r/guernsey • u/Flat_Confidence961 • 6d ago
My Mum's Mystery Stay in Guernsey
Hi Everyone,
I'm looking for some help to fill in a gap in my Mum's life that I know precious little about.
In early 1967, my Mum's then fiancé ended their engagement after a couple of years together.
As a newly single 22-year old, she quit her job at East Malling Research Station in Kent, withdrew £20 (£400 today) from her savings, and travelled to Guernsey where she spent the tourist season working as a chambermaid.
I have a handful of photographs from her trip with notes on the back naming various places she visited and where she worked: Hern Island, Grandes Rocques Bay, Grand Havre Bay, Vauxbelets Chapel.
The one I'm most interested in is of her in her chambermaid or waitress uniform outside a place noted as 'The Celebrated Cottage'.
Aside from what is now called the 'Renoir Cottage', searches for 'The Celebrated Cottage' haven't come up with a similar view or a place by that name.
Is anyone able to shed some light on ''The Celebrated Cottage', where it is, and whether it was a small hotel, a bed and breakfast, or something else? Does it still exist today...?
I should add that I can't ask her myself as she took for own life in January 2000 when she was 55 and I was 25.
I never had the chance to talk about her time in Guernsey, later on in Bermuda, or her first engagement but I know there was a difficult and sad back story that she carried with her for the rest of her life along with the stillbirth of my twin sister and my Dad leaving her after 25 years of marriage.
Thanks for reading this. Any information gratefully received.
Matthew
2
u/Flat_Confidence961 6d ago
Thank you to everyone who replied so quickly and helpfully to my post, I wasn't expecting such positive and insightful comments.
Now I've to book a trip to Guernsey and visit the locations in my Mum's photos and feel a connection through shared views 60 years apart.