Liberation

I do apologise for not replying sooner, but I have only just found this topic. I am amazed that no other Brits have replied.....maybe this part of our history isnt covered any more in school. Shame.

My first knowledge of the Occupation came when I was a child, and was looking through my Dad's Stamp collection one day.
He was an avid collector, and his collection contained Victorian stamps (Penny Blacks etc), and then stamps from subsequent monarchs through to our present Queen.
He liked to find unusual stamps, and several of them are from the Channel Islands, sent either during the war (which I find hard to believe) or shortly after.
Two are from Guernsey, and have been cut in half diagonally to form a triangle. Apparently, this was because there was a shortage of stamps in the Channel Islands and this was a way of extending their availability.
The Post Office gave dispensation for this to happen and they were recognised as legal postage payment for a letter.
Did you know about this? If so, maybe you could fill me in on whether mail was actually sent to the Mainland during the period of occupation.

Anyway, I would like to wish you a belated "Happy Liberation Day".

Stamps that were cut like that are known as bi-sects, I believe mail was sent outside of the islands but was subject to high levels of censureship.
With this year being probably the last large anniversary of the liberation a lot of understanding of the fact that people are unaware of the occupation of the channel islands during ww2. Most people who were evacuated or stayed are now quite elderly and it seems a shame that this part of history will slip into the past not understood by so many people. Both my parents and my brother were here during that time, I was born in october so was conceived during the occupation.