The Channel Islands were what could have happened to all of us: a test-run of German occupation. That was certainly Hitler's plan. Once Britain had demilitarised the idyllic, unspoilt holiday islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark in 1940 their fate was sealed: in July the Germans invaded. The following five years in their history offer an intriguing, and often uncomfortable, virtual history of how Britain might have looked under Nazi rule and how British people, more to the point, might have responded to it, whether through submission, courageous resistance or even collaboration.