You may have been wondering what I’ve been doing to occupy myself over the past month or two. Well now I can show you.

With the imminent release of a film adaption of the book ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’, Guernsey Estate Agent, Swoffers, commissioned Spike Productions to produce a short film to show some of the real locations mentioned in the novel. It was my job to film the local footage, collate much of the historical material and edit the entire film from start to finish.

Filmed in England, the locations shown in ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ are likely to look quite different to those that locals and visitors to Guernsey will recognise. The fictional story accurately describes many locations but some were a little more ambiguous, requiring a good deal of research on our part, to discover the most likely places.

The short film provides a montage of video, audio and stills, including hard-to-find historical material of Guernsey during World War II. The narrative outlines many of the main events from the book, as well as some facts about the wartime German occupation of Guernsey, backed with footage of the locations as they appear today.

I enjoyed working on this project immensely and the people I met during filming were all exceptionally friendly and interesting. Property owners, upon discovering me filming their houses and businesses, were all very accommodating, some inviting me inside and showing me around, and most sharing their own stories and anecdotes about Guernsey during the war.

Many of the stories shared with me during production have been highly emotional - some dark, sad and frightening, others surprisingly happy and humorous - all of them incredibly interesting and some rarely spoken about. I’ve found myself taking a deep interest in some of these stories and especially, as the film alludes to, the complicated relationships that played out between the occupier and the occupied during a very difficult period in modern history.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, you can watch the film by clicking the ‘Play’ button at the top of this page. I hope you enjoy watching it and that it sparks your interest in both Guernsey’s wartime history and in the book and the film. Having put a huge amount of effort and emotion into producing this short film, I am looking forward to watching ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ as soon as it hits the cinema.

If you have an idea, and would like to discuss a video project, whether a short ad for your business or a much larger film project, please don’t hesitate to contact me.