Latest news with #IslandMemoriesProject.The
BBC News
02-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Man recalls 'horror occasions' from Guernsey's WW2 occupation
A man from Guernsey has shared some of his most frightening memories of experiencing the German Occupation of the island during World War Tostevin, now 86, was six years old when the island was liberated on 9 May said he remembered "horror occasions" encountering forced workers who came begging for food, while he was also told not to tell the Germans Tostevin said the firing of a "massive gun" broke the windows of his house and planes called "moaners" would fly overhead. 'They'll shoot me' He said he remembered one labourer coming to his family home and asking his father for Tostevin said: "This man came in rags with the sacking on his feet."He was a Frenchman, I remember it to this day and I felt sick after seeing him come in looking so bedraggled and so ill-looking. "To see him like that, it frightened me, they were those horror occasions really when you saw these things."On one occasion he saw the man in an old pumping shed "with a crystal set" who said "don't tell anyone that I'm here because they'll shoot me".Mr Tostevin said: "We never divulged anything that was said in our home, because of being caught out."He has shared his experiences as part of the Island Memories project records islanders' memories for future generations. Mr Tostevin's family lived in Torteval and were grape 86-year-old still lives in the same house and still grows some of his family's grapes in his said: "There was a plane that used to fly around every single night and it had the droning sound and they called it a moaner."In the evening they'd say 'oh there's the moaner' and we were frightened of the moaner."Another time I was in the field next door, again very small, and there was a German plane flying over and the pilot was looking down at me and I was very scared because I thought, what's he going to do to me?"Now I've thought since, maybe he was saying to himself I've got a son of that age, who knows."
BBC News
09-03-2025
- General
- BBC News
Guernsey man 'almost evacuated during WW2' shares memories
A man from Guernsey said he was almost evacuated during the Second World War as a child before his mother had "second thoughts". Hirzel Dorey, now 91, was six years old when World War Two began and has shared his experiences as part of the Island Memories project records islanders' memories for future Dorey said he had been due to be evacuated, but after the boat he was set to leave on never arrived, his mother decided she wanted him to stay with her. Gossip during milk rounds Mr Dorey was the youngest of four brothers living at Brooklands Farm, in Kings Mills, during the Nazi Occupation of Guernsey in said farmers had to take milk to a depot at Myrtle Place, which is now the Fleur du Jardin said: "Of course all the news and all the gossip was had from taking the milk twice a day."I think the Germans were all a bit frustrated as [our talking] was all in Guernsey-French and they just couldn't make anything out." Mr Dorey said he had also remembered an explosion at Le Grantez Mill, as well as an "out of control" tank which hit a wall and killed several occupying Island Memories Project is being run by BBC Radio Guernsey in conjunction with Guernsey Museums to record islanders' the 80th anniversary of the bailiwick's liberation in May this year, the project is focusing on memories of World War Two.
