Joan Tupley was a young girl in World War II when the Nazi German soldiers came to Jersey with the aim to occupy the Island. She came into Hautlieu to talk to us about what life was like on island during this time.

Joan was only 6 years old when the occupation took place and changed life on the island. Joan was an only child who lived with her mother and father. Before the occupation movement happened, Joan recalls the island spreading white sheets and cloths around, to show the Germans that they were no threat. She remembers hearing the planes soar overhead, scouting the island, being an only child, Joan couldn’t enjoy this experience with a sibling, so she sat in an open field with her best friend watching the planes fly over. When suddenly her mother called, telling them not to sit out in the open field, so they Joan, her friend and Joan’s- mother all sat in a privet bush watching, the low flying planes. She says she remembers hearing, what she now knows were the sounds of bombs going off, which the Germans had dropped on the tractor and farm vehicles, thinking they were troop transporters.

Joan’s childhood house was along the North Coast at Les Platons, which was later a very popular place for the German fortifications and gun placements. When the Germans arrive in mass and started occupying, they fortified the island by having barbed wire and mines placed around the coast of Jersey.

Everyone on Island had to have a ration book, so that they could spread what little food they had over the weekly period. Joan explained that the weekly ration for butter was 4 ounces for a male/father and 5 ounces for a female/mother. She explained how her mother had registered as a farmer so that she could get extra rations.

Due to the shortage of food and rations during the occupation, islanders turned to using substitutes for the simplest of things such as tea and sugar. To make tea, they turned to parsnips, where they’d chop the parsnips up and cook them to dry them out, and then boil them and use the broth type water afterwards. Then for the sugar substitute they’d use Beetroot, to make beet sugar.

Listening to Joan, opened up my views on the occupation, she explained whilst life was tough under these living conditions, she personally believed that it was fair, Live life by how they wanted and by the rules, then you were treated fair. Listening to the endless stories amazed me as I was hearing about things for the first time, and it just opened my eyes more on what living was like during the occupation.