- Sophie, Countess of Wessex. delivered a Liberation Day message from the Queen
- Speech read out during special States Assembly in the People’s Park
- In her message the Queen called on Islanders to pass on the spirit of reconciliation to future generations
- The Countess of Wessex in Jersey – see our gallery of pictures below
A MESSAGE from the Queen which called on Islanders to pass on the ‘spirit of reconciliation to future generations’ was read out during a States Assembly.
Sophie, Countess of Wessex, read out the message during the unique sitting, which took place in the open air of the People’s Park – instead of the customary States Chamber – on Saturday afternoon.
The occasion was marked by a regal red carpet and by a procession of the Island’s historic royal mace.
After the traditional roll call and prayers, the Countess read a message from the Queen to the thousands of Islanders who had gathered in the park for the ceremony.
‘On the occasion of the 70th anniversary we remember the many who suffered during the Occupation of the Channel Islands with all the hardships that went with that including food shortages, deprivations of liberty and restrictions on ordinary everyday life,’ the Countess said.
She continued: ‘Today is a day for all the survivors of that generation and for the people of Jersey, young and old to come together, to give thanks for the success of the Allied forces and the liberation of the Island and to pass on the spirit of reconciliation to future generations.’
In her message, the Queen also said that she remembered the ‘loyalty and support’ that she had received when she visited Jersey for the 60th anniversary of Liberation and told of the ‘pleasure’ that her parents, King George VI and the Queen Mother, took in visiting the Island one month after the Liberation in 1945.
Following the States sitting the Countess spoke with those that had lived through the Occupation as well as to children and parish representatives.
The sitting – which was attended by the Bailiff William Bailhache, Lieutenant Governor, General Sir John McColl and the Island’s Senators, Deputies and Constables – was concluded by a speech from St Clement Constable and longest serving States Member Len Norman.
The ‘father of the House’ spoke of the hardships and the hunger that Islanders experienced during the Occupation and the difficulty for further generations to comprehend what they had gone through.
‘Those who were here for five years endured much deprivation, loss of liberty and uncertainty for how the war and the Occupation was to end,’ he said.
‘Yesterday we celebrated Victory in Europe Day when Winston Churchill uttered those immortal words: “And our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today”.
‘Seventy years later those words still send a shiver down my spine.
‘To those that heard them in 1945, what wonderful emotions they must have experienced.’
