Guernsey Press

Biberach babies meet at cemetery

TWO Biberach babies knelt together in St Sampson's churchyard on Saturday morning.

Published

TWO Biberach babies knelt together in St Sampson's churchyard on Saturday morning. Carole Wheatley from Colchester and Hans Peter Reiser from Biberach were born within seven days of one another at the internment camp hospital. Mrs Wheatley was in the island for a short service to place the ashes of her mother, Marjorie Ashton, in the family grave. 'Mr first recollection was coming home on a plane from Biberach in June 1945,' said Mrs Wheatley, who recently celebrated her 60th birthday. In the late 1970s her family was reunited with Mr Reiser's and their friendship now extends to the third generation. Mrs Ashton, nee Smith, was born to a Guernsey woman at Blandford, Dorset, and brought to Guernsey aged two. She died in Colchester in September, aged 91. Marjorie Smith married Eddie Ashton who worked for the Guernsey Star in 1936 and they lived at Tertre Lane, Vale. Mrs Ashton was pregnant when she was deported aboard the SS Minotaur. The couple spent three years in Biberach. Mrs Wheatley was born in the Kreiskrankenhaus where several German women befriended her mother. One of them, Elisabeth Reiser, had a baby boy, Hans Peter, at the same time. They conversed in French. Islanders were free to explore the town when the camp was liberated in 1945. There, by chance, Majorie and Eddie met Mrs Reiser who invited them home to tea. Addresses were exchanged and in 1964 the Ashtons returned to Biberach to see their friends. The Ashtons lived in London after the war where Eddie took a job with another newspaper and they never lived in Guernsey again. Since the late 1970s their offspring has met regularly and both are now familiar with each other's language. Mrs Wheatley said this might never have happened had it not been for Mr Reiser's wife Helga, who acted as interpreter. 'I always felt very hard done by that I never lived in Guernsey,' said Mrs Wheatley. Mr Reiser works as an organ builder. Members of her family, including brother Brian Ashton and first cousin Rosemary Grigg, accompanied Mrs Wheatley on the trip to Guernsey. Mrs Grigg, nee Simon, now lives in England but was born in Guernsey where her father, Bert, was a manager for Le Riche.

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