Arriving in Alderney in 1939, the Pope family – George, Daphne, their three young children and Daphne’s mother, Dohdee – found themselves amongst the only residents remaining on the island during the German Occupation of World War 2. This poignant memoir recounts an unusual childhood amid the hardships of military occupation, the family’s struggles with limited food supplies and medical care, the arrival of three more siblings – and finally the family’s challenging return to normality after liberation. “This is an extraordinary story of witness of the terrible suffering committed on Alderney in the Second World War as seen by a child. Mavis Pope recounts with vivid clarity how her parents raised their large family in very difficult and dangerous circumstances and all the while, they were surrounded by the horrors perpetrated in the SS camp and three labour camps. I’m delighted that after eighty years, we have a valuable new contribution to the telling of this tragic history.” Madeleine Bunting, author of The Model Occupation, Channel Islands Under German Rule 1940-45 (1995) and a novel, Island Song (2019).
