Alderney

The third largest of the Channel Islands, after Jersey and Guernsey, this very special place was where my brother and I enjoyed five successive summer holidays as children, beginning in 1967 when I was five years old. We always stayed at the Grand Hotel (since demolished), which had a swimming pool with a sunken bar with portholes through which one could see people swimming underwater. It was very of its time. With those happy memories in mind and given that we also holidayed in quite a number of Landmark Trust properties (The Landmark Trust | Holidays in Historic Buildings) it seemed very appropriate, albeit belated (our father and mother died in 2009 and 2014) that we should return, staying for three nights at the Trusts’s Fort Clonque, to scatter our parents’ ashes. Two of our children were able to join and support me, which they did beautifully, and we met up with my brother and his wife at the cycle hire shop and had a tapas lunch at the excellent La Cantina, before going on to the fort.

I was unsure as to how much I would remember of it all, but it turned out to be a lot – it is amazing what the mind retains after such an interval, almost six decades. The propeller planes used to be entirely yellow, for example. My son and daughter had not flown in such a small aircraft before, a Dornier, and the latter spent most of the flight with her head covered in trepidation. I loved it though, it felt like real flying. Using only our phones to take photos during the flight, there’s a strange illusion where the propellers seem to freeze and even bend, which I cannot begin to explain. The pilot told me when I asked that they ascend, to clear the clouds, to a “not very dizzying height of just 8,000 ft” – clearly quite dizzying enough for my daughter.

We got into a taxi, whereupon our delightful driver asked if he could show us something. Well, why not? It turned out to be a large male turkey, impressively inflating himself as we drew up, lord and master of a female and a group of chickens on the other side of the wall. It was a wonderfully odd way to start.

I had not remembered how very pretty the town of St Anne is, but I did remember the cobbled streets and the cricket pitch.

The church is adorable.

Another thing I had not remembered is that the pillar boxes are blue.

The fort itself can take 13 guests – just the five of us had the run of it. It took us a while to familiarise the layout. It is impeccably and obviously lovingly looked after by Ray who was full of information and ever ready to be of assistance.

My room in particular had this magnificent view – quite something to see on drawing the curtains in the morning.

The causeway is sometimes entirely covered by the tide, cutting the fort off, but the sea did not rise so high whilst we were there. With so little light pollution, the stars were more abundant, bigger, brighter, seemed closer too.

There are forts and defences all over and around the island, to defend against French invasion and naval dominance in the Channel (there is still one cannon present at Fort Clonque) and others later constructed by the Nazis during the German occupation. The British built eighteen forts in the 1850s, Clonque being completed in 1855: ten guns in four open batteries, aimed to fire into Hannaine and Clonque bays and along the causeway, and accommodation for 39 men. It was also used by the Germans in the Second World War who called it Resistance Nest Steinfeste and mounted a 10.5 cm beach defence gun, a tank turret, mortars and machine guns.

This huge example below, Tourgis, is particularly impressive. Also completed in 1855, this was intended to be the largest (it was superseded by Fort Albert): 33 heavy cannon in five batteries, three facing seawards, four 13-inch mortars and accommodation for 345. The forts became somewhat obsolete rather quickly, from 1860, thanks to the rise of rifled ordnance and ironclad ship design. During occupation Tourgis was renamed Stützpunkt Türkenberg.

With a population of only a little over 2,000 and dimensions of just three miles long and one and a half wide, everyone knows everyone – and the island is completely safe. No need to lock bikes, or doors, there is a mutual trust which was very refreshing, and being off grid at the fort, neither internet nor phone signal, was also most welcome, to be free for once from modern life’s tyranny of constant beeps, e-mails and other insistent messages. We found people to be sometimes reticent at first, but then quickly welcoming, friendly, and brimming with helpful information.

We scattered the ashes, after some discussion, just off the causeway. They had had to be transferred to extremely overpriced plastic boxes for the flight but were still surprisingly heavy – moving them around by bike wasn’t really an option. It felt respectful and was of course deeply moving. Grief rose back as though our losses were yesterday, and it left me contemplating the passing of our childhoods and innocence, as well as those of my own children. The sea gently carried the ashes away, along with the handful of flowers we had strewn. How very much I miss my parents still. This was the spot.

The next day we toured the entire island by bike – harder than we thought, since St Anne sits at the top of a steep hill, although the coastal road is relatively flat.

So many memories came flooding back, not least the lighthouse.

This memorial is to those who were forced into slave labour during the German occupation.

We stopped at Corblets, my father’s and my favourite beach. Here I even remembered exploring the rockpools. My brother bravely went for a swim – the sea was far too cold for me.

Spectacular scenery, the impressively long harbour wall and more forts along the way and around Forts Clonque and Tourgis:

The strange white cone is a navigational aid.

Driftwood above here which looked to me like some prehistoric animal bone.

Longis was my mother’s favourite beach after Braye and Saye:

The photo was taken from the Nunnery, a.k.a. Resistance Nest Piratenschloss, a site which encapsulates the long history of the island. It is the only Roman fort to have been used for German defence and was once bristling with anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns and machine guns. The Roman walls were built 2,000 years ago. At some point in the Middle Ages there was a partial collapse, the results of which can still be seen on the beach below:

It is also possible to see instructions for the event of a gas attack, and a claustrophobically narrow escape tunnel and shaft, the latter filled with gravel and sand to prevent enemy use. If it were needed, steel beams, brick walls and the gravel and sand would have needed to have been removed. In the wall itself there are still orange Roman tiles, evidence of Middle Age repairs, and a WWII observation post.

After this another great (late) lunch at Le Pesked and whilst my brother and his wife went out again in the evening, the three of us stayed in just to enjoy being there, ready meals and card games. We stayed in the very comfortable and hospitable Hotel Ville for our last night (there was a fraternal mix-up of dates), following a morning walk which I will come back to in the next post, Alderney Wildlife. We ate lunch at the Georgian House (some of the restaurants do not open until the season begins in May), basking in the sunshine – in my case the best fish soup I have ever tasted and parmesan and truffle fries, so often overdone, but here cooked and flavoured to perfection.

Our return flight was delayed for an hour by fog (we had been fantastically lucky otherwise with the constantly sunny weather) which meant that the plane could not take off from Guernsey. I am glad that happened, because I spotted in the tiny airport’s shop/café two necklaces bearing heart shapes made from epoxy resin and sand from my parents’ two favourite beaches, Corblets and Longis, one each. I thought about the beautiful sunsets we had been treated to as we flew.

As we approached, the views around and of Southampton and the Solent were pretty impressive too.