Guernsey hydrofoil service preps for first crossing
Guernsey Airport’s new terminal opened for business this week in 2004. With 30% greater capacity than the building it replaced, it had cost £23m to build (almost £7m over budget), but was rewarded when it won the RIBA Town and Country award and 2004’s Guernsey Design Award.
Work on the new building had started in 2002 and was completed in less than two years. Demolition of the old building commenced the following month, and the space it freed up now provides additional spaces for aircraft to park in.
The film of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society opened in cinemas across the UK this week in 2018 Guernsey had had its own premiere of the film more than a week in advance.
Although it promotes the island, very little of the film was actually shot in Guernsey because it was too logistically difficult. Some footage was inserted for the sake of realism, but otherwise filming took place on the mainland. Devon and Cornwall stood in for Guernsey in most scenes. Bideford was used for St Peter Port. Morwenstow, Cornwall, was used for coastal scenes, and Clovelly, Devon, was used for the harbour.
Aurigny pilot Ray Bowyer spotted a UFO while flying his Trislander to Alderney this week in 2007. His sighting was backed up by official technical records and by direct sightings from passengers on the aircraft. The enormous unexplained object was estimated to be a mile long, and hovering at an elevation of around 2000ft.
The sighting is particularly interesting as it came a little over two months after 20 to 25 unexplained lights were spotted flying in formation over Alderney’s north coast at 6.15am on 14 February 2007.
This week marks 69 years since we said goodbye to Monsignor Thomas Grant Hickey who was appointed Vicar General of the Channel Islands throughout the occupation. Following the islands' liberation, he was elected to the States.
Actor Dennis Price, best known for playing Jeeves in the BBC’s World of Wooster, died in Guernsey this week in 1966 , having been rushed across from his home in Sark. He died, aged just 58, after falling and breaking his hip.
Three Jewish women were deported from Guernsey this week in 1942. Marianne Grunfeld, Therese Steiner and Auguste Spitz were sent to Auschwitz by occupying forces, where all three died. They are now remembered with a plaque on St Julian’s Pier.
More than 1000 Guernsey and Sark residents were deported to Germany or France during the Second World War. Many had committed only minor offences. Sixteen of them are remembered on a separate plaque in St Peter Port, which was erected to their memory in 2010.
Herbert Stanton would have been celebrating his 105th wedding anniversary this week, if he hadn’t been found out as a bigamist. He was still married to his first wife in Guernsey when he tied the knot for a second time on the mainland. He was caught, tried and convicted, and sentenced to three months' hard labour, in part because he'd lied to his second wife.
Guernsey-born Len Duquemin was signed to play football for London club Tottenham Hotspur, with whom he made 274 league appearances, scoring 114 goals. He died this week in 2003 and his obituary on the Spurs website described him as "one of the best players never to have been selected for international duty".
Duquemin even played as part of the Spurs team when the club travelled to Guernsey, and faced off against the Guernsey Island XI. The local side almost certainly included a number of players that Duquemin would have known from his time in the island, and alongside whom he would have played before he headed to London.
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