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Liberation

Mrs Stella Le Tissier interviewed by Margaret Le Cras 25/4/05
Edited transcript of recording

I………. So, what about Liberation Day? Did you go down?
Mrs Le Tissier. Liberation Day? Oh yes. Oh, that was lovely. And what’s hurting me most this year — you see Cliff can’t work much, he’s pottering about, I mean we’re getting on, I’m eighty-two, he’s going to be eighty-four, he can’t go out much, and you can’t go with cars, that’s hurting me, I’d love to be there, we’ve never missed a Liberation, unless somebody — we said, we won’t go, it’s a Sunday.
I………. And for a long time, they didn’t have that much on Liberation, eh?
Mrs Le Tissier. But we’d always support it. But anyway, the proper Liberation Day we went, we had Hazel in the pram, she was about five months old, and we walked there, we walked to Town, and I had a blue skirt, made of an old coat, because we had nothing, you see, made of an old coat, - I wouldn’t go like that now — a white blouse, pre-war, which I had, blue and white, and I had a red cardigan that I’d made at the beginning of the war, it might have been pre-war, I’m not sure, or just at the beginning of the war, so I was red, white, and blue, [ ] and you know the soldiers there, the English soldiers, I mean, I’m not for all that sort of thing, of hugging, and kissing, I don’t like all that.
I………. I remember them throwing sweets…
Mrs Le Tissier. And I was just married… But anyway, we shook hands — I don’t kiss — but I think I hugged them, everything went, you know. - And I saw people with sleeves perhaps up here, and trousers up here — we didn’t have the clothes. Dresses made of curtains, blankets, someone would make a coat out of a blanket, you know. And when you saw all the big boats coming in, and the American, oh, what did they call them, you know, landing craft, they were there in the Marina, opposite Woolworths, you know, and everybody was happy,
I………. I was there as well!
Mrs Le Tissier. Oh, you were there? La! And I’m telling you all about it!
[laughter]
I………. I remember there was a lot of people by the Town Church.
Mrs Le Tissier. How old were you then, sorry to ask
I………. Well I was born in 39, so I’d have been six.
Mrs Le Tissier. It’s like Hazel, you see, Hazel was there at the Liberation, and a soldier came, you know, and he made us laugh because he gave her some chocolate, we ate it. And then we met my Mum and Dad because my brothers had their cars, one car under a rose bush because it was over a shed and they never found it, and then it was Liberation Day and he got it out and he had some petrol from somewhere, don’t ask where.

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