LIBERATION

LIBERATION

EYEWITNESS

As the years pass, the testimony of those who were there on Liberation Day assumes a new significance. In 1995, to mark the 50th anniversary of Liberation, ITV Channel Television reporter Eric Blakeley set out to record memories of dozens of Channel Islanders who had lived through the German Occupation. Clips of these interviews were seen at the time but they have never been screened in their entirety. Until now. 

Channel Television’s extensive film archive, dating back to the station’s first broadcasts in 1962, is now in the care of the Jersey Archive. So, we are able to see and hear those who bear witness to events on Wednesday 9th May 1945 – the day they thought would never come. 

They include photographer Bob Lawrence, Dixie Landick (who filmed the day), young men who had been imprisoned such as Charles Gruchy and Joe Mière, Jerseyman Major Hugh Le Brocq – who landed with the liberators – and Norman Le Brocq of the Jersey Communist Party who had spent the previous three weeks trying to persuade German troops to mutiny. They never did.

These are their stories.