Proud Postage Stamp

by Neil Matthews

‘Have you seen the plane?’ asked the man in the queue for the check-in desk at Southampton airport. ‘You might want to go to the toilet before you board.’ I thought he might be referring to the pilot’s flying technique.

The boarding pass read 3F, which seemed to guarantee a window seat. But I didn’t twig what was going on – not even while watching the airline safety demonstration video on a plasma screen by the departure gate. This was preferable to sitting onboard while cabin crew pulled toggles, pointed like the Wizard of Oz scarecrow and so on. The video could have been filmed in someone’s car; the space in which the actor demonstrated was tiny.

We went through the gate onto the tarmac. Instead of the usual bus to take us on a pointless tour of the airport, we walked a few yards to the plane.

‘Please can we have seats 2A and 2F to board,’ said the cheerful slim young man in the fluorescent jacket. ‘Thank you… and now 3A and 3F… thank you… and now…’

Each row of the plane had two seats; there were seven rows. There were no aisle seats because there was no aisle. There were no toilets – hence the remark from the man in the queue. By standing on glorified packing crates, we boarded two at a time – just like the Ark.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ said the captain. ‘Just before we start, I can confirm there are no refreshments!’

The plane was so small we could hear everything; I had forgotten to bring earplugs. My neighbour – clearly used to the journey – slept through the 45 minute trip. We landed, and I collected my luggage from the arrivals area, an outsize shed. I walked out of the airport, to the end of the road and turned right. Ten minutes’ stroll along an empty road led into St Anne, the capital: two minutes later, I’d found the guesthouse where I was staying. This was as close to a stress-free journey as possible.

Alderney is like that. There are just over 2,000 people, most living in St Anne. The island is three miles long and less than two miles wide. It’s as if a small village had been picked up from the mainland and deposited here, a few miles off the coast of France.

The atmosphere is laid-back. Alderney has no steep hills, so you can walk anywhere in little more than an hour. White benches wait at regular intervals so that you can rest and admire the views inland or out to sea.

St Anne is not hectic; although I was there during the week, it was hard to bump into anyone in the street. A sign in the bookshop hints that the owner is more concerned about his puppy getting out than customers getting in. The local Arts Centre shows films with a mandatory intermission, while the projectionist changes the reels and everyone nips over the road to the pub. The blue-facaded grocery Arkwright et Fils is ‘Ne pas ouvrir toutes heures’ (not open all hours). Unlike the TV series with Ronnie Barker and David Jason, there is no owner with a stammer and the till doesn’t try to bite its operator.

Arkwright et Fils is one clue to the history of Alderney. The island was part of Normandy until 1204, when King John lost mainland Normandy to France but kept the Channel Islands. Many French place names survive although Auregnais, the local version of a Norman dialect, is not spoken now.

The Alderney Museum, on the High Street, gives pride of place to an unlikely symbol of island pride: the Alderney cow. Once, Alderney was the last port of call for all Channel Islands cattle going to England. They were hard to tell apart, so they all bore the name ‘Alderney cow’. In the 1850s and 1860s Alderney imported more cattle from Guernsey, to provide for the extra workmen on the island at that time. This led to cross-breeding of a new ‘Alderney’. However, Alderney cows were registered in 1910 as Guernseys, in order to sell them to Guernsey and then on to US farmers - who were only interested in cows if they were called ‘Guernseys’. The information display, and the trophy cabinet with the spoils of cattle shows from years gone by, show just what the islanders think of ‘their’ cows.

The Museum also includes information on the Alderney Lighthouse; a solid cane fishing rod, 16 feet long, for catching mullet; and a portable dental chair, the paint on the handles worn away from heavy gripping by anxious patients. One annexe houses the rudder and other artefacts from a nameless Elizabethan ship which was wrecked near Braye Bay in 1575. Another has the Issue Room, devoted to the evacuation of all 1400 residents of Alderney in 1940 and the islanders’ return in 1945. The ecology room enables you to view examples of island wildlife at close quarters and you can log onto the Alderney Records Centre to record wildlife sightings. The most famous example is the blonde hedgehog. These are not albinos; they have a recessive gene. They died out, but were reintroduced to the island in the 1960s – rumour has it, by accident from a Harrods shopping bag.

I got to see more of the island with considerable help from Chris, a fellow Mensan who has escaped there from darkest Surrey. He cancelled a flying lesson one day in order to show me some of the sights, starting with a trip round the west coast on his rigid inflatable boat. We travelled towards Les Etacs, one of the offshore rocks which are home to thousands of gannets; if this had been July, we might have seen puffins too. It gave us a chance to look back at the coastline. Dotted along it are the grim but striking outlines of some of the forts built in the 1850s and 1860s as defences against a possible French invasion, as well as the anti-tank walls and artillery battery which the Germans built when they occupied Alderney during World War II.

As Chris and I walked around the island later that day, we saw more hints of a dark hole in the island’s history. The Channel Islands were unique among the British Isles in being subjected to German occupation in World War II. Alderney was unique among the Channel Islands because the British government evacuated its entire population. The Germans occupied the empty island in 1940 and set up three forced labour camps and a concentration camp (Lager Sylt, in the south-west). The slave labour built bunkers, air raid shelters and fortifications; anything up to 700 captives died. The German commanding officer burned down the camps and destroyed all records relating to their use, shortly before the liberation in 1945. As a result, there is little to see: a telegraph tower; a British-French war memorial near the lighthouse in the north-east; a couple of posts at Lager Sylt; an old bunker which teenagers now use as a disco. They are haunting reminders of what might have been, in the rest of Britain.

The island may be laid-back, but there’s still plenty to see and do. Events such as a horse show, a half-marathon, a motor sprint and hill climb and the Alderney Air Races attract visitors all year round. So does the wildlife. If blonde hedgehogs, puffins and gannets don’t excite you, fulmars, guillemots, Dartford warblers, peregrines and many other species of birds are regular visitors.

There are exciting plans for the future, too. Fort Tourgis, which the British government built in 1855 as protection for the main harbour, has been bought by a Dutch firm of architects, who plan to turn it into a hotel and conference centre. The island is also looking to create a new source of income with a tidal energy project, to enable energy sales to the French national grid.

I enjoyed my relaxing, thought-provoking stay on this proud British postage stamp of an island. If the friendliness of the islanders and the ambitions of their plans are anything to go by, Alderney will welcome many more visitors in the years ahead.

First published in VISA 88 (Dec 2009)