Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Guernsey by Glynis Cooper

Author:Glynis Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783408269
Publisher: Wharncliffe
Published: 2013-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

The Grave on Herm Sands

1832

‘. . . the question is . . . why are two seemingly unrelated people sharing a grave?’

Herm, the former home of the writer Sir Compton Mackenzie on which he based his novel Fairy Gold, is a small island lying some ten minutes across the water to the east of Guernsey. It is a friendly, peaceful island, barely a mile long, quite different in atmosphere and character from most of the Channel Islands, with a population of some sixty to seventy people. The south of the island is full of rocky cliffs; the northern part is flatter. There are a number of ancient graves and ritual monuments, although many were destroyed by the quarrying activities of the nineteenth century. The famed Shell Beach runs along the north-eastern coast, so named for the thousands of tiny different-coloured shells which can be found here lying along the half mile or so of golden sands.

The White House (the only characteristic it shares with the same-named home of the American President is its colour) stands above the harbour, a kind of division between the low ground to the north and the high ground to the south. In the gardens stand what appears to be a large stone beehive, but it is actually the world’s smallest jail, just large enough for a couple of prisoners to lie down. It was in The White House that Prince Blücher, a Prussian prince, made his home at the end of the nineteenth century. He and his family fell in love with Herm. They farmed the land, introduced wallabies to the island, and wandered the Shell Beach marvelling at the beautiful tiny shells lying sparkling on the sand. After the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 the Prince was given two months to leave the home he loved. In vain he protested that he was a naturalized British citizen but to no avail. He left in 1915 after twenty-six years on his beloved island. When the war was over his family were given permission to return but it was too late for Prince Blücher. He had died of a broken heart in 1916.

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