Alderney commemorates 80 years since being liberated from German Occupation
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BBC News
16 hours ago
- BBC News
Alderney marks 175 years of island's Church of St Anne
Alderney is marking 175 years since the consecration of the island's Church of St Anne. Built in 1850, the milestone is being marked with services, daily bell ringing and an evensong and sermon from the Dean of Guernsey, the Very Reverend Tim as the cathedral of the Channel Islands, it was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, the architect behind London's Foreign Office and St Pancras Station Anne's Reverend Samantha Martel said the church was a "gracious sanctuary" that acts as "the heartbeat of this island". The evensong service, marking the anniversary, is set to take place at 16:00 BST on Sunday. The large building was built to serve as parish church for the island but also as the garrison church for the military stationed in Alderney in the mid 19th the 1850s, the island was being heavily fortified against any potential threat of invasion by France during the Napoleonic World War Two, the church was cleared and used as a general store by the occupying Nazi German forces. A machine gun was mounted in the belfry and some of the walls still display Nazi German graffiti carved into the stonework. The official anniversary is on 21 August but Ms Martel said she wanted to host events in July as the island was beginning to "buzz for the summer"."It's gracious, it's a sanctuary, you can feel the prayers and the love and the hope that has seeped into the fabric of the building, it is the heartbeat of this island," she said. The reverend has already held a special candlelit anniversary service with music and storytelling. "Eleven voices told 11 moments in its history from ancient times to today, routed in faith, place and people," said Ms Martel.
Scotsman
09-07-2025
- Scotsman
Book review: Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots by Rosemary Goring
An 18th century work depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle. Picture:Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Rosemary Goring's Homecoming, the story of the turbulent years when Mary, Queen of Scots lived, governed, married, was bulled and betrayed, defeated and imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle, threatened with death, and compelled to abdicate before escaping and, after her supporters were defeated in battle, fled to England, was a very good book. This sequel, Exile, telling of her years in captivity in England, is even better. Together they have claim to be not only the most complete account of Mary's life, but also the fairest and most intelligent. She has, one should add, an advantage over the host of previous biographers. She has been able to draw on the coded letters which Mary wrote from prison that a team of cryptographers has recently deciphered. More of them later. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Goring has no doubt that the flight to England was Mary's greatest blunder. She should have made for France where she had been married to her first husband, now eight years dead. But she was in fear for her life and she believed that her cousin Queen Elizabeth would restore her to the throne in Scotland. But Elizabeth was wary of her, understandably. Her Protestant regime was insecure. Many English Catholics, especially in the north, regarded Mary as their rightful queen. Meanwhile the Scots Protestant lords, though a bunch of repulsive cutthroats, were allied to England. Then there was the question of the murder of Mary's second husband Darnley. The Protestant lords, led by Mary's half-brother Murray, insisted Mary was party to that murder (they knew very well she wasn't). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad So Elizabeth kept Mary at a distance and under house arrest, light in the early years, more stringent as time passed. Three hundred years later Queen Victoria said she couldn't forgive Elizabeth for her 'cruelty to poor Mary'. My grandmother, who first aroused my interest in history, said the same thing. But I think they were wrong. She was a threat to the Queen and the Protestant religion. Moreover, her English ministers feared and hated Mary. After the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570, this encouraged English Catholics to deny her right to the throne, and after a Catholic rising in the north was defeated (and its leaders executed), the English Parliament called for the Scottish queen to suffer the same fate. But Elizabeth refused. Mary's imprisonment would last 17 years. She was still treated as a queen. She had her own household of more than 20 and her meals were lavish. She was shuffled from castle to castle, all well guarded. Goring has explored them all or what remains of them. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Meanwhile, Mary wrote letters, some complaining of the restrictions put on her. All this is dealt with in fascinating detail. There were proposals that she might return to Scotland to share the throne with her son James VI, whom she hadn't seen since he was a baby. But they came to nothing. There was no enthusiasm in Scotland and James, who had been educated by the brilliant and repulsive George Buchanan, had been taught that she had been guilty of his father Darnley's murder. In truth there was more support for Mary in England than in Scotland and Mary's hopes, disappointed by the inaction of the Catholic powers France and Spain, turned to these enthusiastic conspirators. An inveterate letter-writer, Mary engaged with these young zealots, ignorant of the fact that Elizabeth's spymaster, Walsingham, had penetrated the network, even encouraging plotters. For years I persuaded myself that, not knowing the final form of her letters, for she wrote in French and her secretaries translated and encoded them, she might not have consented to the planned assassination of Elizabeth. But, alas, she was guilty. Her end was magnificent, though appalling. Devout in her Catholicism now, she saw herself as a martyr. Goring's treatment of her last months ending in the horror of Fotheringhay is magnificent, worthy of the queen's superb performance. I can't think it could have been written better. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Reluctantly I have to say Victoria and my grandmother were wrong. If Elizabeth has been like her appalling father Henry VIII, Mary would have gone to the block at least a dozen years earlier.
BBC News
22-06-2025
- BBC News
Service held for WW2 British soldier killed in Alderney
A memorial service has been held for the only British serviceman to die on active duty in Alderney during World War Two, 80 years 40 people attended the service on Saturday, at Sapper George Onions' grave in St Anne's church cemetery, on the island. The Royal Engineer died on his 22nd birthday on 21 June 1945 while clearing the island of mines after the German Occupation. The service, led by Reverend David Stretton, included wreath laying by States of Alderney president William Tate, schoolchildren and reservists from the Guernsey section of the Jersey Field Squadron. A simple service is held annually to remember Sapper Onions, who was born in Tunstall, is believed he died while unloading a lorry carrying supposedly decommissioned mines and detonators, one of which accidentally organisers, Alderney Churches Together said Sapper Onions is remembered with affection for both his service and his engagement with the local community.
