Day Seven - St Martin, Guernsey - 9 April

We woke to a bleak Easter Monday and the rain came and went throughout the day. The BBC weatherman described it as a “damp squid of a day”. After a hearty breakfast we set off on the local bus to St Peter Port, a journey which takes about ten minutes. We decided to have a day of indoor activities to avoid the inclement weather. On our way towards the La Valette Underground Military Museum at the end of the esplanade we passed a very rowdy car and motorbike rally.

These rallies are apparently held every bank holiday and seem to be very popular with the locals. To our surprise printed on one of the racing cars was the word “Hockaday”.

My nephew-in-law, Ben Hockaday, is married to my niece Sarah. As Hockaday is an unusual surname we thought there must be a connection. We made ourselves known to the Hockaday family - husband and wife and son. They said they were the only Hockadays on Guernsey and had never traced their family tree but thought the family came from Devon. We took a photo of the father and son and their racing cars. We thought it was amusing that the family was into cars as Ben is into cars so there must be a Hockaday car gene! The La Valette Museum is housed in a German tunnel complex and was impressive with the collection of wartime artefacts. The tunnel’s original use by the Germans was to be for the storage of fuel for U-boats but this did not eventuate. The museum is an exhibition of Guernsey’s military history with a special focus on the German occupation during World War II. We were struck with the resilience of the Guernsey people especially those who were forcibly evacuated to south west Germany on direct orders of Hitler.

From the museum we headed to the centre of St Peter Port to “The Bailiwick of Guernsey Millennium Tapestry” which was made by the people of Guernsey to celebrate the millennium. It is an amazing tapestry comprising of ten large panels each representing a hundred years commencing at 1000AD. Each area of Guernsey was responsible for a panel and the work is exquisite. The audio guide along with the tapestries gave us a very good overview of the history of Guernsey. We had a late lunch in a very warm café and enjoyed a very tasty homemade tomato soup. We caught a different bus back to our hotel and this took us on a circular route to areas on the island we had not seen. The bus route went through some very narrow lanes with high stoned walls where on-coming cars had to reverse into driveways to let the bus through. It was too wet to go out to dinner so we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. It’s very popular with the locals and does serve good meals. Photos: The Hockaday racing car at the start line; Henk outside the la Valette Underground Military Museum; St Peter Port esplanade with the car racing tents; Flowers along the esplanade.