TV star threatened over his ‘collaboration’ series
Saturday 20th November 2010, 2:30PM GMT.
Actor John Nettles at the Jersey war tunnels. (Picture by David Ferguson)
BERGERAC actor John Nettles was warned never to return to the Channel Islands in threatening letters he received from Guernsey.
They came after the star filmed a three-part documentary about the Occupation of the Channel Islands.
Mr Nettles said he received the angry letters from islanders who called The Channel Islands at War programme a ‘disgrace’.
He said those who made the threats against him claimed the documentary, which aired in June, implied islanders were collaborators and cowardly during the Occupation.
But he said it was inevitable that certain people would object to the programme when it was based on such a sensitive subject.
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Threats, intimidation, anonymous insinuation _
Hitler would have been proud of you!
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Typical Guernsey way of dealing with issues. Threats. Ridiculous. I actually thought the programme was very good. Would tell you with Guernsey but you would probably get your brothers on me.
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As they say the truth always hurts when it hits the spot.
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Mark
“Typical Guernsey way of dealing with issues”
What a silly comment.
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there was colloboration over here deal with it, it happens in most occupied countries, the rumour has it, winston churchill would not come over here after the liberation as he would not shake the hands of people in charge of our goverment at the time,.
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Didnt Nettles get ejected from Jersey cuz his earnings were not considered sufficient for him to be allowed to reside there permenantly? “No axe to grind with the channel islands then a!!”
Either way I dont think offering threats is appropriate.
Some of my family went to war for our freedom, others shamed themselves with the occupying soldiers.
Maybe those in high office kept their options open in their percieved interests of the Islanders? How can we know, and why should we speculate? Either way making judgments seems so harsh!
Must have been difficult times, and people are only human.
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this is so lame.
shut up Guernsey!
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I would expect this documentary to be closer to the truth than Gilly’s account after all Bergerac’s entire career was spent solving crimes.I’m sure if Jim had served in Guernsey the Cannibis and money wouldn’t of gone missing from the Customs.
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I’m sure there was collabaration by SOME, but let’s face it who was it that carried the guns? I was born there in 1941 and there were many stories told to me of the survival strategies taken during the occupation ie getting food on the table, the stories became a little more gruesome as I got older! My grandmother dealt black market with the Germans and I have no shame about this. One had to live by one’s wits then and I suggest to those who feel a little sensitive about this subject, just give it a go yourselves.
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I never saw the programme. I did, however, read somewhere that the ‘collaboration’ accusations were investigated by the Home Office and that there were only twelve cases (in the whole of the Channel Islands) that had any basis in fact!
Let us remember that John Nettles is a very good actor who plays a very good part as a policeman; why not also Gestapo or SS?
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Do we assume that the people who have sent the “death threats” were born in the period during or just after the occupation ?
History cannot change , some people will be “freindly” with any opposition and if payment of any sort was made by the enemy then so be it.
The protesters seem to be the ones with the problem , let those who do wish to know find out , the records are easily accessible through the Greffe and Ministry Records so are they going to issue death threats to Civil Servants…
Btw , just for the record , both my parents were too young to “collaborate” and I am a child of the 60′s so I am unlikely to be a result of “collaboration”.
The people complaining need to remember this is a small island , the only problem is that the information is on a tv series / dvd instead of avavilable freely through the internet.
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This all happened 70 years ago and people are sending ‘death threats’? How lame is that?
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John Nettles narrated the progam he didn’t write it. It just goes to show the infantile mentality of the person or persons who made the threats.
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For real collaboration look at Latvia,but you can understand why.When they gained independence from Russia in 1913,then got invaded by Communist Russia during WW2.The Russians killed and imprisoned thousands of Latvians,so when Germany invaded Latvia the Latvians sided with Germany.Unfortunately some of them also believed the German propaganda and helped kill the thousands of Jews who lived there.Of course the Russians then came back later and another purge took place and its only more recently that Latvia became independent again.
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