Unexpected fright
This evening, we flew from Guernsey to Jersey.
We had not realised that the plane would be quite so small! It was a Britten-Norman "Trislander" with seats for fifteen people, one pilot and three propellors. Each pair of seats had their own door, so it was like getting into a rather cramped car with seven rows of seats.
The engines were clearly piston- rather than turbo- prop and the thing flew at about 2000 feet. The visibility had closed right in and it was getting dark anyway and the fifteen-minute flight seemed to take forever. Catherine looked as though she would jump out at any moment.
Still, here we are, back at the Pomme d'Or in St Helier.
The Pomme d'Or was the headquarters of the German occupying authority during the war and there are pictures in the lobby of the Swastika flying over the front door, right outside what today is our bedroom. There are also rather uplifting shots of the British liberating forces arriving in 1945, hauling down the Swastika and hauling up the Union Flag.
What amazing things happen in the world that we know nothing of today!
That reminds me that in Guernsey at the Guernsey Museum, we got chatting to a member of staff who spoke the Guernsey Patois. She spoke some for us and it sounded like a rather Chaucerian version of French. I could not make out a single word and a French lady who was present at the same time said that she could only catch the odd word here and there. The Guernsey lady was born in 1939 and was therefore too young for her parents to send her to England when the German threat became imminent. She spent the first five years of her life under German occupation. She was saying that the German soldiers in the island all missed their own children terribly and were surprisingly good to the Guernsey children. She said that she has grown up with no feelings one way or the other towards the Germans based on her experience of them during the war.
We had not realised that the plane would be quite so small! It was a Britten-Norman "Trislander" with seats for fifteen people, one pilot and three propellors. Each pair of seats had their own door, so it was like getting into a rather cramped car with seven rows of seats.
The engines were clearly piston- rather than turbo- prop and the thing flew at about 2000 feet. The visibility had closed right in and it was getting dark anyway and the fifteen-minute flight seemed to take forever. Catherine looked as though she would jump out at any moment.
Still, here we are, back at the Pomme d'Or in St Helier.
The Pomme d'Or was the headquarters of the German occupying authority during the war and there are pictures in the lobby of the Swastika flying over the front door, right outside what today is our bedroom. There are also rather uplifting shots of the British liberating forces arriving in 1945, hauling down the Swastika and hauling up the Union Flag.
What amazing things happen in the world that we know nothing of today!
That reminds me that in Guernsey at the Guernsey Museum, we got chatting to a member of staff who spoke the Guernsey Patois. She spoke some for us and it sounded like a rather Chaucerian version of French. I could not make out a single word and a French lady who was present at the same time said that she could only catch the odd word here and there. The Guernsey lady was born in 1939 and was therefore too young for her parents to send her to England when the German threat became imminent. She spent the first five years of her life under German occupation. She was saying that the German soldiers in the island all missed their own children terribly and were surprisingly good to the Guernsey children. She said that she has grown up with no feelings one way or the other towards the Germans based on her experience of them during the war.
posted by Hugh M | 9:07 pm
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