The pilot episode of the radio show ‘Islands At War’ is now available to listen to on demand. You can listen in your browser by clicking on the link below. Keith and I talk about the phoney war, refugees from France escaping through the islands, confusion about whether to stay or go, the German bombing raid and much more! If you have a spare 46 minutes go take a listen.
We will be releasing a discussion about each month of the occupation every two weeks. Any feedback gratefully received.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog post.
I also co-host a podcast with Keith Pengelley in which we talk about the occupation of the Channel Islands month by month using first hand accounts, diaries and our research in the archives. You can find us on all the major podcast services. Just search “Islands at War” or visit our podcast page here.
You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.
If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorised posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.
You can also find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.
Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.
I alluded a while back to something coming up that I couldn’t talk about but now I can reveal all! Well apart from the other things that are on the list of things that might be happening that I still can’t talk about that is! Starting on 5th February I will be co-host of a radio programme & podcast about the occupation of the Channel Islands.
I have been talking for a year or so about the idea of teaming up for this project with local tour guide, amateur historian and broadcaster Keith Pengelley. You can find out more about Keith and his tours here. He is a stalwart of GNETRadio as well as a tour guide and member of the team that looks after visitors to our heritage sites.
Each episode will cover a month of the occupation starting in June 1940. The idea being that we will talk about social issues, life under occupation and the military impact. We will be using diaries of those that were here, our combined research, our families experiences and also talking about other things that were going on in the wider European theatre of operations that impacted the islands.
We finally managed to align diaries and recorded a pilot show for GNETRadio which has now been scheduled for broadcast on 5th February of the pilot episode. We had so much fun with the pilot episode that we decided it was worth putting out. Rest assured the later episodes will be more polished, well we hope so anyway!
Click the link here if you want to listen live on 5th February at 19:00.
Our aim is to broadcast an episode every two weeks which you can either listen to live online or listen later by downloading it from Mixcloud or using the GNETRadio website.
I will be posting links here and on social media each time an episode is released for catchup on Mixcloud. Sign up here to be notified by email of these.
We have a lot of other ideas about where we can take this concept and will be working on these over the coming months and announcing them as we firm them up!
I hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog post.
I also co-host a podcast with Keith Pengelley in which we talk about the occupation of the Channel Islands month by month using first hand accounts, diaries and our research in the archives. You can find us on all the major podcast services. Just search “Islands at War” or visit our podcast page here.
You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.
If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorised posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.
You can also find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.
Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.
I thought it would be a good time to provide a bit of an update on how things were going with researching an writing the book. Having signed a contract with Barnthorn Publishing at the end of December 2023 it certainly focused my mind as I now have a deadline for submitting the manuscript! January 2025 seems like a long way away but when it comes to writing a book it really isn’t!
I had researched and collected a large amount of information about the escapes from the Channel Islands prior to starting to write the book and well before signing up with the publisher. There is however much more information out there that hasn’t seen the light of day! I have been overwhelmed by the response following announcing that the book is underway. I have received a large amount of information and some photographs from family members of some of those that escaped.
In addition a number of my local historian friends have volunteered information and documents to assist me. For this I am truly grateful! If you are reading this and have any information, no matter how big or small that you might want to share please do get in touch! Email me at Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.
If you are worried that this will mean that the blog will be neglected fear not I will still be posting articles on the blog about the occupation in general.
What else is going on?
Well if I wasn’t busy enough with the book and the blog a few other blog related activities are happening. I have been providing information and contacts to the American TV show 60 Minutes for a forthcoming documentary that they are planning.
In early January I recorded a podcast episode with the lovely folks from History Hack which will be out in due course. If you don’t listen to their podcast I recommend you do as covers all aspects of history. They are a great bunch of historians and great fun if you get to meet them in person.
I was on Radio Guernsey talking about escapes from Guernsey with Jim Delbridge. You can catch it at the link below for another couple of weeks if you are reading this on the day it is posted.
Another suggestion that I received was a Zoom Q&A about the occupation which it seems that there is a lot of interest in so will be happening in February! I have persuaded another knowledgable local friend Alasdair Davidson to join me on this. Look out for further details! Subscribe to the blog for free here so you don’t miss out!
And there is more!
There is more coming to supplement the blog which I had a meeting about this week but can’t say more than that at the moment! All will be revealed in a few weeks time!
Thanks for reading the blog and please do share it with your friends.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog post.
I also co-host a podcast with Keith Pengelley in which we talk about the occupation of the Channel Islands month by month using first hand accounts, diaries and our research in the archives. You can find us on all the major podcast services. Just search “Islands at War” or visit our podcast page here.
You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.
If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorised posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.
You can also find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.
Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.
I had the pleasure of being a guest on Gnet Radio to talk about the German occupation of the Channel Islands, the blog and various other projects. Including one project that the shows host Keith Pengelley and myself are working on at the moment.
If you missed it and would like to listen you can listen to it here, I am on from 38:45 for an hour.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog post.
I also co-host a podcast with Keith Pengelley in which we talk about the occupation of the Channel Islands month by month using first hand accounts, diaries and our research in the archives. You can find us on all the major podcast services. Just search “Islands at War” or visit our podcast page here.
You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.
If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorised posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.
You can also find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.
Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.
