article_snippet.sent: There is a soft swell of conversation as afternoon tea is served, a clink of cutlery on crockery, the discreet burble of tea being poured into china cups.
article_snippet.sent: Somewhere outside, the clouds part and light floods the lounge.
article_snippet.sent: I reach for another scone, ladle on a hearty dose of jam and cream, and marvel that, in this context, 70 years seems an eternity.
article_snippet.sent: Rewind those seven decades and Guernsey's only five-star hotel – pitched on the hillside above the harbour in the capital St Peter Port – would have been home to a decidedly less relaxed atmosphere.
article_snippet.sent: St Helier Bay Hotel gazes at the water in a rather more benign manner.
article_snippet.sent: Over breakfast, I peer out of the wide restaurant windows – at waves rolling gently up to the beach, and at St Brelade's, a pretty block of an 11th century church whose graveyard hovers above the sand.