Condor Liberation enters service
Condor ran a competition to find the name of its new Australian-built vessel, with several entrants suggesting Liberation. Each was put into a hat and one – from Clive Davies – drawn at random. Clive was invited to Poole to see the name being painted onto the ship.
Guernsey Post Office established
Guernsey Post Office was established this week in 1794. To put that in context, the French Revolution was ongoing, it was the year Nelson lost his sight in his right eye and George Washington was still president of the United States.
The postal system was formalised on 28 March 1794 through a British Act of Parliament, which established the Guernsey Post Office, with Ann Watson appointed its first postmistress. She operated from her home in St Peter Port High Street.
The existence of an official Post Office gave islanders and mainlanders a degree of confidence that anything they sent would arrive in a timely manner, at a set price. Mail would be conveyed to and from the mainland once a week. It was almost another sixty years before Guernsey got its first postbox, though, in 1853.
Guernsey TV drama ends
ITV’s highly-rated Guernsey-set series Enemy at the Door came to an end this week in 1980. Over the course of 26 episodes, it had given a lightly-fictionalised account of the German occupation of Guernsey. Filmed by London Weekend Television (LWT), it had started its run at 7.30pm on 21 January 1978 and continued for two full series of 13 hour-long episodes each.
Curiously, although set in Guernsey, it was actually filmed in Jersey. It was the first television series to feature Anthony Head. He went on to star in Nescafe adverts, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Little Britain. One episode also featured John Nettles, who would later return to Jersey to take the title role in the BBC detective series Bergerac.
Guernsey to mainland phone link
The Guernsey to UK telephone connection was inaugurated this week in 1931, marking a significant advancement in communication for the island. Prior to this, communication was limited to telegrams and sea mail.
The inaugural call was made by the British home secretary to the Lieutenant-Governors of Guernsey and Jersey. The line had actually hosted its first calls two weeks earlier, on March 12, before the official ceremony. The connection simplified communication and connected Guernsey and Jersey to South Devon, allowing calls to be routed from there throughout the mainland trunk line system.
Printer Thomas de la Rue
Renowned printer Thomas de la Rue was born this week in 1793, in La Bourg, Forest. He started as an apprentice printer at the age of 10 and later founded a newspaper called Le Miroir Politique.
Despite facing financial difficulties in the late 1830s, his firm excelled in printing and obtained contracts to print stamps and banknotes, which it still produces today. De la Rue is known as the father of the English playing card due to his innovations in printing methods. He passed away in 1866, leaving behind a legacy carried on by his sons.
Equal age of consent
Guernsey's politicians unanimously voted this week in 2010 to equalise the age of consent for gay men, reducing it from 18 to 16 in line with the rest of the UK. This decision came after previous attempts had failed in 1999 and 2007.
The issue was revisited in 2010 by the Home Department, with media coverage and varied reactions from church leaders. The change also lifted restrictions on the number of men who could have sex together in Guernsey, with Alderney and Sark implementing similar laws soon after.