"Many years have elapsed since I first undertook the task of collecting the stories of Marjorie Ozanne for La Société Guernesiaise. The point was brought home to me when, recently, I was standing in a small queue in a local bookshop. A person at the front asked for a book of patois stories and the assistant was unable to suggest or to provide one. Books of poetry have been published by Métivier, Corbet and others, but a book of stories, outside of newspaper articles, has never been published and I hope that this publication will help redress the balance and may be of some help in rekindling an interest in our native dialect." K.W.H.
Ken translated over 40 stories by Marjorie in order not only to make the 20 century version of Guernsey French more available to everyone but also to preserve the fast dying out Guernsey accent. These stories "provide us with an amusing picture of the changing life and customs in Guernsey in the first half of the 20th century, before the German occupation of the Island." (Ken Hill, 2000)
Miss Ozanne will be remembered for starting the first Bird hospital in the world and for her extremely valuable Guernsey-french stories and poems (and maybe for a warm heart and being a bit dotty!).
Miss Ozanne was born in 1897, the daughter of a verger at Vale Church. When he was ill she used to take on his responsibilities, including grave digging, and it was in the churchyard that she developed her lifelong love of birds. After the First World War she trained as a teacher in England, returning after her parents' death to teach in Guernsey. Her world-famous bird hospital was first established at Les Cordeliers in the Grange, where she lived with her companion Nell Littlefield. To pay for the birds' feed she used to make shell animals and sell them at the market. During the German Occupation she carried on with the bird hospital and a German officer often helped with food. After the Occupation Miss Ozanne gave up teaching and moved to Bon Air, Les Adams, L'Eree, where she continued to run the bird hospital until her death in 1973. "The hospital became internationally known after the Occupation ended and it was perhaps the first of its kind in the world" (Ken Hill, 1989)..
Miss Ozanne had spoken Guernsey-French since her childhood and for many years wrote poems, sketches and humorous plays. Some of these were performed at the Eiseddford (Guernsey) and others published in the Guernsey Evening Press. "Miss Ozanne is the most important Guernsey French writer of the last century and on a par with the two principle Guernsey-French writers, George Metiviere and Denys Corbet" (Ken Hill, 1989).
Ken translated her works and put the Guernsey-French alongside the English translations. He commented that it was important to retain the original language as, in the 20th Century onwards, the puns and double entendres that she used do not work.
Miss Ozanne died at the Town Hall hospital, where she had been a patient for some time. She had no close relations so she was buried in an unmarked grave at the Vale church next to her parents and sister. Ken Hill discovered her grave in 1988 and organised with the Societe Guernesiaise to put a headstone on the grave. A headstone unveiling ceremony (1989) was held which was attended by friends, former students, the GSPCA, RSPB and various sections of La Societe Guernesiaise.
About Marjorie by Ken Hill
"The best and most profuse writer of the 20th century was, arguably, Marjorie Ozanne (1897-1973). Marjory was a primary-school teacher who had founded a bird hospital at L’Erée. Marjorie had three passions, her school-children, her birds and her Guernsey-French language. During the period from the late 1940s until 1963 she published a series of humorous stories in the Guernsey Evening Press centred on ‘La Grënmaire’, an indefatigable Guernsey woman of a by-gone age who copes with all the difficulties of mid 20th century living by her dogged obstinacy. M. Lebarbenchon would probably not approve of these stories as they do little to raise the status of the Guernsey dialect. They are, however, written in an attempt to interest people, particularly the young, to an appreciation of the tongue of their forebears. Marjorie used an anglicized spelling in her writing in an attempt to make the stories comprehensible to English speakers. This, in my opinion, may have added a rustic element to her work but did little to help the reader. Marjorie also wrote some small poems, possibly intended mainly for children." Ken Hill (Limitations of Literature)