Guernsey martyrs burned at the stake
This week in Guernsey
We've got a packed newsletter this week, with a royal visit, a murder, a historic and ambitious television broadcast, an oil tanker running aground, a religious trial and some very perceptive fortune-telling.
Murderer Peter Robin was sentenced to death this week in 1937 after killing his daughter in his mother’s back garden. He claimed that he’d thought he was chopping wood when he’d struck her over the head with a hammer. His sentence was commuted on medical grounds to life in prison.
Victor Hugo planted his United States of Europe oak at Hauteville house this week in 1870, declaring that by the time it was mature we would all be living in a united Europe with a common currency. That might not quite have happened, but you can’t deny he had foresight.
The Guernsey Martyrs were burned at the stake this week in 1556, having been found guilty of being protestants. One of the women gave birth to a boy while being burned, which the bailiff threw back into the flames to be burned alongside its mother.
The BBC made its first ever broadcast from the Channel Islands this week in 1956 when it transported the whole of its western region’s equipment to Herm and bounced a live programme back to the mainland via Cherbourg and Paris.
The Point Law oil tanker ran aground off Alderney this week in 1975. Fortunately she had already offloaded har cargo at St Sampson as the rocks she struck in bad weather punctured every one of her compartments.
Plus...
Prince Charles and Camilla visited Guernsey this week in 2012 to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. They toured the walled garden at Saumarez Park where Prince Charles tried plate spinning, then opened Les Bourgs Hospice.
A valuable racing yacht was scuttled off Guernsey this week in 1947, in accordance with its owner’s will. The date of its sinking had been kept secret so that nobody could rescue it from its fate. It had previously raced against the king.
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