It is a privilege to have been asked to participate in a group exhibition on the theme ‘Exile & Return’ in Guernsey.
With 11 other Artists, our work is a collection of paintings, drawings, photographs, interviews, writing and animation. There is a feeling of importance in these Islands that the stories of the hardships of Nazi Occupation and the relief and joy of Liberation are never forgotten.
The Group exhibition will open to the public at St Pierre du Bois Church, its grounds and Fellowship Room on 7th May and run for 6 weeks.
My family, the Audoires, were first documented as Alderney residents in 1533. My father, Alan Thompson, was born there, though he left to serve in the RAF when he was 16. I moved throughout my life, as a result – but each year we would come home to Alderney for a few weeks to visit family. It was invariably during the summer holidays, so I grew up with an idyllic idea of Alderney as a white sanded paradise. I lived and worked there a couple of times whilst young, and it has always felt like home to me. It was a constant in my life, a welcoming place filled with my family and our history. As the years have gone on, some of those wonderful people are no longer and my yearly visits are tinged with sadness – though I have rich memories I will always treasure.
I was aware of the more obvious impacts of war on tiny Alderney since I was small, clambering round and exploring the bunkers and forts with friends and riding along the concrete anti-tank wall above Longis bay. The grave of Sapper Onions, who died removing one of the 30,000 mines left on the island. The old concentration camps amongst the brambles, the war graves near the cemetery. The parties in the gun bunkers on the cliffs seemed such a defiant reclamation. I remember my Aunt, Colleen Davy, describing her father’s tears at the sight of their ransacked family home on their return; the Germans had stripped internal fittings and woodwork for fuel across the island. Electricity was unreliable, rationing was still in place. After the initial joy of returning home, it must have been an incredibly difficult, traumatic time; contending with unforgiving weather, rats, and no windows, all against an ominous concrete backdrop. The war had barb-wired a new, dark history round the island, which the islanders were forced to live with.
My work is typically all about the light in beautiful places and is often inspired by the beautiful coast of Alderney and the Channel Islands. I wanted to make these paintings about people, however – the very normal, but fantastically resilient, people – of post-war Alderney. I produced paintings based on the very few photos available. a small collection of family portraits, plus publicly available images of events at the time: the first returners in December 1945; the Battle of the Butes in summer 1947, when the pre-war furniture was rather unfairly dispersed.
These were just ordinary people trying to return to their lives whilst faced with permanent scars on their home. I can only imagine the hardship – and more than that, the intense connection that these people must have had between each other, working together as they did to re-establish Alderney as a viable place to live and prosper. That they succeeded is enough to give you hope.