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A Very Brief History of Alderney continued.....

by Brian Bonnard

20th century;

                The building of the breakwater and forts gave rise, after the government work was finished, to an expanding quarrying industry and the present commercial jetty was opened in 1897 to facilitate the export of cut blocks and crushed roadstone, as well as the increasing numbers of tourists. A new stone crusher was built in the harbour area in 1905. Most of the Militia volunteered for the Great War in March 1916 and 44 men lost their lives in the fighting.

                Tourism flourished, the first official, land based, airport in the Channel Islands was opened in February 1936, with flights to Southampton, London and the unofficial aerodromes in the other islands and there were frequent boat services to Guernsey, Jersey, Cherbourg and England, many of them provided by SS Courier. Two ships of that name, specially built for the service, served the island from 1876 to 1947. Both were in service at the same time from 1883-1913, earning themselves the names of ‘Little’ and ‘Big’ Courier respectively and played a large part in the island’s history for 80 years. Excursion boats came from England and France. “Boat days” became important social occasions and anyone who had nothing better to do went down to the harbour to see SS Courier, the “Mailboat”, come in. Taxi and bus services were started to transport the passengers to town.

                The stone trade provided work for a quarter of the male population when the island was evacuated in 1940, but was not restarted after the war and the later, pre-war, crusher was finally demolished in the 1960s.

                When war was declared in 1939, Alderney was enjoying fine weather and a good tourist season. Most people went home immediately and a Machine Gun training unit was sent to garrison the island. In a short time, after Dunkirk, it became obvious that the islands could not be defended against the German armies sweeping rapidly across Europe. In June 1940 all the troops were withdrawn and the civilian populations given an opportunity to evacuate to England. About 20% of the population of Jersey, 50% of that of Guernsey and virtually the whole 1,450 population of Alderney left the islands. Most of the Sarkees decided to remain. Six small cargo ships arrived in Braye Harbour around 4am on Sunday 23rd June. The inhabitants turned their animals loose, packed just what they could carry with them and buried or hid the valuables they could not take. By midday the island was left with a few officials destroying fuel stocks, disabling vehicles, etc., a couple of farmers who would not leave their stock and a dozen or so old people who simply refused to leave their homes. The evacuees arrived safely at Weymouth and about 2 weeks later the first batch of German troops arrived in the almost deserted island.

The Occupation;

            Over the next 5 years Alderney was gradually turned into a vast concrete fortress, part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. At first volunteer civilian labour was brought in from northern Europe by the Organisation Todt, but these workers were soon replaced by forced labour, mainly young men from eastern Europe dragged from their homes and turned into slaves and four camps, each holding about 1,500 were built to house them.

                There was no deliberate extermination of the prisoners here but, inadequate food, excessive labour, frequent beatings, poor living conditions, with no medical help and insufficient clothing, meant that considerable numbers died from malnutrition, dysentery, septicaemia and pneumonia. A few were shot “trying to escape”. The exact number who died will never be known. At the peak of the work there were about 5-6,000 slave workers and 3,500 German troops and technicians in the island. When the island was eventually freed by a small British force and the German garrison surrendered on 16th May 1945, more than a week after Jersey and Guernsey were freed on the day after VE Day, the German records and the marked graves found showed 437 deaths amongst the workers, but many of the survivors claimed that hundreds more were buried in the trenches where they fell, or, if they died in their barracks, their bodies were piled into lorries and tipped into the sea off the Breakwater. Many more slaves were taken back to France after D-Day and some died en route for Germany, or trying to escape from the trains.

                Some 1,100 Germans were kept on the island to help the British troops clear up the 37,000 mines laid; the miles of barbed wire; the various booby traps; and the rubble from buildings they had destroyed; and to repair as many as possible of the houses. It was December 1945 before any islanders were allowed to return. By this time about 300 houses had been made habitable. The first small groups consisted of members of the pre-war Alderney administration and islanders with useful skills and just before Christmas about 100 more returned. 

Post-war;

                It had been decided in England that the island would, for the first two years, be run as a Communal Farm. Shopkeepers were provided with shop fittings and an initial stock and then had to get on as best they could, replacing the stock from their profits. Craftsmen would be paid by those they worked for, whilst the rest of the male workers would be paid £3 a week and the women 1/- (5p) an hour, by the States, out of the sales of the farm produce. Any remaining profits would be put aside to repay the British Government for their expenses on repairing and rebuilding the houses, a total in the end of £174,000, which was repaid by 1952.

                The remaining Germans and the British troops were withdrawn in June 1946 and by July about 685 people had returned. The islanders became very unhappy about the way they had no control over their own land and a committee of enquiry was set up by the Home Office in 1947. The end result of this was the “Government of Alderney Law 1948”, which came into force on 1st January 1949, setting up a written constitution, with universal franchise for persons over 21 who had been resident for more than a year, the make up and election of the States and the justice system and the imposition of income and some other taxes (for the first time ever in Alderney). It was thought that the small population of Alderney could not be self-sufficient in running the airport and harbour and in providing the services and benefits most people had come to expect in UK. These taxes would be collected into the general Bailiwick revenue funds, at the same rate as in Guernsey, and administered by them. Guernsey would be responsible in future for providing many governmental functions, education, social services and pensions, health, police, roads, water supplies, sewage, running the airport, etc. Local rates would be levied in Alderney to pay for refuse disposal, street cleaning and lighting, official building maintenance, States housing and employees, etc.

                Before the war Alderney only had a small electricity generating station, started in 1936, serving just a small area of the town with direct current and another at the harbour, producing AC to operate the stone crusher and related buildings. Lighting in the town was either by gas, generated at the Gas Works in Newtown, or by oil lamps. The school was run by two teachers, there were no State Pensions and no public piped water supply. Some seven public pumps around the town, the principal ones being in Marais Square and Sauchet Lane, had served for generations. Many houses and all the forts had substantial underground tanks built to collect roof water, used for most domestic purposes except drinking. The Germans had installed a piped supply to many of the houses they occupied and set up a number of AC generating stations around the island to light houses and fortifications and operate their radio transmitters, guns and other equipment.   From about 1947, these facilities were extended and consolidated and soon all but the most outlying properties had the benefit of piped water and mains electricity.

                The Germans had removed most of the boundary marker stones and the British Government appointed a land surveyor to try and re-establish the ownership of land and create an official land registry. Before the war any property boundary disputes were settled by the island Douzaine, 12 elected, unpaid officials, whose responsibility was to see that people obeyed the few simple property  and agricultural laws and who appointed some of their number to serve on the States. This work proceeded  very slowly and, between 1947 and its completion in 1964, three surveyors were involved, two of whom died in office. By then the population had risen to about 1,650, many of whom were wealthy, not locally born and, as the British Empire broke up, included a considerable number of ex-colonial administrators and officials.

                In the 1950s and early 60s, a considerable horticultural business developed, exporting flowers and produce to UK markets. Increasing transport costs, a reduction in the boat services and competition from subsidised production in UK and Europe gradually killed this. Several attempts were made to start light industrial businesses, but the same factors and the double transport cost, through having to import most of the raw materials, affected these and the only one to survive and prosper has been the Channel Jumper Ltd’s factory, producing knitwear.

                Despite the 1947 predictions, sufficient  tax revenue was generated over most of the next 50 years, for Alderney to be economically self sufficient, cover all Guernsey’s administrative costs and charges and to resume responsibility for providing and administering some of the public services. Rising administrative costs, particularly in running education, health and social benefits, the airport and harbour and falling tax revenues from about 1994-7, when interest rates dropped rapidly, caused the island to need support from the Bailiwick general taxation pool, to cover the theoretical deficit between the amount it paid into the general revenue and the costs of the services provided.

                The electricity supply services are well run, appear to suffer few breakdowns and are more than adequate to meet peak demands in the worst weather. Water supplies are generally adequate, despite huge increases in the daily demand per head in recent years, through the use of automatic washing machines and dishwashers and occasional droughts.

21st century;

                Today, education, health, unemployment benefits, pensions, and most governmental services are on a par with, or in some cases such as pensions, better than those in Britain. Individual basic tax rates are slightly lower, there is no higher rate income tax and no inheritance or capital gains taxes. Domestic rates and water charges and petrol taxes are considerably lower than in UK.

                These benefits more than make up for a cost of living generally much higher than in UK, through the need to import most of the necessities of life and exceptionally high air and sea transport costs (on a per mile travelled basis), with the resulting high fuel costs for bottled gas, heating oil, coal and electricity. 

                Much of the island’s employment and income over the last 30-40 years has come from tourist related businesses and the service industries providing building and maintenance work for both locals and recent immigrants. In the last few years the small finance industry has made considerable contributions and most recently, electronic betting and e-commerce, have begun to supply increasing employment and revenues and, in March 2001, the two active betting companies are the biggest employers on the island.

Brian Bonnard  - March 2001

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