FOR older Islanders used to starting Liberation Day with a hearty breakfast, it had been a long time between plates of bacon and eggs.
Around 100 people gathered from 7.15am at the Town Hall in St Helier yesterday, having been unable to partake in ‘the best meal of the day’ on 9 May since 2019.
There are always smiles, and a few tears, on Liberation Day, but the emotions seemed that little bit more heightened than normal after the pandemic severely cramped the style of the annual celebration over the past two years. Or maybe it was just the bright, low sun of the early morning that had prompted some moisture around the eyes?
Sisters-in-law Norma Parker (92) and Doris Gates (91) had never missed a trip to town on 9 May between 1945 and 2019, so they were delighted to see normal service resumed.
‘It’s our thanksgiving,’ said Mrs Gates, recalling how she had walked into town from Langley Avenue, St Saviour, in 1945 to celebrate the end of the Occupation. Seventy-seven years later she was lucky enough to have secured a lift from her home at First Tower, with Norma stepping up as designated driver.
Marion Rossler, who was accompanied by her older brother Fred de la Perrelle, recalled coming into town from Grève d’Azette on the day the Island was liberated. Initially the five-year-old had watched the proceedings with her family from Victoria Pier, before moving on to the Pomme d’Or and then Triangle Park, where British soldiers gave out sweets, chewing gum and shredded wheat.
‘We had white bread for the first time; it tasted like cake,’ she recalled. Bread had been a rather more coarse experience until then, made with wheat gleaned from the fields after the main harvest had been carried out.
Mrs Rossler added that while children had coped well with the wartime regime, it was the older generation who had helped the Island survive.
She said: ‘For us it was normal to be hungry, and go without shoes, but our parents were the real heroes.
‘My father had a crystal [radio] set and he swore Fred and I to secrecy about it, saying that we must never tell anyone about it – it was a big secret to be entrusted with.
‘Dad made shoes out of car tyres and my mother knitted me dresses – it taught me never to waste anything and I don’t even want to throw a salad leaf away these days unless I have to.’
Tony Hansford was born in Jersey in 1934 but then evacuated during the war, subsequently returning to the UK, where he has lived since 1951. He had originally planned to travel to the Island from his home in Plymouth in 2020, and finally made the trip after a two-year delay.
Although Man Bieau P’tit Jèrri (Beautiful Jersey) is the song most closely associated with Liberation Day, Mr Hansford recalled the song written for the first anniversary of the occasion. Played to the tune of Marching Through Georgia, the Jersey Liberation Song was sung by schoolchildren at a parade in West Park in May 1946.
Guests were hosted at the event at the Town Hall by St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft, who also welcomed visiting parties from the parish’s twin towns, including David Nicolas, Mayor of Avranches, in Normandy, and Reed Gusciora, Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey.
