I left home on June 20th 1940, how little notion had I then of all you would have to suffer and endure, of all the hardship and humiliation and anxiety which must have been yours in the last five years. How little notion had I that my little brother Reuben should have to spend so much of his childhood and youth under the eyes of Bosche invaders. How little notion, too, had I of all the varied experiences I should have to go through, so alien to my home environment. And all these things are not only past, but present and future too, even while I write.

Yet all these things have been so, and even now, the picture of all these things except the least important, those concerning myself, are as if seen through a mist, which seems more solid and ungiving than ever before. For all I or, for that matter, any of us Channel Islanders, who are away from home, know, is speculation or rumour or hearsay. Nothing that is sure, nothing that is fact, is forthcoming, and it is with heavy and anxious hearts that we are waiting for something true and real. I pray once again that it will not be long before we do hear something.
鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌︹赌�

It is a few days since I wrote the previous pages of my letter, and I realise that my letter will be rather disjointed, for it will not be finished to-night. Still, that鈥檚 not of any real significance.

Since I have begun my letter as I have, I think I鈥檒l go back to the time I left home, and tell you a little of how things have fared for me till now. I have said before how well I know my own past, and how little I know of yours. Yet the reverse is also true, and I know how anxious and interested you must be to know what has happened to your son, what he thinks now and how he has changed. There are many difficulties in trying to do this, too, because it鈥檚 very easy to be biased, prejudiced and the victim of one鈥檚 own position and environment. Still, here goes.

At the age of thirteen, one has hardly the mental or psychological powers to grasp in full significance all that is happening about you, and when I left home, had I realised all the potentialities, I should possibly still be in Guernsey, or, more probably, you would have been with me in England. Yet, such realisation was not mine. My feelings, as that brightly-lit black mass in the liquid moonlit sea slid slowly farther away till it was just a dot of blackness emitting a flash of light every so often from the Hanois lighthouse, were anything if not mixed. I was leaving everything I loved behind me, all my old childish haunts, my pleasures and my work. Yet there were compensations. I was to 鈥榞o out鈥� into the world, see new wonders, (even trains!) and visit that great country, England. I hardly realised at the time that all these things were going on in my mind, yet I believe now that these were the causes of the state of bewilderment and excitement which were mine.

Our journey to Oldham, Lancashire was anything but pleasant, taking us about twenty four hours鈥� solid travelling from 11.30p.m. on Thursday, the time we left the White Rock. When there, however, things looked a little brighter, and after a good meal, the paliasse and blanket on the floor seemed like a bed of roses.

We were in Oldham a fortnight, and to the Oldham people I can give nothing but my thanks. Their generosity to us boys, strangers almost from another world 鈥� for many believed us to speak nothing but a sort of ancient French, and to be a very old-fashioned people 鈥� has always been a cause of gratitude from all of us who passed through their hospitable town. The Intermediate School made that town their permanent dwelling place, and few, I believe, have ever been sorry for it. And yet, Oldham was a place of evil news for us all. I was in a sort of hospital there for those days with some cold or other, and it was there that my first news of the bombing of our little island came to me. You can imagine the shock and anxiety we all felt. Before another two days were out, the more terrible news of the Nazi landings there had further added to our distress. I had just received your two, or rather three, letters then, too. When things seemed so optimistic, so terrible a shock was almost more than I could bear. One of the worst parts of it all was that there was so little I could do. I couldn鈥檛 even write. Yet time is a great healer, and being so young, it was not long before faces were more normal, and except for the homesickness which came on now and again, life took on a more normal routine.

I heard from Uncle Ray* for the first time, too. He wrote to me asking me to go there on holiday, and with his letter was a 10/- note. How I remember that, and how I enjoyed myself. Soon, however, the fortnight was up and we found ourselves embarked on a number of buses on our way to Great Hucklow, the little Derbyshire village of fame for its L. du Garde-Peach & his Village Players. To us it was often enough to mean real hardship for, living under conditions by no means ideal to health and happiness, to boys of our ages it was pretty hard. And yet the three months there went pleasantly enough.

I had the great fortune of finding some of the best friends any man or boy could ever wish to find in time of need during that stay in Great Hucklow, in the persons of Auntie & Uncle Ray* and of Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt. But of them I must speak in the near future, and not in the present. It鈥檚 high time to get to my hammock, because although devoid of energetic action, life on board a troopship is, nevertheless, very tiring. So goodnight, and 脿 bient么t, sheries.

This is truly an amazing letter, for now, instead of being somewhere on the high seas, I鈥檓 seated very comfortably in my bungalow at the Officers鈥� Training School, Mhow. Still, that too must wait, and I鈥檒l try to take up my letter again where I left off.

I believe I was saying how fortunate I鈥檇 been in having the friends in Chester and Leeds when I arrived in England, and I can鈥檛 over-emphasise that all I have done or been has been often very largely through their encouragement and help alone. There are probably many times that I have acted in petty and seemingly ungrateful ways towards them, yet always I have realised and tried to show them how much they meant to me. It is not every man who would take a strange lad into his home, and help him to become 鈥榦ne of the family鈥�. Yet such was I, in both those homes.

But, let me continue my story. Eventually, our school went to Whitehall, a large house near Buxton, and we finally settled down. There鈥檚 little enough to say really, about those days. I鈥檒l be able to tell it to you all when I see you. Suffice to say that I got my School Certificate and Higher Certificate, had some quite hard and some quite good times, and had some very lovely holidays in Chester and Leeds, and once in Oxford.

Such was my position at the end of 1943, and it was at this time that things were about to change. I was working for a University scholarship then, after which, except for one course I could take, I didn鈥檛 know what to do. For a long time, however, the desire to join the Army had been with me, and now that the time was almost due for me to leave, it became more and more plain to me, what course I would take. You see, I couldn鈥檛 go to Oxford then, for no historians (which I prided myself in being) were being accepted owing to war restrictions.

(* A fellow World War One veteran and old friend of Raymond鈥檚 father, Alfred )
Therefore, I saw the Principal, and asked for his permission. His answer, however, was far from satisfactory, and I went on my Christmas leave to Chester with no affirmative answer. It was there I made my final decision, and rather to Uncle and Auntie鈥檚 disappointment, I signed on the dotted line.

There, at the recruiting office in Chester, I was passed A1, and enlisted into the British Army for the duration of the war. But there was one hitch. I was only seventeen, and until you were 17陆 you needed a guardian鈥檚 written permission before they could finally accept you. This, much to my dismay at the time, was not forthcoming, for Mr. Milnes refused to sign. They say, however, that once a Guernseyman has made up his mind, he鈥檚 as stubborn as his nickname**. Well, I鈥檓 a pretty average Guernseyman. I think I must have nearly driven my headmaster crazy, but I achieved my end. The turning point was when I passed my scholarship and the King signed a declaration that Channel Islanders could be called up. At last the 鈥極ld Man鈥� gave up, and I was finally attested and sworn in.

This joining the army of mine had been no sudden impulse, as one or two of my friends thought, to 鈥渂e in uniform鈥�, nor was it quite so simple as plain revenge, as it might so easily have been. It was the culmination of months, probably years, of events and realisations, realisations that there was something in this world that every decent, country-loving man had to fight against.

But let me try to show you just what I mean. My ideas were rather hazy, even though they were all there, when I volunteered. Now, they have crystallised and, too, they have hardened and matured. Even so, in substance they have altered little.

For a number of years, the world has been heading for a climax, as the forces of evil grow in numbers and strength till they felt it worth risking all in an attempt to overthrow the world, and let greed and force, selfishness and cruelty, rule the world. The storm broke in 鈥�39, and in six months, our own homes had been broken up, and you were subjected by this 鈥淣ew Order鈥�! You, for four years have been living a life devoid of any of the freedoms we loved and cherished so much. This in itself would be incentive enough to fight.

Yet there is more to it than that, even. The German, and the Japanese, is a plague on all the things we love so much. Everything that鈥檚 clean and good, our homes, our work and play, our faith, and freedom to think and speak as we will, all these, as maybe you have found only too vividly, are treated as so much dirt by these fanatically evil men. Therefore, I joined up and have never yet regretted my decision.

I left College in March 1944, had three weeks鈥� holiday in Leeds, and was then a private in the British Army. Amazing as it sounds, my first camp was about two miles from Chester, but unfortunately we were only there for ten days.

**(donkey/mule)
After that, I went to Hamilton, near Glasgow, where we had a marvellous time. From here we went to Inverness, a lovely little town, whose memories for me will never fade, and here I finished my infantry training. But here I must break again. I shall write again as soon as it鈥檚 possible to settle down to an evening鈥檚 writing 鈥� a rare occasion here!
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