I don’t often visit schools these days. I love talking to young people but deadlines make it almost impossible to find the time. However, two boys, Ethan and Tobin, wrote to me from St Anne’s school in Alderney and their letter was so entertaining and enthusiastic about the island (“Romans roamin’ everywhere…sometimes there are no chips for tea”) that I decided to make the trip.

Alderney was everything I had hoped for and more: forts and tunnels, cliffs and puffins, blue letter boxes, Nazi shadows, bird watchers, cobbled streets, doors left open, sherry in your bedroom and signs warning you about dangerous rabbit holes. It’s just three miles long, but I still managed to get lost in a confusing...