Guernsey connection links chains of office

PARTY time . . . (from left) Councillor Margaret Ward, Mayor of Keighley; Councillor Colin MacAlister, Mayor of Stockport; Sir Geoffrey Rowland, Bailiff of Guernsey; Councillor John Ebo, Mayor of Cheshire West and Chester; Councillor Jim McArdle, Mayor of Oldham; Councillor Peter Kay, Mayor of High Peak; and Margaret Simon, Mayor of Cheshire East

70 years since war effort

OLDHAM Mayor, Councillor Jim McArdle, paid a visit to Guernsey to mark the borough’s special wartime link with the island.

Councillor McArdle was at the unveiling of a 70th anniversary plaque to commemorate the evacuation of 4,000 children in June, 1940, shortly before German forces invaded and occupied the Channel Islands.

Many evacuees were billeted in Oldham and other parts of the North-West — most did not see their parents for five years.

Following the unveiling of the plaque, Councillor McArdle and other visiting mayors attended a reception hosted by Guernsey’s Bailiff, Sir Geoffrey Rowland, and a lunch for all evacuees at Elizabeth College in St Peter Port.

At the reception, the mayors were shown a copy of “Festung Guernsey”, a book made by the occupying German forces detailing fortifications built on the island.

Also being celebrated this week is the 65th anniversary of Guernsey’s liberation from the occupying forces.

More than 750 islanders who were evacuated or saw active service during the war attended a traditional 1940s tea dance and hangar ball while 5,000 racing pigeons were released for a Liberation Royal Open Race.

A Liberation Cavalcade — which featured more than 100 period military vehicles plus vintage cars, bicycles and tractors — travelled down Guernsey’s east coast before arriving in St Peter Port.