The Occupation from a different angle

In the meantime, though, local author Tony Brassell has produced his own Occupation-era novel – which also appears to contain more than enough ingredients to take it to the big screen.

And what is more, most of his love story is based soundly on fact.

Tony, well known as a senior civil servant for many years, and now dividing his time between the local branch of the Institute of Directors, Startup Guernsey, and sporting interests, was inspired to take up the pen by stories told to him as a child sitting on his grandmother’s knee.

And it was a back operation, which stopped him playing golf for a few months, which encouraged him to make a real go of committing her stories to print.

‘It was something I’d always wanted to do,’ he said. ‘The stories my gran told me many years ago – how they got on the boat, and my grandfather came after them, it always sent a shiver down my spine thinking about it.’

He takes a unique spin for a wartime book, concentrating the majority of the activity over 200-plus pages on just 10 days in June 1940 – little more than a week spanning the decision to evacuate the island’s children to the UK and the German bombing of tomato lorries lined up at the White Rock. And hence the book’s title – Ten Days One Guernsey Summer.

The events of those tumultuous few days have lost none of their drama in the intervening years. Simple Guernsey folk presented with less than 24 hours to decide to leave the island, to stay, or to break their families up. Though, as Tony makes clear in the book, they thought that such a move would be for six months or so – not five long years.

‘One family caught up in this momentous period of history, little did they know how their lives would change, little did they know how decisions made then would lead to new lives and new experiences. They had just a few hours to toss the coin of destiny and make the biggest decision of their lives,’ he writes.

The hero of Tony’s book is his grandfather – ‘my Grumps’ – who, although a military man, was too young to fight in the First World War and too old in the Second World War. He also faced spending the Occupation years in the island, as only men of military age had been allowed to leave in those late and desperate days before the Germans arrived.

He describes his hero’s exploits as ‘remarkably impulsive and brave’ and the truth behind the fictionalised ending of the book is sensational. Actually it could be argued that he could give it more space than he does.

The other key moments – the family wrestling with the decision whether or not to send their oldest child away with the evacuation, and the bombing of the White Rock – are penned with considerable emotion.

The White Rock attack may pale against modern day atrocities viewed on the TV news every evening but the reality of what happened in our own island, with no warning, is placed into sharp perspective by the author.

Tony also uses the unusual approach of penning the story from three angles – not only his grandfather’s, but also the evacuated daughter in Scotland, and a German fighter pilot based not far outside Cherbourg, whose daily sorties over the south coast of England and further afield are recounted in great detail. The German side of the story is testament to his commitment to research – he also includes little details such as the interiors of the buses, the movies playing in local cinemas, headlines in the local newspaper, and the actual programmes which were on the radio on these dates.

Tony started the book five years ago, setting himself the challenge of writing between 70,000 and 80,000 words on just those 10 days.

‘It’s a time that’s not really covered too much elsewhere, while there is a lot about the Occupation itself,’ he said.

The book was completed after he made a conscious decision to commit the time to it. He said he wrote in fits and bursts, but never found he had writer’s block.

In May he bravely put his work up for assessment from a professional author in a writers’ workshop at the Guernsey Literary Festival. ‘I got some advice to include some more description, learned something about editing, and was told I had to include more conversation, which was a bit of a struggle. But it was very encouraging and I appreciated it.’

He went down the self-publishing route for the book, so easy today with modern technology. ‘I was told I could try to send it to publishers, but the process would be very difficult and could take years. But now I’ve produced something that will be there for ever.’

Feedback has been positive – ‘people have told me that the book brings back so many memories’.

There is also a lesson contained within the pages – the value of learning at the knee and conversing with older generations.

‘My reason for writing this book is to capture a moment in time, convey it as my grandfather might have seen it, and store it for future generations to read and understand. I also hope it is an enjoyable read, brings back memories for some, excites others, and perhaps inspires a few others to listen to their grandparents and record the past before it is too late.’

Ten Days One Guernsey Summer is available locally and on Amazon for £8.99.