Schools to receive evacuees book

21 September 2011

Every school in Jersey is to receive a copy of a book of stories of Islanders who were evacuated in the ships that left for England days before the start of the German Occupation.

Jersey Evacuees Remember, published earlier this summer, tells the stories of more than 40 men and women – most who were children at the time - who faced uncertain futures as they travelled by sea to England for an exile that was to last more than 5 years.

On Monday 26 September, the president of the Jersey Evacuees Association, Mrs Jean McLaughlin, herself one of those who left as a small child, will present a copy of Jersey Evacuees Remember to children at First Tower primary school.

Following the presentation, the Education, Sport and Culture Department (ESC) will be distributing a copy to every school library in the Island.

Understanding

Mrs McLaughlin said she hoped the book would help young people understand something of the experience that her generation faced as children whose lives were turned upside down by the war.

"The book tells of our experiences and memories of what we saw and lived through as children. We want to convey to everyone reading this book the feelings of what it was like and what we went through, living on the other side of the stretch of water that separates us from England," she explained.

Mrs McLaughlin will be accompanied on her visit to First Tower school by Mrs Maureen Bougourd, vice-president of the Evacuees Association, and ESC’s cultural development officer, Rod McLoughlin.

First Tower has been chosen for the presentation both because it is Mrs McLaughlin's local primary school – which her children attended – and also because the school has participated in the annual evacuees' commemoration on the Albert Pier where they dressed as children of the 1940s.