Evacuation to London before the German Occupation of Guernsey

Extract from edited transcript of Mrs Ethel Wolley (née Blatchford) interviewed by BBC Radio Guernsey 5/2/05.
Transcribed by John David

Mrs Wolley. We had a friend here who lived in Islington, in London, and she was on holiday, and she said to my father why don’t you let Ethel come back with me, they had arranged that my parents would go to Bristol, the boys had already gone on, Gordon the young one had gone…
I………. They’d been evacuated?
Yes, I’d seen them leave…
I………. But you were older?
I was older, but my father thought it was wise for me to go while the going was good, but I didn’t go with the evacuees, I went as a passenger on not the last mailboat, but the previous one.
I………. How long was it between when you left Guernsey and your younger brothers?
Mrs Wolley. Just a few days, because I was working at Maison Florence in Smith St, where the Post Office is now, my colleague and I were working there one afternoon when a very excited and frustrated lady burst in and she said, “The Germans are coming, The Germans are coming,” And I said to Muriel, “Isn’t it sad, her minds gone”, I really thought she was, you know, over the top. Anyway, the next thing we realised, as we went down the road, the Press office had the notices out, that the parents were to go to their local schools, regarding the evacuation of the children, and then the military marched up Smith Street, and arrested the people, I think they were Italian, in the Restaurant opposite
I………. These weren’t German soldiers?
Oh no,no, no, these were British Soldiers, before the landing, and they took away these Italians — I presume they would have gone to [ ] and they were marched off, and they put a seal on the door of the café and closed it up. That morning there were meetings at the school, and meetings in the Town at the States Offices, everyone was in a state of tiswas it was all so sudden, you see,

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