A cake for the Gestapo

Who could fail to want to know more a book with that title? Author Jacqueline King, ‘the girl Crill', who now lives and works as a teacher in Somerset, explains the theme of her book that was published in March

As a Jersey girl, I knew that writing about the Occupation for children wouldn’t be easy, yet I was resolved to do so.

The touch paper had been a furious argument over dinner with someone who was scathing about the Islanders under Occupation. This debate had arisen because I’d mentioned that I’d been surprised to discover during World War Two studies, that my Somerset pupils knew nothing about the German invasion of the Channel Islands.

My own, dearly loved family showed such resilience, courage and humour during that time - both those who had endured the Occupation in Jersey and those who had spent the war fighting or on the mainland, worrying about what the Islanders were enduring. So, the dinner party argument galvanised me into a determination to set the record straight, while my pupils’ interest forced the decision to write fiction. What does enemy occupation do to a community, they wondered? Yet I was anxious. Would people be upset? How could I write with pace, yet stick closely to the facts? Why write fiction, when the truth was tough, perhaps best forgotten? What title will intrigue, yet fit the book? Many such questions bubbled up as I wrote A Cake for the Gestapo. I nearly abandoned the project. It seemed such a mountain to climb. I do know that there was only one Gestapo man on the Island, for four days, but he was sent packing by the Commandant, but from what I've read, there was a general fear that the Island was full of them.

My father Cecil Crill, his brother Jack and my uncles Eric and Arthur Candlin fought WW2 with Jersey in their hearts, but Arthur and Jack never saw their beloved Island again. Their deaths left gaping wounds in their families. So, I had to finish it. Besides, a stubborn Jersey streak runs through me.

I concocted some characters for my pupils and ran Occupation workshops, which they loved. Then I interviewed veterans, including Bernie Roberts, who said: ‘Please tell our story.’

Soon I had a gang of kids in my head. Basing their actions against true events, I made them react as the enemy grip strengthened, having a laugh and dicing with danger.

They form a makeshift band, mocking soldiers’ jackboots by playing Fats Waller’s ‘Your Feet’s Too Big.’ They hone catapult techniques, bury guns and train their pig to chase soldiers. Soon, they carry out their plan in the moonlight, tricking the dreadful soldier they think is Gestapo and trying to cart him out to Icho Tower.

Their actions are unlikely, but possible. My uncle, Peter Crill, said he and his friends got up to ‘all sorts of things.’ Certainly, Bernie and his mates were mischievous, pelting the soldiers and pinching from them for a laugh.

However, real people died. The community is small. I didn’t know whether to write as ‘the Girl Crill from St Clement’ or as Mrs King from Somerset. I made up Jersey names so no one could take offence. Many of the characters have emerged from my subconscious. I didn’t intend them to appear, but they did. The farm characters are Crills, suffering in silence at the death of their oldest son, just as my grandparents did. Their house is like Nan Le Ruez’s farm, which I once visited.

I realise now that Spinner’s father, Hedley Braye, represents my mother’s family, the Candlins: gentle, travelled, musical and funny.

He even works as a spy and decoder, which was the world of my mother and grandfather, marooned in London for five years, but kept going by their dreams of Jersey’s release.

Conger soup with marigolds, low water fishing, formal meals to the ticking grandfather clock, tomato picking, octopuses, the Jersey attitude to authority: they invaded the book without being planned.

I found an agent and publisher and with bated breath, presented the book to the world, hoping to honour Island wartime history, so that children everywhere might understand a little more why freedom is so precious.

At the Jersey launch, a week before Lockdown, I mentioned that completing the book took five years as did the Occupation.

There had been frustrations along the way, but there was enough to eat and never a frightening knock at the door. As one Occupation veteran said, ‘You were free.’

It was sad to miss Liberation this year. In Somerset, however, our local greengrocer sold Jersey Royals in May and June. As I bought mine, I remembered the Islanders, killed as they went about their ordinary, innocent business of delivering potatoes to the harbour in June 1940, as they had done unharmed for so many years.

The jacket shows the children of my imaginary gang on a côtil, reacting in terror as Heinkels roar above them. One boy stands defiantly, aiming his catapult at the pilots. I guess that sums up the Jersey attitude and I hope with all my heart that by writing my book, I’ve done the Islanders justice.

A Cake for the Gestapo is published by Zuntold, available at Waterstones Jersey, Amazon and Jersey Heritage outlets. ISBN:978-1-9162042-0-1

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