St Anne; Sunday, 15 August, 2004

After an early morning wander down the hill into Bray, and the lazily catching the bus - the one and only bus on the island - back up the hill, I visited the Alderney museum.

The museum has a small and eclectic collection of artefacts related to the island, from flints and stones used by the very first settlers to the island up to the modern day, with - unsurprisingly, a large collection of items relating to the war.

The museum tells the history of the island including the murky period during WWII when it was evacuated of all the inhabitants and turned into the only concentration camp in the British Isles. Records show that definitely 1000 and maybe as many as 3000+ people died on the island during the war either as slave workers or from the conditions they were forced to live in.

After the museum I wandered back out onto the cliffs, in a very eerie mist, to the site of the Sylt concentration camp.

After wandering back into town I went down to Bray and caught the only train that runs in the whole of the Channel Islands. The former goods line from the quarry to the harbour has been reopened by a group of railway enthusiasts who run a service backwards and forwards using an old London Underground train.

It's not very quick and there are only 3 trains a day at the weekend in July and August, but it's more than any of the other islands can muster!

At the end of the line at Mannez Quarry is one of the lighthouses of the island and when the railway is running tours of the lighthouse take place. The tours show you the inside of the lighthouse and give a background to the history and workings of not only the Alderney lighthouse by lighthouses in general.

After looking around the Lighthouse and the surrounding area I got the last train of the day back to Bray.