Saints Bay ship crash sorted ⛵
This week in Guernsey
The President Garcia cargo ship was refloated in Saints Bay, the Prince of Wales opened the Val des Terres, the BBC broadcast from Sark for the very first time and a radio telephone went live between Guernsey and Alderney.
The Val des Terres was first opened for traffic this week in 1935. The work, which had begun four years earlier, was carried out by Guernsey’s long-term unemployed, and the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, came to cut the ribbon.
The President Garcia, which had crashed in Saints Bay when it mistook a navigation light for a lighthouse was at last refloated this week in 1967. The ship was full of coconut kernel, which brought with it a plague of beetles that put the island’s tomato crop at risk.
The BBC broadcast from Sark for the first time this week in 1956, with a programme in which Richard Dimbleby interviewed Dame Sibyl Hathaway at the Seigneurie about life under the Germans. It got good reviews from The Guardian.
Sir John Leale, who had led Guernsey’s Controlling Committee during the occupation died this week in 1969. Born in Guernsey in 1892, he even appeared in The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, which described him as “a truly honourable man... he didn’t want us to hate anybody, not even the Germans: but he was like steel in his quiet way to get out of them all he thought was fair for them to let us have.”
The first radio connection between Guernsey and Alderney went live this week in 1927, making communication between the islands far easier. This was important, as Alderney’s large harbour arm was considered an important structure in the defence of Britain and its territories against possible attack from mainland Europe.
A man who escaped from a Guernsey court was caught again when he started suffering stomach pains and had to call the police to take him to hospital. He was ultimately found not guilty of the crime for which he was tried, but was sentenced to serve time for the escape.
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Image of Roy Dotrice by soldier2005 (Michelle & Roy Dotrice) CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.