Treasure Hunt on Guernsey and Herm
5 December 2016

Treasure Hunt came to Guernsey in 1984. This was news to me — as was the fact that the whole episode has been uploaded to YouTube. There are several versions, one of which shows the episode in a single block, which is embedded below. There’s also a higher quality recording, but it’s been broken down into six parts occasionally is overlaid by a copyright notice.

The programme kicks off in the middle of Little Russell, with Anneka Rice stranded by Brehon Tower and the helicopter hovering overhead. After picking her up they head for Herm and eventually back to Guernsey. If you know anything about the islands’ geography and history you’ll be yelling advice at the screen (we were) but, that frustration aside, it’s interesting all the same and worth 40 minutes of your time.

Sadly you don’t see as much of Guernsey as we would have liked. None of the clues are located in the north of the island and the weather isn’t good enough to show any expansive views. As an interesting historical document, though, it’s certainly worth checking out.

Quite apart from anything else, the technology of the time now seems to antiquated. You forget how Anneka had to wear a heavy backpack for her headset combo and batteries, and the camera crew consisted of two people — one for video and one for sound. They were hooked up by radio to a second helicopter that followed the main skyrunner chopper purely to keep them in touch with the studio. There’s no live video feed, and to put the programme together they had to ship back the film once the recording had finished and edit together the two parts — the location and the studio section — so you could see both sides of the story. Nowadays you could do all that and a whole lot more with just a camera phone and a 3G connection.