Make the most of your visit to Guernsey
Following a call from Mike Hopkins from Visit Guernsey via the Chamber of Commerce urging businesses to get behind the release of the film of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Swoffers estate agency has produced a short film to promote the island.
Swoffers is used to spreading the message that Guernsey is a wonderful location with a rich history, so the team commissioned Spike Productions to create a film to show off the real locations found in the book. The eight-minute production features an interview with Annie Barrows, who co-authored the best-selling book with her aunt Mary Ann Shaffer, extracts from the text and actual footage and headlines from the Occupation and Liberation.
Speaking from her home in California’s Bay Area, Annie Barrows speaks about the appeal of Guernsey’s wartime history: ‘[Co-author Mary Ann Shaffer] cared about people who were humane in inhumane circumstances and people who led with their hearts when it was not to their benefit, people who put themselves in peril because of their principles, and the story of Guernsey’s Occupation has all of those elements… The behaviour of the people of Guernsey during the Occupation provides a different kind of example, an example of disagreeing yet coming to a balance, perhaps, that we can all use.’
Locations featured include Amelia Maugery and Dawsey Adams’s houses in St Martin’s, the harbour, fortifications and tunnels, and Grange Lodge Hotel, which was commandeered by the Germans and used as a headquarters. Rare archive footage was licensed from the Imperial War Museum, and includes the signing of the Germans’ surrender on HMS Bulldog and joyous scenes of the Liberation and British soldiers coming ashore for the first time.
Spike Productions’ Warren Mauger said: ‘This was a unique opportunity to show that most of the locations in the film really existed, and to put the real Guernsey in front of the global audience that the film will attract. We have tried to weave together stunning scenery, historic footage, quotations from the book and photos to bring the locations to life and tie them in with their history.’
Andre Austin, Director of Swoffers, said: ‘We are always keen to make the most of any opportunity we have to put Guernsey on the map, and our island appearing in a film that will reach an international audience is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we should really capitalise upon. We were really excited to play a part in promoting both the film of this much-loved book and our beautiful island.’