‘Island riddle’ said the headline in October, 1933, reporting the mysterious disappearance of a man and a woman on the Channel Island of Sark. The case gripped people around the UK. And, around 90 years later, the author Mary Horlock was intrigued, too. She writes about the background to her latest novel, The Stranger’s Companion.
It was first reported in the Guernsey Press on Monday, 2nd October, 1933. The clothes of a man and a woman had been found neatly folded on the cliffs of Sark, the smallest of the four main Channel Islands. The clothes were relatively new and good quality, and their owners were nowhere in sight. ‘Island Riddle’ ran the headline.
Sark then had a population of 500 people. It was a miniature feudal state, presided over by a Dame, who was in possession of one of the two telephones on the island. There were no motor cars or street lights, a single cell prison and only two volunteer policemen. It was dubbed the ‘Island Where Nothing Ever Happens’ by its sister island of Guernsey (where, admittedly not much happened either).
After the clothes were collected, a full description was published in the Jersey and Guernsey newspapers, with an appeal for information, and local fishermen went out to search the cliffs and coves. Naturally there were checks at Sark’s four hotels, though it being October, there were fewer guests and all were accounted for.
The English newspapers quickly picked up on the story — ‘Island Drama’, ‘Lonely Cave Mystery’ announced the Daily Mirror and The Times — and journalists were dispatched to report on the case. As interest grew, handful of islanders came forward, offering descriptions of recent visitors, singling out a man and a woman who had been seen and talked to at various points that previous weekend.
They had come over from Guernsey and walked the length of Sark, crossing the Coupée, a snaking ridge of rock that divides the island. They had taken shelter from the rain in a shed and spoken with a local fishermen, close to where the clothes had been left. The shed was inspected by the constable, who found a woman’s comb, a torn shred of petticoat, and a small silver button.
It was hard to know what this meant. Had there been a fight or a scuffle? A cook at the Bel Air, the hotel closest to the harbour, had served the couple black coffee and observed them in the garden, not speaking to each.
A passenger on one of the boats reported they had returned to Guernsey with him, yet another claimed the gentleman had returned on his own. Someone else described him as elderly, possibly a war veteran, and so started the theory that the woman was his nurse.
It had all the ingredients of an Agatha Christie novel, at a time when detective fiction was all the rage. It was also a time when people needed the distraction.
This was October 1933, after all: the Depression was at its height and Adolf Hitler had just become chancellor of Germany. Updates on the ‘Sark Cave Mystery’ appeared alongside news of Germany’s withdrawal from both the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations. ‘World Shocked By Hitler’ ran one headline, beside a picture of Sark’s idyllic cliffs.
People stood in the shadow of one war and worried there’d be another, but Sark was somewhere else, an escape to untarnished past where nothing terrible ever happened — until now.
After nine days, the missing persons case became a murder enquiry. A woman’s body was recovered from the sea, close to where the clothes had been left. There had to be two inquests as the doctors could not agree on the cause of death. She had sustained terrible injuries to her head and neck, and it was unclear if these had happened before or after she’d gone into the water.
After a second inquest in Guernsey her death was recorded as due to ‘injuries, shock and immersion’, which left it open to interpretation. Still unknown and unnamed, she was brought back to Sark to be buried.
Dramatically, a phone call stopped the funeral. Chief Petty Officer Harold Britter had only recently returned to England from Hong Kong, and after reading about the case began to worry that the woman was his wife.
Beatrice Britter was 37 and a mother to three young children. She’d told her husband she was going to visit relatives in England, but she’d then sent him a postcard from Guernsey, and he’d heard nothing since.
Britter immediately came to Guernsey and then travelled on to Sark, where he identified his wife through photographs and clothing. He walked over the island and saw where she’d been pulled from the sea, but was unable to make sense of what had happened. He said his wife had told him she was coming home.
Moreover, she was an excellent swimmer and couldn’t have drowned, and she would never commit suicide and leave their children without a mother. Britter knew nothing about a male companion, ‘the mystery man’, as the tabloids called him.
Reading through the newspapers, I was gripped by the daily updates, but unlike readers at the time, I could skip ahead. Police continued their search for the man, assuming he was on the run or in hiding. Within days they had a name.
Leslie Bradley was a 30-year-old electrical apprentice from Kent. He was identified by a suitcase left with porters in Guernsey, and his mother had contacted the police after receiving a letter where he warned her: “I have decided for the time being that I must disappear from all friends.” He assured her he was “wonderfully happy”, but insisted: “Don’t try and find me yet.”
It transpired that Lesley had met Beatrice at a Rochester dance hall while her husband was overseas. They were well-suited as dance partners but soon they were much more. Leslie had confided in one close friend that he was madly in love with Beatrice and he couldn’t live without her.
A whole nine days after Beatrice’s body was recovered, Leslie was found drowned. Doctors debated whether they’d gone into the water at the same time, but why then the time lapse between the discovery of the bodies? The Dame of Sark felt it had to be a double suicide, others suggested ‘a bathing accident’. Neither sounded quite right.
As a mystery the case caught my attention, but as a story it stayed in my mind. I began running through different scenarios for what might have happened. What if Beatrice wanted to return to her children, whereas Leslie saw no way out? Was someone else involved?
That was the starting point for my novel, The Stranger’s Companion. Having grown up in the Channel Islands, I know Sark well. It’s been almost a century, but there are still no cars or street lights, and you can pass a whole day on the cliffs and not see a soul.
But if the island feels timeless, then so does this story: a tale of disappearing, doomed lovers. It’s like something out of folklore, and as with all folklore, there’s a compulsion to re-tell, re-imagine, and find our own ending.
The Stranger’s Companion by Mary Horlock is published on 20 June, 2024.
Find out more about Mary’s book.
Images:
- La Coupée, Sark, undated old photograph: Snapshots of The Past for Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
- Aerial view of Sark by Phillip Capper: Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)
- La Coupée, Sark, by Jan Hazevoet: Wikimedia
- Looking north over Port Gorey, Little Sark, near where the bodies were found: Colin Smith for Geograph (CC BY-SA 2.0)
- Daily Mirror report, 14 October, 1933: supplied by the author
- Headlines from the Star, Christchurch, New Zealand, 30 December, 1933: Star Media Company Ltd via National Library of New Zealand (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
