Perkins Stella

Stella Perkins

 

A close comrade of Norman Le Broqc (see separate entry) in the Jersey Communist Party during its heyday year, Stella was one of the Party’s leading activists.

 

The group picture is of former Occupation slave workers' camps taken on the anniversary of Liberation Day at the Crematorium, Westmount, Jersey, on May 9^th 1966. The photo includes visiting Soviet diplomats, former slave workers, and leading Jersey Communists, including many of the Perkins family. Back row, right to left:

 

John Bassett, Soviet diplomat, Reginald Young, Len Perkins, Francis Le Sueur, Norman Le Brocq, various unknown. Front

 

 row, right to left, Lorna Perkins, Sandra Perkins, Freda Perkins, Claudia Metcalfe (grandmother of previous three), Vicente Gasulla Solé, unknown child, Soviet diplomat (extreme left of picture).

 

The Perkins’ family home in St Helier was one of the vital hubs of an escape network for escaping Soviet prisoners-of-war; sometimes escapes stayed weeks, others days. Stella’s mother, Augusta Metcalfe, and her aunt, Claudia Dimitrieva, were both Russian. They had met Stella’s father when he was a member of the British invasion force in Archangel, sent in 1919 to defeat the Russian Revolution. The two older women were amongst 20 islanders awarded engraved gold watches in 1965. Norman le Brocq was amongst them.

 

 

Sources: http://www.jerseyheritagetrust.jeron.je/

The Guardian Weekend January 14^th 1995