Trade & Commerce

Century-old island business closing

5th August 2015
Businesses come and go in the world of high-speed commerce, but the 'Closing Down Sale' notice in the window of a long-established island concern always involves a little nostalgia, a little sadness, for someone. So it is with the shoe business of A W Collenette and Son, one of the Town shops which islanders have come to take for granted. From the Guernsey Press, c. 1969. [Scrapbook No 24, Staff F, p. 153.]

Safe-conduct for Alderney, 1513

20th July 2015
Letter to Monsieur de Pontaumont, archivist of the Société académique de Cherbourg.'My dear friend, I am taking the liberty of sending you a copy of a document which you might think appropriate to present to our colleagues at the Society. I feel it provides interesting evidence of the relationship between the people of Alderney and those of Basse-Normandie at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries. It is a document of safe-conduct from the French admiral, Louis Malet, Seigneur de Graville, dated 20 April 1513.  We were then at war with England, but, as had long been the case with the people of Alderney, even though they were  subjects of the English Crown, they were very keen not to be treated as enemies by French soldiers and sailors.'[The portrait above is of Louis Malet de Graville.]

Pages