Guernsey, Jersey, Underwear, and Socks
16th August 2024
Holiday Reminiscences of Guernsey and Sark, from the Guernsey Press and Star of Friday 19th June 1903.
Descriptions of the islands
A Parson's Log
28th December 2023
New Year in the Channel Islands. From the Star, 17 January 1930.
Victor Hugo and Guernsey: My school years at Elizabeth College, by Jean Hugo
10th May 2019
My school years at Elizabeth College, by Jean Hugo (1894-1984), from his autobiographical work, Le Regard de la mémoire, Paris: Actes Sud, 1983. Fond memories of Guernsey and characters such as 'Soapy Sam' and 'Peewee' are expressed in painterly language by the artist and great-grandson of Victor Hugo, who was a boarder at Elizabeth College. The illustration is of a drawing made by Jean's stepfather, René-Georges Hermann-Paul (1874-1940), of Jean, his mother Pauline, and the valet de chambre arriving for Jean's first term at Elizabeth College in 1907. This drawing was sold at Christie's, Paris, in 2012.By Dinah Bott. From the French.
A stroll through town as it was 70 years ago
23rd July 2015
From the Star, July 1944. Funeral cheese and scarlet eggs, Granny Ogier, and a leopard and a Lamb. The illustration shows the Arcade around 1903; the shops are Roger's the jewellers and Cox's bootmakers.
St Peter Port, 1831
27th April 2015
From Samuel Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of England &c, 1831.
A run to the Channel Islands
20th March 2015
Extracts from an article in the United Service Magazine, Vol. 26, 1838. The author seems very much to prefer Guernsey to Jersey!
Turner's Guernsey Sketchbook
12th March 2015
In 1931 Spencer Carey Curtis, acting on a tip-off from a Jersey antiquarian, Major N V L Rybot, visited the British Museum to hunt out one of Joseph Mallord William Turner's sketchbooks, labelled 'Guernsey:'
A very detached house indeed, November 1947
A visit to the island of Brecqhou, by Bernard Brett, from The Star, November 1947. The detail is from a 1962 photograph in the Library collection.
High Street East; more reminiscences of the 1860s
From the Evening Press, Monday, December 9, 1940. Part Two. 'In the first article the shops from Smith Street to Church Square on the right hand side were dealt with; today we take the return journey, examining those premises which then occupied the east side of the street.'
A peep into the past: the East Coast, 1926
By D De La Rue, from the Guernsey Free Churchman, December, 1926, pp. 82-3. 'A few months ago the Editor was conversing with one of the octogenarians of our town and island, on the White Rock. The conversation revolved around the many changes that had taken place in the Harbour and its surroundings.' The illustration is taken from a local novel in the Library's collection, Mrs Carey Brock's moral but entertaining tale, Clear shining after rain, published in 1871.