It’s another launch day for me today but this time it’s a story with a difference. You’ve all heard now of the movie, Dunkirk. Funnily enough when I wrote this short story I hadn’t so it’s just luck I suppose that they coincide. Dunkirk is a fascinating exploration into just what can be achieved by people in such a short span of time. Three nights, many thousands rescued and by normal people, not soldiers. Just people like you and me.
In researching the idea I did a lot of reading around the subject and it drew me in like a magnet. Individual accounts of man’s determination to overcome adversity. The way the men lined up passively in the beaches, stretching back across the crisp white sands. The discarded army vehicles and ambulances lit across the background of Dunkirk burning with Messerschmitt’s overhead still shooting any targets they could….
The Red Cross is synonymous with this time. We’ve all heard of the work they did both at home and abroad but for the Channel Islands (my home) they were a life saver. We were occupied for 5 years. People that remained were literally starving and if it wasn’t for the likes of The SS Vega and their deliveries of over 100,000 food parcels goodness knows what would have happened. In the cottage where I live, which was built pre-war we found crystal sets hidden under the floorboards and it turns out our home was a hive of local resistance. We even used to have a cow living in the lounge in order to prevent Germans from stealing it because, in those days the German soldiers were starving too.
When ‘Guernsey’ the movie is released next year you’ll hopefully get more of a picture of what it was like to be, almost abandoned…
Today The Red Cross continues to do great work and, here in Guernsey, we have a thriving store, which I used to volunteer at before kids took up all of my spare time. We live in difficult times but still, despite everything the Dunkirk spirit survives – all profits from any sales of this book are going to the local branch of The Red Cross.
Rescuing Robert will be on Amazon later but for now I have 100 copies to give away here’s the link
Jenny O'Brien HQ 