Fatal sip from ‘wishing well’

THE Guernsey Press archives are littered with tragic stories of how young children had their lives cut short, most commonly by road accident, or perhaps drowning in unguarded quarries or simply bathing, falling into unprotected fireplaces or falling while ‘cliffing’.

Each one is a heartbreaking tale that inflicted mental agony on immediate family and friends.

But the tale of little Jean ne Hillier, who was in her second year at the Girls’ Intermediate, was remarkably tragic and flukey, the like of which perhaps Guernsey had not seen before or since.

Jeanne would have been 93 were she to be alive today, but an unexplained sip of ‘natural’ water at the foot of one of Guernsey’s south-coast cliff faces led to the 1938 summer headlines of ‘Fatal Drink at Wishing Well’.

The ‘wishing well’ concerned was at Petit Port bay, where Jeanne and her good friend Daphne Barker had gone to spend a Friday afternoon on the beach with friends.

The day was hot – like so many that particularly dry early summer – and the girls grew thirsty.

They drank water from a ‘wishing well’ and a nearby pump.

The next day Jeanne was taken ill and had to go to bed.

Her health deteriorated and Dr Oliver Bostock was called to her home in the Fosse Andre.

Dr Bostock diagnosed sickness caused by a germ in the water she had consumed at Petit Port.

Word got around of Jeanne’s plight and within a couple of days the Evening Press sent a reporter along to the Hilliers to enquire of her progress.

The Hilliers had arrived in the island from Wales in the early 1920s.

Arnold John Hillier was a Welshman and his wife Ellen was from Kent.

They were married in Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1920 and their son Edward was born there in 1921 before the family came to Guernsey and Jeanne was born at the Lady Ozanne Maternity Hospital, St Peter Port, in 1925.

The Hilliers told the Press how the sickness had affected Jeanne, who was normally a robust, healthy girl, full of life and gaiety.

Quickly, she had lost weight and grown very weak.

Then, in the coming days, Jeanne got better, or so the Hilliers hoped.

Dr Bostock had his doubts, though, and on 29 June, 12 days after quenching her thirst, Jeanne lapsed into a coma and she died.

All the while, Daphne, her friend, remained perfectly fine, yet had drunk from the same source.

Jeanne died in the Town Hospital at 11am on 29 June, the cause of death stated as cardiac failure and acute gastro-enteritis.

There was no inquest.

The Hilliers, including elder brother Edward, a regular in the Elizabeth College cricket 1st XI that summer, must have been bereft with anguish, but life went on and there is no suggestion of any inquiry into why and how it could have happened.

It was not good enough for prominent islander Dorothy Carey, who wrote to the Evening Press seeking explanations as to how the well remained open and no notices had been placed around it to warn against drinking from it.

‘This well is invitingly placed near the beach, beautifully camouflaged by a door to prevent pollution,’ she wrote, astounded that the water had not even been tested.

She continued: ‘I have known Petit Port bay better than any other bay for many years, when it was less accessible, there being no steps – only a steep path known as the “Zig Zag’’. A stream of water ran all the way down the cliff and away to waste, as in many other bays. After many years away I returned to Guernsey to find steps had been made and at the foot of them a well.

‘Invitingly arranged for the thirsty, the question arises: Is this a well? Or rather water accumulated from the trickle of water above: Why a ‘’Wishing Well’’? Is it too modern for that. Who would drink of it and wish to die?’

‘If the water has been thoroughly tested within the last week and guaranteed fit for use by all means let it be for public use. If not, then seal this death-trap for ever.’