Co-existence with the Germans in Guernsey as seen by a Child

Tony Hobbs interviewed at the Guille-Alles Library by Becky Kendall of Radio Guernsey 5/2/2005. Transcribed by John David 9/11/2005

[Tony Hobbs’ father, a lifeboatman, had been killed when the Guernsey lifeboat was machine-gunned by a German plane while on its way to Jersey in 1940]

After that, we went to live down at l’Islet, and we went to live in one of my Aunts’ place in Houmet Lane. Throughout the war, we had Germans all around us, living next to us, and from time to time at the top as well, We used to march behind them, we’d make our little toy guns, and we’d march behind them, and we’d sing their songs, and I still, if I’ve half a bottle of whisky inside me, remember their songs, though I don’t know what they mean. I was able to speak fairly good German by the end of the war. If we went on the common, there’d be a crowd of us, and they’d be training for the Russian front, there’d be a crowd of them, and they’d run along and jump down as soldiers do, we’d copy them, we’d do exactly what they did, they just used to laugh, you know, and at the top — you know the Houmet Tavern? — well as you come up, you might have seen it on the paper, a little while ago — when it was being built, I was invited on top, I was only five or six, to put my footprints into the bunker itself, over the years I’ve passed there, and I’ve wondered if my footprints are still there, so about two years ago, I got a ladder off the top of my van, and got up there and had a look. I knew roughly where I had stood, with my back to the bay, and I found the prints, very very slight, because sixty years has gone by, and I found it. But on the side of the hotel, where they go now for their meals, what we used to do, we used to occasionally play football there, and there was one young sentry, and I don’t think he was more than about seventeen years old, when there were no officers around, he had his sentry box there, and we used to put a pile of coats on the other side, and he was our goalkeeper, and we’d be playing football, because he was very young, and mother would look at his watch, because he was the only one with a watch, and say Tony home at a certain time, “Home” and he’d send me home.
I………. So the German soldier was responsible…
He Spoke a little, and he was the only one with a watch, and as I was one of the smaller ones, I had to go at a certain time, that’s what we used to do. My mother took photographs, and somebody said to me the other day “You weren’t allowed to take photographs in the war time” My mother buried her camera, and then she dug it up because they relaxed the rules.
I………. So you’ve got a photo
I’ve got several
I………. Where’s this taken?
This is Houmet, that’s Grande Havre out there, Me, my mother, and two German soldiers.
I………. All smiling
Oh yes, you see, the thing is, this is the thing, my mother always used to say, she took lots of photographs, one day, this will be history, because there was no doubt in her mind that we were going to win the war — although, they nearly won the war — we were going along there one day, and there happened to be some German soldiers, and my grandfather took the photograph. To me, it was a great time. After the war, we went to live back in town, and I found life seemed very dull. As a kid, I didn’t realise the dangers that there might have been around, you know. What my mother used to do, after a while she used to wash clothes for three or four Germans, officers, who used to give her food, because there was a time when there was very little food, and its what you call survival time. A lot of people say you collaborate, you know, to my mother, and she said”my husband’s killed, my father is not very well, I’ve got to survive. That’s why she went to the country. One day, this German officer came down, I can still remember him, on his horseback, and he got off his horse, tied it to the side, and he spoke in perfect English, without a German accent, she said to him “You must be English” He’d spent all his life in England, university, college, what have you, very wealthy family, and languages was one of his things. He said when the war started I had to come back, I hadn’t any friends in Germany, all my friends were at university, many many friends over here, but he said if I hadn’t come back they would have thrown my family into prison, because the’d have said you’re collaborating, see. So that was it, she used to wash his clothes, and she’d go to their place and they’d give her food. My grandfather used to saw down trees — there were a lot of trees round that area — and he used to make salt from sea water. If you boil a large amount of salt water you get salt, and he used to dry it. Then money wasn’t any good, you see, money was basically, no good at all. So people used to come round, and you might have some potatoes, and you want some salt, and other people would have what they called sweetener, it was water that was very sweet, and that’s what my grandfather used to do. He couldn’t do very very much.

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