Vanessa Collingridge and the team answer listener’s historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all ‘make’ history.
Programme 4
23ÌýOctober 2007
The German Occupation of the Channel Isles
The Germans landed on the 1st July 1940 and the islands weren’t liberated until 8th May 1945 – nearly a year after D–Day and 7 days even after Hitler’s death. Over one thousand British-born civilians (children and adults) were taken to camps in Germany, some of the Jews among them were killed. After June 1944, whilst the Allies fought over and occupied land only a few miles away on the Cherbourg peninsular - the Channel islanders faced starvation as food and other supplies dwindled.
A Making History listener wanted to know how the Palace Hotel in St Helier, Jersey burnt down during the German occupation of St Helier, Jersey. Vanessa Collingridge travelled to the island to find the answer to this specific question and ask how easy it is to uncover the hidden histories of an occupied community.
Michael Ginns OBE told us that the Palace Hotel was being used by German troops planning a raid on Grenville in 1944 (the Cherbourg Peninsular was, at this time, in Allied hands). A fire broke out and in a desperate attempt to put it out it was decided to use explosives and blow a fire-break. Unfortunately, the explosion caused much more damage than planned and much of the building was destroyed.
Michael Ginns OBE outside what is left today of the Palace Hotel in St Helier, Jersey.
Vanessa Collingridge also visited the Jersey Heritage Trust which houses the island’s archives. Sue Groves, then the Head of Archives, told us about the kind of records from the war that can be accessed. These include identity cards and the records from the German military court. However, formal records do not reveal much information about resistance movements or acts of collaboration. These are, necessarily, secret histories and there is a suspicion among authors such as The Guardian’s Madeleine Bunting, that many of the islanders have kept quiet about what really happened during the war as a way of dealing with a traumatic experience. Both Michael Ginns and Sue Groves disagree and argue that there was little scope for a resistance movement in such a small place and those people who fraternised with the enemy were indeed known about.
Further Reading
The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule by Madeleine Bunting. Pimlico 2004 ISBN-10: 184413086X ISBN-13: 978-1844130863
The German Occupation of the Channel Islands by Charles Cruickshank Sutton Publishing 2004 ISBN-10: 0750937491 ISBN-13: 978-0750937498
The Changing Face of the Channel Islands Occupation: Record, Memory and Myth
Palgrave Macmillan 2006 ISBN-10: 1403988048 ISBN-13: 978-1403988041
Useful web sites
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Eleanor Everingham
A listener in Argyll has a Book of Common Prayer printed in 1712 in English and Irish Gaelic by a woman called Eleanor Everingham. How usual was it for a woman to work as a printer in the early eighteenth century?
Making History consulted Professor James Raven at the University of Essex, the author of The Business of Books: Booksellers and English Book Trade Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN-10: 0300122616 ISBN-13: 978-0300122619
Professor Raven told Making History that it was not unusual at all for women to be working in the book trade. Usually this was because they inherited their husband’s business. Eleanor’s husband Robert was an established printer, with Irish connections, and she would simply have taken over his interests (see this link for example:
See also this bibliography compiled by Laura Sue Fuderer at the
Knitted War Memorial
A listener contacted the programme to ask whether it is true that there’s a knitted war memorial in England?
Gwyn Thomas told Making History that there was indeed a tapestry or knitted memorial at Linstead Parva church near Halesworth in Suffolk.
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Billy Butlin’s 1960 Walk
A listener wanted more information about the John O’Groats to Land’s End Walk in 1960 won by a Jim Musgrave and sponsored by Billy Butlin.
Making History consulted the race-walking historian Andy Milroy and the former Scotsman reporter Albert Morris.
The race took place at the end of February 1960. 700 brave people started the race but it soon transpired that many were ill-equipped – 200 withdrew after just one day. Albert Morris in his articles for The Scotsman describes scenes of utter chaos.
There is archive of the walk available at theÌýÌýÌýÌý
Vanessa has presentedÌýscience and current affairs programmes for ´óÏó´«Ã½, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìý
Contact Making History
Send your comments and questions for future programmes to:
Making History
´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4
PO Box 3096 Brighton
BN1 1PL
Vanessa has presentedÌýscience and current affairs programmes for ´óÏó´«Ã½, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìý