Eileen de Mouilpied recounts an Occupation incident to John Nettles. (0885708)
JOHN NETTLES attended a house in the Saltpans yesterday afternoon, but he was not investigating a suspicious death.
The Midsomer Murders star called in on Eileen and Ken de Mouilpied to hear about their wartime experiences for his narration of a documentary on the German Occupation to be released next year.
Mr Nettles said he had been impressed by the island and its people and was keen to remedy his lack of knowledge of Guernsey and its history
‘Making this documentary has been a huge learning curve for me. There is so much information on every aspect of island life during the Occupation, it’s hard trying to get a handle on it. The chief aim of it is to tell the whole story the best we can, with the best available evidence,’ he said.
‘I’ve been to Guernsey only briefly before and I don’t know a lot about it, which is disgraceful and I’m hoping to rectify this. But it’s a charming little place and the people I’ve met on this brief visit have been absolutely wonderful, just wonderful.’
Mr de Mouilpied, 77, said he and his wife were avid fans of Bergerac and Midsomer Murders and they never thought that the star of both would come for tea.
‘We watched the two [series] and we were impressed with the thought that John would be coming to our house,’ he said.
‘We saw in the Press that he was doing this series on the Occupation so Eileen phoned up the number that was given.
‘We’d completely forgotten about it, then somebody contacted us about a month ago to say that they were coming over.’
Mr de Mouilpied said Mr Nettles was ‘casual and very ordinary’.
While Mr de Mouilpied was evacuated during the Occupation, his wife, now 74, stayed here. She had been due to sail with the Vale School but the boat had not turned up and they were all sent home.
They were asked to go back at 2am to catch the next sailing but as Mrs de Mouilpied, then aged five, was fast asleep her mother chose not to wake her and to let her catch another boat instead. It never came.
With a working title of The Channel Islands at War, Pug Films has been commissioned by UK TV to make the documentary.
It will be shown on the Yesterday Channel in June to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the start of the Occupation.
The film crew will also visit Jersey, Alderney, and Sark and is currently in the second of four weeks of filming.
Director-producer John Loveless had never visited the islands before.
‘The majority of our stuff has been shot in poor weather,’ he said.
‘Most of the people we’ve spoken to have been wonderful and very sharp. There seems to be no common view and people had wide-ranging experiences. We are trying to look at the broad picture and fit it into three one-hour programmes.’
Article posted on 10th December, 2009 - 2.29pm
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