The story of a shirt

Martha Martel (née Hubert) interviewed by Lynne Ashton of the Guernsey Museum.
Tape recording transcribed and edited by J David

I worked — I had no idea what I wanted to do, and my mother said that “Why didn’t I learn dressmaking,” so I went to a woman just below Delancey, and I was supposed to learn my trade. She had two young children, and they were very short of food, and I can remember a German coming one day — he lived in a house just at the bottom of Mount Morin — and he came up with the most beautiful sheets and he asked her to make him shorts and a shirt. And she didn’t want to because she just hated the Germans Anyway, she did decide to do this for him, on condition that he brought her food. It was one day, after — she didn’t want to do work on the shirt, she cut it out, - and I’d been there about two years, I think, — and she just threw it at me and said “Now you can machine it”. But I said “You haven’t taught me how to machine yet”. “Oh”, she said, “I’m not touching it, you’ll do the machining”. But she only gave it to me a few hours each day, because the longer she was making it the more food she got. Anyway this went on for a few weeks, and he came up every week, to have a look if it was finished, and then one day he was waiting outside, and he said “Marte, I noticed that I am taking the food to her, but you seem to be working on my clothes,” so he had a loaf for me. I couldn’t believe it.
I….….….. So really, you didn’t have any really unpleasant experiences with the Germans at the beginning of the War?
Mrs Martel. No, I think it was propaganda, a lot of it, would have been for propaganda, and we didn’t have, well, sort of, the SS, really, they were ordinary people. This one that she did the shirts for, he was [ inaudible ] in singing, he wanted to become an opera singer, actually. He had a beautiful voice, because in summer they’d have all the windows open, you’d hear him practising.
I….….….. Does anyone know what happened to him
Mrs Martel. No, not that I know of.

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