STATES OF JERSEY
OFFICIAL REPORT
MONDAY, 9th MAY 2016
71ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF JERSEY
The Bailiff:
Connétable S.A. Le Sueur-Rennard of St. Saviour:
The Bailiff:
ADJOURNMENT
[10:30]
The Roll was called and the Dean led the Assembly in Prayer.
April 21st this year marked the 90th birthday of Her Majesty The Queen and on Liberation Day we pay special attention to our links with the Crown and with its armed forces. So it is particularly good to be able to welcome His Excellency Her Majesty’s personal representative in the Island. [Approbation] I am also pleased to welcome Lady McColl and the other guests in the Bailiff’s gallery right above. [Approbation]. Tynwald Day and Liberation Day are the respective national days of the Isle of Man and Jersey although they have somewhat different origins but our 2 Islands share many of the same problems and we have much in common. It is therefore a great pleasure to welcome as a special guest here in the gallery, the Honourable Allan Bell, Member of the House of Keys and Chief Minister of the Isle of Man. [Approbation] We have a visitor from another Island, I am pleased to welcome also the Honourable Wayne Panton, Minister of Financial Services, the Commerce and Environment from the Cayman Islands who is also in the gallery as well. [Approbation] Finally I take the opportunity of welcoming in the public gallery representatives respectively from the embassies of Russia and Belarus. They will be in Liberation Square but are here in particular for the slave workers’ memorial later this afternoon and they are most welcome. [Approbation] Connétable.
Island history and my family. My family lived here all through the occupation and being on a farm we were much better off than most to be honest with you; we had food, hens eggs, milk and if we were very, very quick we could hide piglets from the Germans. We had to hide them because they used to come around periodically and count all the animals that you had, so if they barrowed in the night one was stashed away. My mum and dad also fed prisoners/foreign workforce and it was not until after the war that they spoke about 2 of them. One was a Russian and my mum hoped that he had made it back home after the war. The other was an Algerian named Apslim. Now, they used to leave food for the both of them on the hedge up the road so that if they were caught with the food they would say they had found it and my mum and dad would not get into trouble. One day some of the food remained and my mum got a little bit worried but she found Apslim hiding in the hayloft and he told her that as hungry as he was she had left pork which he was forbidden to eat because of his religious beliefs. We had a horse, and because my dad had a horse on the farm he also did a dust round for the occupying forces so he was able to keep it. They also got a petrol allowance and this why one day André Gorvel came and asked for some. He and his friends had had enough and planned to escape by boat but they needed some more petrol. Although they did not want to my mum and dad helped him. The escape was attempted but sadly failed and they all drowned in La Saline under the watchful eye of the occupying forces. They had already posted that should there be any attempts of escape no one would be rescued. André’s body was washed up 4 days later when my mum and dad had received a letter saying: “Thank you, and see you when Jersey is free.” There was also a young Frenchman, François Scornet, with a group of young French people left France to join General De Galle’s Free French Army. Their boat came up in Guernsey and they thought it was the Isle of Wight, so with thankful hearts they came up singing the French national anthem, straight into the arms of the occupying forces. François was sent to Jersey and the others were sent back to a camp. François was tried and executed by a firing squad in the grounds of St. Ouen’s Manor. My dad saw the 2 lorries leave the grand hotel: the first one had François - sitting on his coffin – and a priest; the second had the firing squad. A memorial to François can be seen in St. Thomas’s church and every year in June a service is held in the grounds of St. Ouen’s Manor: this year - this is a date for you all to remember - it will be on the 17th June at 6.15 p.m. The Reverend Cohu was acting St. Saviour Parish Rector for the time and he was a Guerseyman but he was retired and living in Holly Lodge, St. Saviour. The rector of St. Saviour, the Reverend Balleine died in 1940 so another clergyman was looking after St. Saviour pending the new Rector, but he left in June 1940 just before the occupation. Reverend Cohu took over the services from 30th June 1940 and he took 90 per cent of them until he was arrested. He used to go around on his bike telling people all the good news because he had a radio hidden. His second service on Sunday, 7th July 1940 just after the Island had been occupied he preached on Psalm 94, verse 3: “How long shall the wicked, oh Lord, how long shall the wicked exalt.” His last service at St. Saviour was an evensong on 3rd March 1943 and his sermon was a very rare text, 1 Samuel 18, verse 18, the context of which tell you about David and the fight with Goliath. As you know now, he had a radio and he and 3 others were caught and taken into custody. He was sentenced to imprisonment on the mainland Europe and he died in a concentration camp on 22nd September 1944. He was 60 years old. It is said that he showed great courage to all the other prisoners. The R.A.F. (Royal Air Force) used to drop leaflets with the news on how the war was going and one night the signal went around the farm at home and my dad said: “We must have a lot in the field.” They did. They got up very early the next morning and my mum picked up a whole bunch of leaflets, and because of the heavy dew she put them in the loft to dry. During the morning they were subject of a search and all hell broke loose when the officer saw the leaflets. My mother was arrested there and then and taken to court. He wanted to know what she was going to do with them, how she had given them out to the soldiers and all sorts of things. She said she had not given them to anyone and that as they were cut off from mainland France there was a shortage of goods and she needed the leaflets for toilet paper. The general said that was the best place for them and he let her go. [Laughter] After the S.S. Vega came with the lifesaving food, Mum and Dad organised a fundraiser for the Red Cross to say thank you. It had to be held over 4 days as so many people wanted to come and see it and there was a curfew. It was held at home, Clairval Farm, in the cider press shed. £308 and 4 shillings was raised. Now this was November 1944 and we were not free until May 1945 so the people gave, which was absolutely wonderful. When the soldiers were starting to be deported, my mother went down to the town hall and saw one the gentlemen - and I use the word gentleman very loosely - on the back of a lorry being deported and he was one of those who used to come and count the animals. So she threw a big lump of cow dung at him and she said: “How many cows have you got?” We have so much to be thankful for in this Island and yet even today we are still learning from humanitarian events around the world. So I would like to say on my mum and dad’s behalf, and everybody who was here: “Mèrcie bein des fais, à la prochaine, à vie.” [Approbation]
Connétable, thank you very much indeed. Propose the adjournment? The adjournment is proposed and the States now stand adjourned until Tuesday, 17 May at 9.30.
[10:43]
