Today I made sure to visit my daughter during the history lesson she teaches her children, just to get in on the reading of "
Dame of Sark." We all gathered around in the living room, sipping Yorkshire Gold and eating home made shortbread, while she read the story from her laptop.
Sybill Hathaway Beaumont, visited by the Queen in 1957
This is not a big, long book that is tedious to read, but a few chapters with significant detail to enthrall the listener. We cheered while she outwitted the officers that occupied her little kingdom, and cried when she put up the American and British flags upon hearing of the allies coming. In the end, she said, her attendance at a dinner aboard a British liner did something to her that no enemy soldier ever could, during even the worst days on the island: the appearance of tablecloths and napkins, freshly laundered, and the goodness of hot tea and biscuits made her weep. She had not seen anything cleaned by soap in all those years. The island had been so isolated that they had used up their supplies a long time ago.
The Nazi occupants had cut off the island from any supplies or help, so the sailors who caught their fish supply began to wear out their clothing. The islanders collected cloth from the tablecloths and curtains, and used different string and yarn as sewing thread. It did not matter what color it was, because as long as they were able to supply the sailors with clothes, that was the important thing. By the end of the war, every house in Sark had been so ransacked for every available supply of any type, that they all needed to be re-furnished and re-decorated. The islanders had to abide by the many rules and regulations of the occupying army, and one of them was that no one was allowed in a boat without a Nazi officer and the time limit on the sea was so short that the sailors did not catch many fish. They devised a scheme whereby they would only go fishing in the worst storms. The officers that accompanied them would then get terribly sea sick. The fishermen could then stay out as long as they wanted, and catch more fish.
No cars allowed on the island, even today
Although Sybil and her American husband had allowed no cars on the island, the occupying forces brought heavy tanks and jeeps that ruined the roads, so after the English rescued the island, they made the soldiers stay and repair the roads again. They reached starvation when the farmers could not plant or harvest, due to the 13,550 land mines that were planted on the 3 and a half mile island. After the war, the soldiers who put them there were ordered by the Dame, to remove every single one of them, and to restore all the houses that they had ruined in the 5 years of occupation. There was a book written on this subject called
"Mined Where You Walk."
During this trying time, the residents were not allowed to gather in groups larger than 5, and they were forbidden to listen to the radio. Sybil had a wireless hidden at the bottom of a trunk, with an old, stained cloth on top of it. She threw in some dead moths to make it look disgusting enough for the soldiers not to want to dig through it. When the dogs barked, warning that someone had come to the door, she would take her time walking to the hall and answering it, to give her husband a chance to hide the wireless. Each day, they listened to the news from England and then she would go around visiting people and telling them what she had heard. One BBC broadcast gave instructions for making a wireless, using ordinary objects, and soon everyone on the island had their own radios.
She said it was useless to have any underground rebellion, so their subterfuge would have to be morale. One officer told her he was amazed that everyone was so cheerful and happy and asked her why. "Of course we are happy," she said. "The allies will win, and even if it be far off in time, it will happen."
Sybil taught her subjects to "keep calm and carry on" in dire circumstances. This is a quality that we need to reinstate in our national character. It does not mean to resign to something that is not right, but to have a steadiness and control. Winston Churchhill had a friend named Lord Max Beaverbrook, who was described as having an "acid humour." In stressful time, Churchill said, "Some people take drugs. I just take Max." Surely the determination and steadiness of the Dame of Sark was the cup of tea for the residents there. She wrote that when they used up all their tea leaves, they picked raspberry leaves and used them to make a type of hot drink similar to tea. She said they had no weapons and no chance of rebellion, so their weapon had to be their happy morale. When the officers came to see her they enjoyed her company so much, that the army kept replacing the soldiers with harder ones who would not be melted by her personality.
All communication going out of the island was censored, so she and her daughter worked up a code. If they were hungry, she would write that she could not find Mrs. Beeton's cookbook. If her daughter had received the letter she would write that she met a friend and use Sybil's maiden name. When the officers demanded that all the wheat on the island be brought to them, leaving only a small percentage for the people, Sybil arranged for her friends to bring empty bags to the storehouse, fill them up, and cart them out to a hiding place. They did this almost in front of their eyes. They hid potatoes in her cellar which had a door right under a rug and couch in her living room. She would distribute these potatoes when she went on her rounds.
At her daughter's wedding in 1948
They would always bring her orders written in German , to sign, but she would never sign them. They took many people off the island and sent them to prison camps, including Sybil's husband, who was really the ruler of the island, and left the rest of them there to fend for themselves. They surrounded the island with barbed wire, and when the allies came, the soldiers were kept as prisoners to remove all the wire they had put there 5 years earlier. The dame was always insistant on being cheerful no matter what, and sometimes had to cheer up her own captors.
Sybil said that the first year of being a prisoner in her own home, she read every single book in her library, and her favorite was a very long one called "Gone with the Wind." She said she felt so much like Scarlett O'Hara. There was a book written by a woman in the south when their homes were invaded by the Federal Government of the US. She said that the women tried to carry on as normal in their homes, and teach the children their Bible lessons and try to reassure the entire household. Dame Sybil thought that morale was their greatest weapon for survival, and I believe that is the case with homemakers and homeschoolers who fight off the negative remarks and threats and the pressure to conform with the prevailling society.
I would certainly encourage the 1400 viewers that come here, to go to
The Pleasant Times to read m ore of this story. I wish my daughter could read it over Librvox, as she did such a fine job that anyone in the house stopped to listen. If you read the book aloud to your husband or children, I think it has more impact. Please also note the
previous post, with more info on the Dame.
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