DURING a Royal Visit in 2005 from the late Queen Elizabeth II on the 60th anniversary of Liberation, there was no mention of the thousands of other Islanders that fled and eventually returned to Jersey’s shores after World War Two – something which one former evacuee felt was not good enough.
Jean McLaughlin, who left Jersey aged two in the arms of her young mother and father, then founded the Jersey Evacuees Association, remembering and commemorating those who decided to leave Jersey in its darkest moments under German rule.
Now preparing for the organisation’s twentieth annual wreath-laying ceremony at Albert Pier next Sunday, the 87-year-old reflected on her long and colourful life that has been marked with both brilliance and utter heartbreak.
Reflecting on her return to Jersey after six years with the single bags they left with, one would assume local evacuees were welcomed home with a sigh of relief and cheers of joy.
But a warm hello is quite the opposite reaction eight-year-old Jean and her mum received in 1945, as Mrs McLaughlin explained almost eight decades later.
Returning home to looted houses and being called rats in the street led her and her fellow evacuees to never speak of their experience ever again, even in families.
And sixty years on, that silence continued, until 2005 when Mrs McLaughlin felt spurred to do something to remember the decision her late parents and others bravely made to leave their home on a 16-hour U-boat escorted passenger ship to Weymouth.
“I thought, I can’t be the only evacuee in Jersey,” Mrs McLaughlin said. “There’s got to be something to remember us.”
And on what would become an annual occasion, celebrated for its importance and attended by dignitaries, she recalled the first ceremony, where they unveiled the plaque, still brought with it that long-silent stigma towards evacuees.
“I was getting threatening calls,” she said.
“Somebody told me they were going to go down and smash [the plaque], and that nobody wanted to hear about it. It brought me to tears,” Mrs McLaughlin added soberly.
Police involvement meant the event eventually went smoothly, but she remains unsure what created this reaction even all those years on.
“Everybody left for their own reasons,” Mrs McLaughlin said. “My parents had never left the island before. Can you imagine how brave they must have been?”
“My granny told them to leave me with her [in Jersey], but they said no, they were leaving for their young daughter.”
But that is not the only part of her family’s story that she has fought to be heard.
Upon leaving Jersey, Jean’s father was eventually deployed to fight for King and country in Burma, unknowingly joining a group of men that were to become The Forgotten Army – coined because they continued to fight long past freedom was claimed.
Remembering her experience living in the barracks while her dad was at war, Mrs McLaughlin remembers the life she and her mother had to live.
“We lived out of a single room, sharing with an old lady who was very strict,” she said. “She didn’t like me turning the tap or the light on, and we had an iron table in the kitchen to dive under in case we couldn’t make the air raid shelter,” she continued.
But as Mrs McLaughlin remembered jovially, they “just got on with it”.
However, after all she did to remember the evacuees returning to the shores, which also included publishing a book of their stories, Mrs McLaughlin then felt compelled to do similar for her father and his comrades who also returned home with no welcome or cheer, and their experience left in the shadows.
“They said we mustn’t talk about it [those soldiers],” she said.
“The ones who were captured and imprisoned were so thin, and they brought them back the longest way back to England so they could try and fatten them up,” she explained, “because they didn’t want anyone to see how badly treated the men were.”
But that history finally got its prominence in 2012 when Mrs McLaughlin unveiled a Jersey granite plaque at Weymouth’s harbour, where her dad left and returned decades before, as a permanent reminder of the Forgotten Army’s service.
“It was beautiful,” she said remembering the occasion.
Another plaque, naming her father and the other 53 Jersey men from that deployment, sits at the base of Mount Bingham and is similarly marked each year with a memorial ceremony – which, again, would not have been organised without Mrs McLaughlin’s strong will.
Even though her efforts were for her fellow evacuees and her family, she was officially recognised in 2016 when she was awarded the British Empire Medal – a moment that was “incredibly special”.
But, just a few months before she was told the news, Jean lost her beloved husband Robert, whom she cared for 14 years during his battle with dementia.
Even with the heartbreak, she was inspired to do all she could for those who helped him, and dedicated a year to completing eighty challenges for her eightieth birthday, in aid of the Jersey Alzheimer’s Association.
After completing those challenges, which spanned skydiving to a Christmas Day swim, Mrs McLaughlin was joyously celebrating when she heard the news her eldest daughter Karryna was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.
She tragically died later that year aged 42.
But once again, Mrs McLaughlin’s resilience and push for positivity saw her continue her fundraising frenzy. In the end, she completed over 100 personal challenges and shared over £7,000 between the dementia charity, Jersey Cancer Support, and Friends of Jersey Oncology in memory of her loved ones.
And sitting in front of her today, as she proudly wears her Jersey bean necklace, you would never know Mrs McLaughlin has been through so much, as she reflects, smiling, about the pride she feels to have done something for others in the Island.
In true Jean fashion, she arranged to install a bench atop Green Island, where she used to teach her young children to swim, commemorating Karynna and Robert.
“I’m nobody special,” she laughed.
“But I’m very proud and honoured to think that I’ve managed to do so much. It’s been tough. I do get my moments, but you’ve got to carry on,” she said.
And in a nod to her dedication to the Jersey Long Distance Swimming Club, she added, “you’ve got to just keep swimming”.
The annual memorial ceremonies for both the remaining and past evacuees and the Forgotten Army continued throughout the pandemic, albeit in a quieter socially distanced fashion.
And her love and energy surge onwards, as she flung the possibility of completing another 80 challenges for the 80th anniversary of Liberation. All for the love of her family and Jersey itself, even if it didn’t always repay the favour.
Who knows what she’ll be doing next?
The twentieth special wreath-laying ceremony for Jersey’s evacuees will take place on Sunday, 22 June, at noon at Albert Pier.
All attendees will be invited to an annual meal at The Ambassador Hotel at 1pm. Those interested should contact 01534 726848.
