So, on June 19th 1956  I left London and flew from Heathrow to Gurnsey (my first plane trip).  I  stayed the night there and went to a play.  The man sitting next to me was wearing the same after shave lotion that Tony (my current boy friend ) wore.  I automatically reached for his hand and cozied up to him much to his surprise and the surprise of his wife who was beside him!  Why does one remember such things? 

Next morning, early, surrounded by screeching sea gulls and the turquoise sea I sailed the 20 miles across the English Channel.  On board was a honeymoon couple.  She was wearing blue trousers and a coral coloured blouse and a gold charm bracelet.  She  told me that she collected charms from everyplace she visited.   I determined to do the same thing and one of the first things I did in Alderney was to buy a bracelet (silver, not gold) and a charm, which was a map of Alderney.  That bracelet was to collect numerous charms to each of which appertains a story.  The last was given me by my husband at the time of our wedding. 

Tommy Rose met me at the harbour in his ancient  motorcar and drove me to his ancient  hotel in Saint Anne’s Square where he installed me in an ancient room and told me to take a sleep.  I wasn’t tired but was told that it was what everyone did on Alderney in the afternoon.  (They still do.)   The room was very small with an old  four-poster bed and  thick, thick walls.  Not a sound could be heard from anywhere.  Not a word, not a bird, not a human voice.  I looked out the small window and saw the sunlight thrown on a white washed wall  across the way, and a trough which had once been used to feed animals in the middle of the deserted square.  And I fell in love with the scene. range how the mind will hold a picture forever. …Nothing extraordinary about it …. And in my dreams over those years, the wall  and the ancient trough has returned time and time again. 

Tommy Rose was a handsome man in his early sixties.  I was soon to find out why he had had to import help from England. is wife was an alcoholic and she was the cook and general supervisor. He ran the bar.  They  were constantly rowing  with each another and she used to refer to him as “that bloody fool.”   She had obviously been a beautiful woman in her youth, but now drink and cigarettes had taken their toll. . She wore her pearls everyday and proudly told me that her husband (the bloody fool) had given them to her on her wedding day. 

Two other persons worked at the hotel, a lovely  young thing called Inez who was a secretary in London and was talking the summer off to find herself.  And a woman called Vera who came in to do the washing up.  Inez and I were the waitresses, chambermaids and general help.  We got up at seven every morning and prepared the tea to take to the guests in bed.  Some of the guests stayed in an annex, which was the other side of the vegetable garden.  We served breakfast (bacon, egg, sausage, tomato and mushrooms), which Mrs. Rose cooked while sipping her whiskey and smoking her cigarettes, and tipping over the milk and yelling at one of us.  There seemed to be designated days for finding fault with each of us: Vera had got the water too hot, Inez whipped the cream too much, or I had bruised the lettuce.  Mrs. Rose seemed only happy when she was scolding. 

Beds had to be make in the morning and the rooms swept and dusted and the sheets washed in a large old stone tub at the back of the hotel.  We served morning coffee in the lounge at eleven, then set the tables for lunch.  Mrs.  Rose always checked to see that this was done properly and that the silver had been polished.  A small plane flew in every week carrying the camembert cheese from Holland and this was the speciality of the house, served every day at lunch after the soup, entrée and dessert.  Such was the job description for waitress and chambermaid.  “General help” involved weeding the garden, collecting  the vegetables that were needed for the day and sometimes serving drinks in the bar when Tommy was taking time off.  We were given two hours off every afternoon to explore the island but had to be back to serve the usual tea and cake at 4, to keep the wolf from the door until dinner at 6.  And we worked seven days a week.  Tips were put in a glass jar and shared with Vera and Mrs. Rose.  I never saw Mrs. Rose eat  but nonetheless she was an excellent cook.  And the same people returned year after year to the hotel.

Tommy was an early English aviator.  He won the race from Cape Town to Croydon in 1933 in a spitfire, and had served in the air force in World War One when flying was new.  He flew as co-pilot to Amy Johnson who  was also a well known pilot who lost her life flying - her body was never recovered.  Mr. Rose seemed very pleased  to have me working for him, and used to call me “Flora McDonald.”  I had no idea who she was or why he called me that.  Later I learnt that she had accompanied Bonnie Prince Charlie on his boat trip from the Isle of Skye and possibly saved his life.  Perhaps Tommy Rose thought of me as a saviour. 

A fascinating group frequented the hotel.  A pilot and his wife and child showed up and caused a big fuss because we had put them in a room with twin beds and they could not sleep so far from each other.  We solved the problem  by moving the beds together and using larger sheets.  Years later I met him again in Aspen where I was again engaged as a chambermaid.   He was without a wife and child and swore that he had never been to Alderney! ut he was still a pilot and had the same name and the same face.  Strange!  Perhaps he had an identical twin. 

A man called Ken, who supervised the meat factory, came to dinner every night with a beautiful blonde woman who had orange skin and wore a gold bracelet on her right arm.  I was sure they were not married but nonetheless they were there constantly and often stayed after for drinks.  Then one evening they did not show up. Instead an buxom jolly woman called Lulu came to stay.  It turned out that the blonde’s husband had suddenly arrived from England.  Lulu was the baby sitter of the two children and was supposed to be supervising the wife.  I don’t know what happened, but a romance was suddenly put to an end.

One morning I surprised a man and his secretary in bed together when I brought the morning “cuppa.”   They were supposed to be in separate rooms and how was I to know any better, and they hadn’t even locked the door.  There were red faces all round that day. 

Tom Coombs grew up in Essex Castle, had been to Eaton and Oxford and now owned a private army in Arabia (what one does with a private army I have no idea).   Anyway he was short and bald and about 35 years old but was a Catholic and delighted to know that I was one too.  He came with a group one evening and then I got invited to the castle ( Mrs. Rose gave me an evening off). is father presided at the fortress. Two great Irish wolfhounds wandering around the stone floored room with its large fireplace and brasses and swords.  The heads of strange animals shot in India or somewhere in the colonies, decorated the walls.  The castle must have had a fascinating history but I never learnt it.  Two American women were staying at Essex.  One obviously had eyes on Tom and did not appreciate my presence.  A liveried footman stood behind each chair at the dining room table,  and the silver was almost too heavy to lift.  Tom took me home that night and we sat at the bottom of the stairs talking.  Tommy Rose appeared to check. Tom Cooms said “I can assure you that there has been absolutely no impropriety.”  Nor would there ever have been.  I did not find him attractive.  Otherwise who knows where I might be now? 

One night the word went around that the English officers in a boat in the harbour were having a party and requested the company of women.  I was all ready for bed but Inez was anxious for a lark, and so we both went. It was a brawl of young drunken men and I felt completely out of my depth.  Inez on the other hand was in hers. Sitting quietly by himself was one man smoking a pipe.  As things were getting rougher, he tapped me on the shoulder and said “Do you mind if I escort you home.”  I was more than delighted to leave but wondered what to expect next.   As we walked over the moonlit  hill, he explained that he was married and had nothing romantic in mind, but felt that I was not in the appropriate place.  There are still gentlemen left in the world!  How naïve I was! Nineteen!

Another day a Russian prince called Alexis appeared at the hotel.  He had quite a retinue with him and a yacht. He invited me to sail with him to Sark.  Of course I did not have the time, nor did I fancy being on a boat in the middle of the sea with him. But Inez was game and Mrs. Rose gave her the night off and she managed to return, but I do not know how.  Alexie bought me a charm of a sailboat, which I still have.

During  the war, all of the islanders were evacuated.  One morning in 1940, the church bells rang and announced that a ship was waiting in the harbour to take everyone to England.  They were allowed to take one suitcase each. German soldiers took over the island and brought with them 5000 prisoners of war as slave labourers.  Many of these died of starvation and their bodies were thrown over a high cliff.  The Germans had a policy of working the prisoners to the death.  Most of them were Russian or Polish.  There are still German fortifications all over the place.  Oddly some of the soldiers still return nostalgically to the island.  One arrived some time ago saying “It’s good to be home again.”  And on the island of Sark, we met one German who had never left.   - Article Continued Below -