Guernsey film opens in cinemas

The film of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society opened in cinemas across the UK on this day in 2018. Guernsey had had its own premiere more than a week in advance.

Although it promotes the island, very little of the film was 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.

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.

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 area it freed up now provides additional spaces for aircraft parking.

Herbert Stanton would have been celebrating his wedding anniversary this week in 1916, 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 Sampson Avard moved to Pennsylvania, where he became leader of a group of Mormon vigilantes that robbed their neighbouring non-believers. He died this week in 1869, and had been born in St Peter Port on 23 October, in either 1800 or 1803.

He emigrated to the United States when he was around 20 years old, married, then moved from city to city through Virginia and Ohio, eventually settling in Pennsylvania. A very devout man, he preached his faith and was briefly ordained as a high priest of the Mormon religion.

However, he also went far beyond what he should have done, leading Mormon vigilantes, which made the county's existing residents worry that they were facing an imminent violent Mormon invasion. A militia leader was assigned to defend the county but, in much the same way that Avard had harassed his non-Mormon neighbours, the militia leader, Samuel Bogart, went on the offensive. He crossed into Mormon land and harassed the church members. He took three of them captive, and the Mormons armed themselves for a battle to win them back.

Meanwhile, over in Jersey…

• An inquiry opened into naked, burned motorist

• A man was tried on priest porn charges

• A bullet was dug out of an unfortunate barman

• The first Jersey Royals were exported to London

• A ship sank when its crew got drunk

• A crane fell into St Helier Harbour

• The Royal Amphitheatre opened in St Helier

• The Great Western steamer sank at Noir Montaise

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.

In total, more than 1000 Guernsey and Sark residents were deported to either Germany or France during the Second World War. Many of them 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.

Monsignor Thomas Grant Hickey, who was appointed Vicar General of the Channel Islands throughout the occupation, died this week in 1952. Following the islands' liberation, he was elected to the States where he argued that teachers in non-States schools should receive full salaries.

Guernsey's Lieutenant Governor, Lord Ruthven, died this week in 1956, after a lifetime spent in the military, which saw him fighting in the First World War and serving in India. In the inter-war years he had been responsible for maintaining London's food supply during the general strike of 1926. Widowed shortly before his death, he had quickly remarried Judith Bell, who had been his secretary when he had been Lieutenant Governor.

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.

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