Local, resident, and visiting veterans were among the military personnel who helped to make Guernsey’s 80th Liberation Day events a reflective and emotional success.
Applause echoed along the St Peter Port sea front as those veterans representing the Royal Navy, Army, and Air Force marched with serving personnel and cadets on Friday 9 May, 2025 – eight decades after the end of World War II.
Two men being pushed in wheelchairs and a group of Chelsea Pensioners were among those who took part in the parade on a warm morning, before thousands of members of the public.
Former soldier, William Craig – known to friends as Paddy – has lived in Guernsey since the 1990s.
He found the commemorative events on Friday morning emotional.
“My father-in-law was evacuated off the island, but my wife’s grandmother stayed and she lived with us for many years, until she died, and you know from the stories and things that people tell you what what happened here. It’s out of respect for, not just for the local people and the veterans, and people who came back.”
Mr Craig was in the Royal Engineers and served many tours of duty including in Northern Ireland, the first Gulf War, and Bosnia among them. Some of those experiences he remains unable to speak of.
“I probably wouldn’t go into too much detail, if that makes sense. I’ll talk about it in general but I wouldn’t want to go in to deeper detail. But each to their own, some people will talk freely and others won’t.”
Mr Craig has taken part in numerous parades on Liberation Day, Remembrance Sunday, and other occasions while he has lived in Guernsey – but he was impressed with the numbers involved on Friday.
“In the nigh on 30 years that I’ve been here, that is the biggest parade that I’ve ever taken part in,” he said.
Guernsey is home to a number of veterans – many of whom will quietly go about their lives without the fanfare seen on occasions such as Liberation Day.
Mr Craig said they regularly support each other through difficult times and in friendship – with monthly events to ensure they stay in touch.
“We have our veterans breakfast on the first Saturday of every month at Les Rocquettes Hotel. It’s great, it’s called the ‘banter breakfast’. So we just wind each other up and have a laugh and a joke over some food.”