A young Francis and his mother in Liebenau. (0652356)

THE  history of Francis Quin’s forebears is a cocktail of Irish, Cockney, Devon and Cornish, French, Jersey and Sark. It embraces quarrymen, calico glaziers, First World War heroism, a black sheep grandmother and a father involved in a wartime scandal involving much of the island’s police force.

Like the man himself, it’s a lively story.

The very fact that Quin is an Irish name – with at some stage his ancestors carrying two ‘n’s at the end of it – and that Ireland is a notoriously tricky area for genealogists to delve into means we do not take our story too far: only four generations on the paternal side and as many on the maternal. And after all that, one discovers that not only is our subject fifth-cousin twice removed to his best buddy – former Timelines subject Mick Le Pelley – but also a fifth cousin to this very scribe, our connection coming in the late 18th century via the Batiste line.

Francis had always believed the Quins had arrived in the island via the south-west of England to join the local quarrying trade. But that turns out to be only partially true.

Official confirmation of the south-west link has not been proved, but what is known is that James, Francis’s great-grandfather, was the son of another James and born in Marylebone, London, in 1822.

Twenty-two years later he married Emma Halliwell in Lambeth and worked as a calico glazier (someone who applies water and dirt-repellent glaze to cotton cloth to make cheaper materials rustle and stiffen like silk).

The first Quin to be born in the island was Francis’s father, William George, in 1896. His parents were James Henry, who married Mary Priaulx Carre. But their relationship, which led to nine children, did not last, ending in pity and somewhat tragically for Mary.

Francis professes to knowing next to nothing about his background.

His father, who had served and survived a long list of famous battles in the Great War, said little to the young Quins, Francis, his elder brother, Ave (full name Avrion), and sister, Moyra – the latter two being favourite names from a book.

Nice hat, Francis. (0652349)

His mother, Wilhelmina – Minna for short – was a seamstress born a Barrett in 1901. Francis came along 39 years later and was probably not much more than a year old before he was whisked away to Biberach with her.

He looks at several pictures of himself with his mother at the German camp and later at Liebenau, but they do not stir memories.

‘I remember nothing about Biberach, at all. I would have been about four when I came back.’

His brother and sister had gone to Cheadle Hulme in the UK, but being too young to be billeted himself, he and his mother were deported after a major wartime scandal that embraced his father and 15 fellow members of the Guernsey police force.

A German military court at a Royal Court hearing in 1942 had found them guilty of breaking and entering various Town premises and stealing food and drink.

Quin had four charges levelled at him. These included that along with a friend he stole four tins of tomatoes from an Essential Commodities store, with PC Herbert Percival Smith stealing 86 bottles of wine from R. W. Randall’s store, with PCs W. Burton and Charles Albert Friend taking 20 bottles of wine from the Alliance Club and three of the others stealing eight bottles of wine and spirits from Bucktrout’s.

It appears confessions were beaten out of all of them. The then Bailiff sentenced the policemen to various periods of hard labour, but not before the German military court had handed out much tougher sentences.

William, already mentally bruised from his horrific experiences in the French battlefields, was sent back to France by the Guernsey court and condemned to a period of 16 months – eight  shorter than the two he received from the occupying forces. The 16 were held at Fort George for a fortnight before being shipped to France.

Bill Bell’s excellent account of wartime policing in Guernsey, ‘I Beg to Report’, quotes one of the convicted, Kingston Bailey, as saying they were taken to the harbour handcuffed.

Francis and his workmates get a good look at a Dakota taking off above their heads. (0653712)

‘On our arrival at the dockside, we were un-handcuffed and told to get on board a small ship lying there. Naturally, we all stood together on the deck. Then suddenly one of the guards started yelling, “Get down the hold, what do you think you are doing, going on a pleasure trip?”.’

The policemen were sentenced to various lengths of hard labour, but none spent any time actually imprisoned. Instead they stayed in captivity until the end of the war.

The former Cunard steward serves canapes on the Caronia. (0652362)

Thirteen years later, at the Privy Council chamber in Downing Street, London, they sought to appeal against their convictions of 13 years earlier. Geoffrey Bing QC, on behalf of the officers, claimed that they had been forced to plead guilty under threat of further punishment by the Germans.

He submitted that not only had the officers been forced into improper pleas, they had believed they had been stealing from German stores and acting patriotically.

The hearing threw out all the appeals except one involving Quin, Friend and Short for breaking and entering at Bucktrout’s.

By then Francis’s father was 59. He was 69 when in 1965 he received compensation from the German government, 20 years after the war.

But what exactly for, Francis remained unsure until quite recently when he learnt it was for having the submissions beaten from them.

He admits he doesn’t have the answers to the whole episode: ‘What would I have done in his position? I don’t know what they were going to do with it [the goods].’

As for pleading, Francis says: ‘I’m pretty sure I would have done the same and pleaded guilty under duress. It was never spoken much about within the household and I never spoke to my father about it.’

Quin’s father died in 1972, aged 76.

Francis with his beloved dogs while shooting in Herm. (0653612)

Long before his death he had lost the urge or no longer had the energy to go shooting with his son, despite Francis’s prompting.

This disappointed Francis, but it was only when he fully learned of his father’s army record that he realised why the old man had tired and kept his thoughts to himself.

Aged just 18 when war broke out, William first served in the 15th King’s Hussars.

It was one of the first divisions to move to France and the cavalry division remained on the western front throughout the war.

It took part in most of the major actions where cavalry was used as a mounted mobile force and also many others where the troops were dismounted and effectively served as infantry.

In April 1915 they were attached to the 9th Cavalry Brigade, the Cavalry Division. That he survived to return to Guernsey and bring up a family was a victory against the odds and was a better fate than his elder brother by four years, James William.

He was killed at the Battle of Loos in 1916 and is buried at the Bois-Carre Military Cemetery.

Meanwhile, sisters Lily, Rita and Mabel were involved in the war effort, all three serving in the nursing corps.

‘When I found out where dad had served, it was horrendous,’ said Francis. ‘I now recall he had a hole in his calf where his horse had been shot from beneath him.

Francis on granny Barrett’s knee. (0652357)

I can still see him, sat at night-time with his aching feet soaking in water,’ (trench foot was a particular hazard of life in the trenches).

No wonder he remained quiet, recalls his son.

‘When I saw what he had done,

I realised my previous thoughts had been harsh. When you include his Second World War punishment, he had eight years of life in purgatory. I had to take stock and think that what I had previously thought just wasn’t fair at all.’

Francis’s parents were not yet married when William lost his mother in sad circumstances.

Mary Priaulx Carre had married Henry Quin in December 1880, but long before she died in 1925 the marriage had faltered, the old lady ravaged by alcoholism.

‘Colborne Road tragedy’ was the down-page headline in the Guernsey Press of 22 January that year, the story outlining the circumstances which led to Mary Quin being found, on the floor, ‘probably suffocated’.

Strangely, the story stated the 62-year-old as being a widow, but in fact she and her husband were estranged and he was to survive another nine years. There were no signs of foul play, but it was clear she had been drinking. There was also the added mystery of the whereabouts of a pork chop she had bought the previous day.The inquest story read: ‘Inspector Green stated that at 9.30 on Monday morning a postman delivering letters found the door of the deceased’s cottage open and saw her lying  on the floor with her head deep down on her chest and he called Sgt Pill, who lived in the vicinity.

‘On Saturday evening she had made a purchase at a butcher’s and arrived home at 9.30pm.

She was heard speaking to a man, but he had not been traced.

On Sunday morning a newspaper boy saw the door open and threw a paper in, but he did not see the body as it was behind the door.

Shooting surrounded by onlookers. (0652345)

Sgt Pill said he saw the deceased lying on the ground with her head pressed against a sofa. She was fully dressed and there were no signs of disorder. The place was spotlessly clean and there was an unopened bottle of brandy in a basket. Mr Wm Quin, son, said his mother lived alone at Colborne Road and he had last seen her in Christmas week. She was addicted to drink.

‘A Miss Woodhard stated that Mrs Quin had bought a pork chop on Saturday evening at 9 o’clock. She looked well but she smelt of drink. Mrs L. Drouet, a neighbour, said the deceased worked every day. Witness heard her on the Saturday evening ask a passer-by to open the door for her – it was rather hard to open – and the man opened the door and witness heard him wish her good night and walk away.

‘A lad named Besnard said that about 11 on Sunday morning he noticed the door open and threw a newspaper through the opening. He noticed nothing wrong.

‘Mr W. Smith, the postman, said he was delivering letters and as he went to the door he noticed the deceased lying dead.

‘Dr E. B. Bostock said the deceased was lying flat on her back with her head forced down deep on her chest. The couch had pushed the head forward. Death might have occurred at least eight hours before.

‘There were no signs of personal violence and the appearance showed that death was due to asphyxia. She might have had a fit, as her tongue was bitten. There were no marks of strangulation.’

Sgt Pill added that ‘there was no sign of the chop, but it was possible she might have eaten it before going out’.

It all appeared very odd and worthy of further investigation, but the court returned a verdict to the effect that the position in which the deceased was found was consistent with death due to suffocation caused by a fall.

Early job: working on the heavy roller at the airport. (0653711)

For her grandson, her mysterious demise was sad and surprising to hear. He had known that his grandfather, Henry, had come here as a quarryman and then married Mary Priaulx Carre.

‘Apparently she used to organise a group of women who would go around trimming grapes and those women worked either for her or under her.’

Whichever it was, the poor woman got to like the taste of the grapes too much.

As for his own mother, Francis oozes pride at the natural beauty of the woman. Photographs of the young Wilhelmina show her to be something of an early 20th-century stunner and the charmer jokes: ‘I can see where my good looks come from.’

He recalled her as ‘always on the go . . . a bundle of energy’.

The Quin pedigree tree also links him with a variety of traditional local names – Vaudin, Le Poidevin, Batiste and Pengelley – but also to France, Jersey and Sark. On his mother’s side, his line can be traced back to Euphrosine Le Feuvre, born in 1823 in France and who at some point made her way to Jersey.

Two of his Caesarean long-deceased relatives died at sea and both on the treacherous Goodwin Sands. Samuel Pengelley, born in St Helier in 1821, drowned off the east coast 30 years later. Many years on, John Hodgeson, great- grandfather on Francis’s maternal side, also perished on the notorious 10-mile sandbank lying off Deal, Kent.

The Sark link dates back to the late 18th and 19th centuries through the Vaudin family.