The Channel Queen (1958)

[Music] if you go due south from England and turn sharp righteous before you get France you'll end up in New York and that'll be your own silly fault because you passed like five [Music] burnsy as the sunny is placed in the British Isles and this excess of Sun has been rise to a number of anomalies a railway company runs the buses a bus company runs the boats and nobody runs the railways because there aren't any in Victorian there is Guernsey was a floating colony to which the black sheep of the family was exported she is a founder member of the International Colorado people Commission central heating is supplied by the Gulf Stream and bathing in the nude is prohibited after 8 a.m. [Music] the Bailiwick of Guernsey covers one or two other odd islands in the Atlantic including Kjetil one time home of seclusion fnatic Compton McKenzie Guernsey which found guilty of sorcery were burned to death on Kjetil and to this extent we have become more civilized for the last case of witchcraft in 1912 resulted in eight days for disorderly conduct [Music] a dozen ways from jet ol eyes firm the sort of island that seems to have drifted in from the South Pacific to make paradise that fog little town dwellers dream Oh for city people are only country people trying to make enough money to live in the country many famous characters have been tenants of firm including the German Prince Blucher who introduced wallabies to the act for no reason that anybody could think of certainly not the Wallabies who turned up there took season passed on [Music] although firm can boast the smallest jail in the world she has no policemen and although it's in the Atlantic Shell Beach is nearly part of the city for many of the hundreds of varieties of shells are imported direct from the Gulf of Mexico by a courtesy of the Gulf Stream there are no cars no cinemas no department stores on her but believing that imitation is the sincerest form of philately they do design print and sell their own postage stamps as showing the way to the man which has the most uninteresting stamps in the world [Music] hundreds thousands of people visit Guernsey every year and no visitor was ever more welcome than Queen Victoria who sailed into st. Peter port in 1859 unfortunately one of the Queen's aunt alors had dropped a monumental clangor he arranged that the Queen should arrive on a Sunday and so great was the outcry against this desecration that you'd think she'd been playing polo the rector of Trinity Church were used to refer to our most religious queen in his prayers the newspapers made some cutting remarks and boosted circulation and the Islanders themselves got on with the job of building a tower to commemorate the fact that she visited them at all Sir John Doyle has his column and Guernsey for the British have always taken a great delight in immortalizing their contemporary heroes Sir John one time governor of the island was responsible for the routing and laying of all main roads after reading a book of his time which said the roads are narrow winding and very intricate carts meeting cannot pass but must seek the nearest gateway to this perhaps may be attributed a remarkable proficiency of the population in swearing one of Doyle's roads runs out to ECAR point or a barracks of Queen Victoria once stood as tenant she was called year after year to the collectors court Nash never turned up was fined annually but some before in six months later she was granted exemption the barracks fell to pieces and mr. Doyle's road meanders on top of the 300-foot cliffs and goes nowhere [Music] of the hundreds of sandy coves and Guernsey Bombay is as fascinating as any for beneath it is a forest and after IOC's semi fossilized branches and leaves appear a toll can still be charged for nuts eaten by a pig driven into the forest by local farmers during the second world or when certain unwelcome visitors made their appearance fuel was in such short supply that two hundred thousand trees were shoveled into the borders and Guernsey was left without enough trees to keep a puppy happy this crease shortage is being contacted by an afforestation scheme and though many of the firs disappeared during Christmas week the island is once again becoming as green as it is pleasant like most pieces of land entirely surrounded by saltwater Guernsey has at times been desperately short of fresh water by building a dam ignoring protests from nature lovers who suddenly discovered that the valley was a beauty spot and asking a farmer who lived there to wear water wings the Islanders caught in 240 million gallons of water and now Guernsey has a bird sanctuary and visiting Americans can have as many baths as they like [Music] like slugs round ìletís votes gather around the spur antiquity of castle cornet which for 750 years has guarded st. Peter court with four minor lapses when it was overrun by various foreign armies today anyone can get in for a few coppers one-time official residence of the governor's was shaken as was the governor in 1672 when a magazine was struck by lightning and exploded the governor's bed was the governor on board was blowing through a wall onto the battlements the governor sabda had a report but they'd already heard it since that day governor's have ceased to reside in the castle [Music] the patriotism of the island has only once been questioned and that was when the doctor of the night second Regiment remained seated during the National Anthem a major Bing thereupon threw a glass of wine complete with glass at the doctor and the result was a pistol duel in Cambridge Park major Bing was later found to be rather dead though the doctor didn't swing for it it did prove that people who live in stone houses shouldn't throw glasses Victor Hugo lived in Guernsey after he was expelled from Jersey during a scandal involving Queen Victoria here the great French romantic through his poems and novels in a standing position here he introduced his wife as Madame my children's mother and from here he stopped off on his after lunch walks a grand figure of a man white beard and tangling his black cloak trying to get rid of his indigestion which as he put it is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach morality has always been a difficult thing to enforce and guernsey for the price of drinks is cheap enough to be indecent and the licensing hours are most on English [Music] during Napoleonic times Guernsey was open to attack from France and the militia had to be ready to defend the errand upon flight of any fleet but Napoleon never came the militia went home to tea hung up the scarlet jackets and white trousers and today the Martello towers just sit there waiting for Napoleon to attack an attack did come in 1940 when Mullen wet bay became the scene of a hilarious commando raid whose object while to collect a couple of German prisoners for interrogation three motor boats set off to Guernsey the first missed it altogether and went home the second sprung a leak and went home the third party arrived and climbed the cliff path couldn't find any Germans by the time they got back to the boat the waves were three feet high and the boat turned over they lost their guns and had all the burnt cork forced off it was only by bailing madly to the third body returned home frustrated and piecing hugo called the West Coast rocks the midnight assassins and hundreds of wrecks support the truth of his phrase it was on these same rocks that siren sat and attracted sailors with her music had they been scantily dressed beauties the story would at least have charm but they were miserable old hags and soul aim was to take the sailors to the depths and their devour them and let that be a lesson to you for listening to popular music [Music] the strangeness of the herd instinct in humans is noticeable in Guernsey for though there are two spots where the sea is one part water and two parts people just around the corner you'll find a half mile long stretch of sand occupied by two people in a piece of seaweed [Music] one of the most visited spots in the oven is the model church at lave overlayed 16 by 12 miniature decorated with pebbles and broken denim it's looked upon as either wonderful or vulgar according to taste and there's just enough room for one priest a congregation of two and a collecting box [Music] the visitors are more graciously received today than a century or two ago and that strange contemporary phenomenon the be trousered female is here to be found strange because the slacks never have enough slack in them and the ends rarely justified the jeans [Music] Renzi is not the place for a rowdy holiday there are no beach hut repair pavilions or fun fairs there are instead cliff walks bays and wooded valleys snoozing under a hot Sun and there are extraordinary displays of cultivated and wild flowers for this is a gardeners paradise anything it seems will grow abundantly the smuggler once buried a keg of brandy and the customs officer came up [Music] hundreds of thousands of blooms find their way every year to the floral festival which seemed to stood away as any of getting rid of a few tons of unwanted blossom unwanted because plants are bulbs destined for sale lose much of their vitality if allowed to flower so hundreds of people spend thousands of hours wiring blossoms under wagon lorries which must be rather like sewing on 50000 trouser bunnies one of the regulations regarding slope decoration forbids hard stems and thorns a ruling heartily approved by the girls who spend the whole afternoon bidding on them and if anyone thinks that this is an awful waste of flowers remember that scent manufacturers use a ton of roses to produce two pints of oil in one respect the bulbs and roots are better off than the tourists but the bulbs stay in Guernsey and the tourists goes home this is just swell come to think of it all the visitors stayed on the oven there wouldn't be a room enough to swing a cat cat will be unhappy and nobody would visit the island which would be an awful pity you