Chapter 8 ... The farm fire.

One night we were over at grandpa's house with a few cousins, aunts and uncles having

a noisy party, as was usual  when we were all together,  when there was a loud banging

and shouting at the back door.   Dad and Grandpa rushed outside, calling over their

shoulders: "Get out of the house!  The shed is on fire.” Without any hesitation, Grandma 

Langlois took charge as she did in any emergency, though not usually as worrying as this.

We were herded out of the house through the front door and into the garden, where she

made sure that we were all together. We could not stay there as huge lumps of burning

straw were blowing over the house and over our heads.   We had to run across  the road 

and up into the field to get out of danger. The noise coming from the direction of the fire

was horrendous and it was difficult to hear anyone speaking. 

The smell from the fire was unforgettable and indescribable.   We must have sat for some

considerable time in that field by its light, when my father came across to tell us we 

would not be able to go back into the house as there was a danger the sparks could set 

it alight.   We had to go up to Uncle Jim's farm at Val Poucin,  about half a mile away 

over the brow of the hill. 

We spent two or three days with Uncle Jim and Aunt Dorrie who let us do whatever we

wanted.   We had almost forgotten about the fire at Sion Hall until Dad came up to take 

us back home. Although it was close to home, we had not been able to see or smell it

from Uncle Jim's farm.   It was only as we walked along the yard behind Sion Hall that 

the smell of the smoke and the heat of the fire made me feel ill but this was forgotten 

when we were confronted by a German soldier standing about fifty yards from it, 

warming himself with the heat of the dying embers.   My father said that he had been 

there since the day before because he had had instructions  from his commander to keep 

everyone away,  and he was not going to move for anyone. He saluted my father as we  

passed him.  There were water pipes everywhere and, when I was told that the fire engine 

was coming back to collect them,  I realised what I had missed.  "That would have been 

even more exciting than the fire!" 

Suddenly an enormous explosion from the centre of the damped down fire shook the 

whole area.  It erupted like a volcano with straw, bamboo canes, timber, steam being

hurled up into the air.  As Dad and I hurried away,  someone called out, "the fire engine

is on its way back". The fire ignited itself many times over the following three weeks

and I would only have to throw a stone into the ashes for it to ignite again. The 

German guards only stayed for a week.  

On one occasion when the German guard had left,  I was on my own near the fire, 

fascinated by its bluish colour as it spread across the top of the hard, crusty, charcoal 

embers, when suddenly a blue flame shot out like a tongue.   It began to lick the bottom

of one of the railway lines that had been used for supporting the roof of the shed. I 

watched it for a few minutes and could not believe my eyes. The upright was falling

down and that tongue of fire had cut through the metal. For weeks after the fire had 

dampened down, family and friends dug large deep holes and buried the burnt out 

electric motors and tools and anything else that the Germans might have seen. Luckily

the German guard had stayed at his post at all times and had not seen what was  

lying in the ashes.  Had he seen the burnt out motors or the charred carcasses of pigs, 

he would have reported us and the Langlois family would have been on their way to 

Germany. 

Ours was the biggest farm fire during the occupation.  For years after the occupation, 

my grandfather Langlois would tell his friends how  he had lost one million new bamboo

canes, hundreds of bales of hay, boats, a car and two lorries, some owned by others, 

that were hidden behind the straw and the stacks of bamboos. There were a couple 

of dozen large electric motors that the Germans would have liked to get their hands on,

as well as  a load of tools and tons of nails that were to be used for making tomato

packing boxes.   Hidden in the shed from the Germans was a complete mill for grinding

wheat and corn.  Thankfully, I was not told about the sixty pigs that had perished in the

fire while they were hidden from the Germans in soundproofed pens well-screened 

from prying eyes.   

Another fire

The fire at the Palace Hotel at Mont Millais in 1945 was thought to  have been started 

deliberately by  anti-Nazis causing an explosion in the cordite store.   It was the worst 

fire that Jersey saw during the occupation.   I understand German naval students used 

the hotel.   As I returned to school the following afternoon, I heard small explosions and 

saw soldiers picking up things in the surrounding fields and gardens and putting them in 

sacks.  There were craters all over the area as if there had been an earthquake.  To this 

day I do not know what they were collecting with such urgency.

Oasis

Sion Hall was a wonderful home.   It was a fun place, always open to family and friends 

with people dropping in all the time.  Thinking about it now, it seemed to be an oasis in

another world.   Germans were everywhere on the island but I do not remember them

coming around our home.  Every half mile or so they had built look-out posts, some up

trees, some built into walls. There were ammunition dumps and fuel dumps and just 

about everything you could imagine. The German soldiers used fields as if they owned

them, they drove about in tanks, they rode and pulled wagons with horses, they did their 

manoeuvres but the only time they ever came on to our land was to erect tall steel or 

concrete posts with thick wire on the tops to prevent enemy aircraft from landing.

Grandpa Langlois and my father considered them a hazard when they ploughed the

fields so they removed them.   They cut the wires, pulled the ten feet or so long posts 

down and dragged them into deep trenches that they had made earlier.   Sion Hall was

a very large building, the type the Germans might well have requisitioned for their own

 use so I could never understand why they did not. 

Our farm was not very active during the last two years of the occupation. I think that 

we must have just been ticking over, growing small amounts of produce such as wheat,

green crops,  root crops and sugar beet.   Sugar beet was a new crop to the farm. It 

had many uses and I remember Grandma Langlois drying it in the AGA cooker for

making tea as well as bottling it as a sweet syrup for just about anything that needed 

sweetening.   I did not much care for  the sugar beet syrup but preferred her dried 

carrot tea. Grandma was always busy in the house for  she had a large family to look

after as well as people calling in all the time.   Although her children, two daughters and

four sons,  were married, the boys would often go along to Sion Hall to have a meal.   

One morning I remember the men were sitting around the huge kitchen table finishing 

their second breakfast of the day and putting the world to rights, when there was a loud 

crash.   Grandpa had gone over backwards in his chair, banging his head on the wall

behind him.   Fortunately he had only dented his pride and  his sons were all falling

about laughing. It was his habit to lean backwards in his chair to relax and talk after

his meal and he was a heavily built man, six feet tall and weighing about two hundred

and thirty pounds. Grandma had called out to him not to lean back, but it was too late.

The day before, without telling him,  she had moved the large dresser he used to lean 

against to do some decorating!

Collected Uncle from prison   

I cannot remember the date but I do remember going to the town prison where Uncle

 was being held because he had broken the law.   He had sold or given an outboard 

motor to a group of young men so that they could escape from the island.   They were

only a short distance from the shore, when the German soldiers had fired on them and

they were captured and questioned. Under pressure, they told the Germans where

they had obtained the motor. Whilst in prison the family was allowed to take in food. 

Grandma Langlois considered that her son needed fattening,  so she made sure that he

had plenty.   She made enough pies to feed Uncle and  half the prisoners.  

There were no half measures with Grandma.  The horse cart was full to bursting with the

Langlois family when we set off to fetch Uncle .   It had a wagon style cover over it 

and Duke and Pineau, our two farm horses, pulled it with ease along the flat road, although

they were not too happy when we reached the cobbled road inside the prison.   They 

jumped around a bit but soon settled down when we stopped.   With Uncle on

board and everyone cheering, the horses decided that they had had enough of the

cobbled roadway between high granite walls and took off at the gallop for home. To

onlookers it must have looked like a scene from the gold rush days.