Guernsey declares state of emergency
Guernsey declared a State of Emergency this week in 1976, banning dishwashers and car washing, cutting the water supply to homes in half, and penalising one Fort George family by shutting off its water for using more than its ration.
According to a report in The Guardian, the family had been "cut off completely for using an estimated average of 70 gallons per day more than their June ration of 22 cubic metres. The family, which now has the dubious distinction of being the first in the British Isles to be cut off for excessive water use, is having to fetch supplies in buckets from a stand-pipe in the road outside their £300,000 home."
The island was suffering a drought after the longest ever spell in which no rain had fallen, seeing even hotels and greenhouse growers’ use of water severely restricted.
Herm was put up for sale this week in 2008 with an asking price of £15m. Pennie and Adrian Howarth, who advertised the sale of the lease, had run the island for 28 years and, by then in their late-50s, had decided it was time for someone else to take on the role of 24-hour caretakers. In the end, the remainder of the lease went for quite a bit less than the £15m asking price when it was purchased by a trust, which negotiated an extension of the lease to 2048.
Alderney was liberated from German occupation on 16 May 1945 – a week later than Guernsey. The island, which had been home to four prison camps, was left a wreck, ringed by more than 30,000 mines. It was initially turned into a collective farm in an effort to get it back on its feet.
Guernsey was cited in the mainland murder trial of George Jackson, who had shot his lover in the back of a van, but been unable to kill himself because his shotgun was too long. He claimed that they’d had a suicide pact and wanted their ashes to be scattered from a plane flying to Guernsey.
The States bought Aurigny this week in 2003 after British Airways announced the end of its Guernsey to Gatwick route. Deputies voted 32-2 in favour of the £5m purchase, despite concerns voiced by rival LeCocqs Airlink and Flybe.
Wartime diplomat Wilfred Gallienne was born in Guernsey this week in 1897. He rode the Trans-Siberian Railway to Tokyo to assess Russian troop build-ups in advance of the Second World War, and reported on the setting up of concentration camps. His name was included on German lists of people to be rounded up if they invaded Britain.
The British papers reported that Sibyl Hathaway, the Dame of Sark, had been deported to a German concentration camp this week in 1941. The deportation had apparently been a reprisal for "offences by youthful islanders who had been harassing the Germans in Guernsey". But this was a mistake. In reality, the Dame spent the whole of the war on Sark. She only left the island once. Her clandestine mission had been to take supplies to Guernsey for two British airmen who were hiding in her daughter’s house.
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