When a burglar alarm goes horribly wrong

Sunday 04 November 2018

During the Occupation, local farmers often went to extreme lengths to keep thieving hands off their crops - but local historians have now revealed how one grower's 'cunning' plan went embarrassingly wrong.

With a curfew in place and German soldiers patrolling the lanes, Jersey’s countryside was especially dark and quiet at night during the occupation.

It wasn’t the sort of place to be without permission, but some were prepared to take the risk, as Jersey War Tunnels shared with Express in their latest wartime story...

"From 1941, the German forces brought thousands of forced foreign labourers to the Channel Islands. The workers who came from Russia were treated the worst. They suffered considerable cruelty and deprivation at the hands of the Germans, only receiving meagre rations and threadbare clothing.

Starving, they often escaped and roamed the countryside at night looking for food. Despite the risk of imprisonment, many islanders helped the slave workers, sometimes with a meal or by taking them into their homes, providing clothing and a bed.

Some of the slave workers were desperate and sometimes even dangerous. The cruelty they suffered could easily drive them to steal, and many islanders tried to keep rural properties secure. 

Pictured: Some farmers decided to lay traps during the Occupation in case of thieves.

One farmer was worried that he may be a target for would-be thieves. He set up a trip-wire across his yard, connected to a pile of empty boxes, barrels and tin cans in an outbuilding. The cunning plan meant that anyone prowling the yard would trip the wire and set off the noisy makeshift alarm. 

One evening, the farmer thought he heard someone outside. He ventured out and stood very still and listened. All was quiet. He crept along the stable wall, listening intently, when suddenly something caught his foot. He stumbled, and the silence was broken by a thunderous clatter as his carefully constructed burglar alarm of piled-up boxes, barrels and cans came crashing down and rolled noisily across the yard. 

He had proved how effective his booby-trap was at his own expense and probably awoken the whole neighbourhood in the process. His neighbours must have laughed when they found out what really happened."