Nan du Feu-Cooper (née Le Ruez) was born in 1915 and penned Jersey Occupation Diary, which was published in 1994.
Her second marriage to Jimmy Cooper, a naval officer in the liberating forces whom she first met on Liberation Day, attracted national headlines.
Mrs du Feu-Cooper, a Methodist preacher, had married her first husband, Alfred, shortly after the Occupation ended and the couple had four children – David, Christopher, Peter and John. Alfred died suddenly in 1985, and it was some years later when a diary Mrs du Feu-Cooper had kept during the Occupation – which included drawings by her sister, Joyce – was unearthed and she was persuaded that it might be of interest.
It was published in 1994 and has since been reprinted and updated. And it was only after it was republished and after rereading it that Mrs du Feu-Cooper noticed a reference to Jimmy Cooper and wondered what had happened to him in the years after the Island’s Liberation. After a radio broadcast, she met and became friends with both Mr Cooper and his wife. They kept in touch, and after the death of Mrs Cooper, they married in 2004 – nearly 60 years after they had first met.
