As a class we had a guest speaker come in to talk to us all about world war two. Our guest speaker was Joan Taply she was an early lady who was alive in the second world war and was able to give us a first had recount of what life was like back then. She spoke in a very calm and gentile way but she encapsulated all of the classes attention from her first word. The way she described everything was like it was yesterday.

These were some of the bullet point notes that I wrote down form her talk. These notes gave me more insight into what life was like and it also give me more context behind the objects and places I have been photographing.

• When jersey was occupied Joan was 6 at the time, her family treated her more like an adult that a child because they didn’t try an hide what was going on in the outside world from her.
• she went on to say that may jersey people felt like they had been completely sold out by the British soldiers because jersey was given over (surrendered) to the Germans, rather than there being fight over who as it, it just seamed to be thrown away to the Germans with no thought to the people who lived there.
• The day before the occupation all family’s and house holds were forced to hang out white flags or bed sheets to show surrender. This meant that there would be so shooting taking place when the Germans arrived because the had white flags to so they came in peace.
• June 1940- they got to watch all the planes coming into the airport, the airport had opened 3 years prior. This was the first time she said she had seen white vapor trails from the planes in the sky.
• She heard the first people being shot as a set of planes flew over Victoria Avenue and people were shot down there.
• At Le Platon Guns began to get installed at the highest points on the island this is when local people started realizing that this war was going to be o a lot longer than they thought it would.
• A few month in to the occupation there weren’t allowed up onto the cliffs anymore because barbed wire and mines had been placed up there.
• Food shortages were starting to be felt the Germans would triad food with France but most of this food went to the solders and not to the islanders. Then everyone was allocated ration books.
• Joan’s mother registered as a farm worker so that she could try get more food for the family and have access to more produce. As a result of this everyone began to try there own food to get around the shortages.
• The Germans then introduced a curfew in the military zone (the main area of jersey that wasn’t cordend off for fighting.) It was 10pm in the summer and 9pm in the winter. There was also a morning curfew where you couldn’t leave your house before this time it was 6am in summer and 7am in winter.
• No lights were allowed to be shown at nighttime so that enemy planes couldn’t see where to bomb. So black outs were put in place all doors and windows had to be covered and borded up. One positive Joan said of this as a little give she would look up and see millions of starts because there was no light pollution at all.
• The food shortages were getting worse and worse as the war went on the little corner shops were almost bare. Tea had completely run out so substitution for food came into place. Parsnips were grated up put in the oven till golden brown then dried out . Then placed into a pot with boiling water pored on top. This was known as a substitute for tea or some families would use exactly the same recipe and call it coffee. No sugar was a really big issue so they would get the sugar beat root vegetable boil it up until it turned into a golden brown syrup that could be used in all types of cooking.
• There currency change as a result of the Germans occupying to riche marks and phenix 1 richie mark was around 12p of jeresy money at the time.
• Everything that farmers grew they had to let the authorizes know because they were only allowed to grow and sell a certain amount. People in town found it harder to live on there rations because they were unable to grow a lot of crops. Mr Levacont was there farmer who lived next to Joan at the time.
• When harvesting the corn there would line down pieces on the corn so that there was spare that wasn’t being monitored by the Germans. Women would come along with sack aprons and go to get the left over corn. They would then take this corn to the mill where the miller would mill the corn without the German solders knowing and give the corn back to the women in sacks. There hapend to be a lot of pregnant women at this time because they would tie the corn sacks around there waists and pretend to be pregnant so they could transport the corn from the mill to there home. Joan’s mum replaced her mattress with a bag of corn because they needed to hide it from the German soldiers.
• Cole became almost impossible to get so they had to use Cole dust and tar as an alternative to light fires.
• 8th of mat the day before liberation day joans dads boss let everyone at work go home early because they had heard on the Chrystal radios that the war was over and jersey was going to be liberated tomorrow.
• So the whole family when to town and found that they had managed to get started a hidden lorry that had been put away through the war and there was lots of kids and family riding about on it having fun. She said it was the first time she had heard real laughter in a long time. They road the lorry along the avenue she said it was so funny to see so many cars along the avenue because many people had then hidden and got then started up for the war finishing.