9th November 2004
Ian Hislop’s Jersey connection revealed
Ian Hislop is best known as a team captain on the BBC’s satirical quiz, Have I Got News For You and as editor of the London-based magazine, Private Eye. However, on 9 November 2004 he was the subject of the BBC’s family history documentary series, Who Do You Think You Are. The episode uncovered his Jersey roots.
As the BBC reveals, his mother, Helen Rosemarie Beddows, “grew up on Jersey and was living there when the Nazis occupied the Channel Islands in 1940, but she rarely talked to Ian about this time, and the occupation of the Channel Islands remains in general one of the least described episodes of World War Two”.
Beddows, whom the Jersey Evening Post said was born in Rue du Galet, Millbrook, in 1929, chose to stay in Jersey throughout the occupation. She left the island following the war, but returned in the 1950s.
In advance of the programme being broadcast – when researchers were still digging into his past – Hislop travelled to Jersey to visit some locations from his family history and was interviewed on BBC Radio Jersey.
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Other events that occured in November
The Jersey Airport disaster
- The Jersey Airport disaster killed two crew and 12 passengers when their plane came down shortly after take off from Jersey Airport.
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Ralph Vibert is born
- Ralph Vibert was Jersey’s solicitor general from 1948 until 1955 and, for two years from 1957, a deputy representing St Brelade.
- Read more…
Lifeboat men awarded Norwegian medals
- A Jersey lifeboat crew who saved the crew of a cargo vessel were given awards by the Norwegian government in recognition of their bravery.
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Equestrian Simon Laurens is born
- Simon Larens won gold in Team Open Dressage and silver in individual freestyle at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing.
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