In A Jersey Midsummer Tale I incorporated a tragic story – that of the death of a young lad. He was wiped out by a plane which was attempting to take off from the beach at Jersey’s West Park. During the 1930s – until the airport was opened in 1938 – the sands on Jersey’s south coast were used for all aircraft movements.

Although the novel was set in 1935 the actual incident took place in August of the previous year. For a long time this has been nagging at me. Did the lad (I’ll leave out names for the present though it is of public record) have any relatives still alive in Jersey to this day?

Well, tracing descendants is harder than tracing forebears. However the excellent Jersey Archive Service gave me a lead. Indeed the young boy had an older brother. And, cutting the story short, I was…