Jersey Our Island: Sentiment and Smells – Part 2

Published in 1950, this is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Jersey Our Island: Sentiment and Smells – Part 2By Sidney Bisson

Instead of renewing my acquaintance with the devil I went off in search of what the maps and guide books term Les Mouriers Waterfall. Now you would think that a waterfall would be a local `beauty spot,' a place for picnics and pilgrimages. Yet I have never come across anyone in Jersey who has seen it. Not even Godfrey. I asked him the reason for its unpopularity. Was it haunted? Or inaccessible? Or just not worth seeing?

His eyes seemed to twinkle more mischievously than usual as he smiled his pitying smile at my ignorance.

`It's not that,' he said with a shake of the head. `It's the smell. You can't get to within half a mile of it without a respirator.'

More than that he refused to say, bolstering his obstinacy with the old adage about remembering something better if you found out for yourself.

I've come across stagnant waters that smelt, though not quite half a mile away. A stinking waterfall was something new. I simply had to go and find it, trusting that a damp handkerchief would serve the office of a respirator if the smell got really bad.

My search started promisingly. A winding road brought me into a valley, down which a bridle path meandered between slopes carpeted with gorse and bracken. Below the path a brook gurgled merrily. There was no smell except the indescribable scent of lush vegetation. I began to wonder if Godfrey had been pulling my leg.

Then as I approached the last bend something assailed not my nose but my ears. I stopped and listened. It was not the sound of the sea breaking against the rocks. Nor of a waterfall tumbling into the sea. There was no mistaking the rhythmic chugging. It must come from some kind of engine.

I saw what it was as soon as I rounded the bend. A dam has been built to collect the waters of the brook, and the noise came from a pumping station that pushes them back to the top of the hill. It spoils a valley which I found charming by the very simplicity of its scenery, but I am told it is a necessity. The original collecting grounds in the southern valleys have not been able to cope with a rising demand for water, so the Waterworks Company has had to seek its waters further afield. And of course it has destroyed the waterfall that once tumbled into the sea over a perpendicular granite cliff. Today there is a mere trickle, which you can hear rather than see.

The smell? A great heap of whitened bones outside a ruined building near the pumping station gave the answer. Before the war this was a knacker's yard, and you cannot obtain by-products from dead horses without considerably polluting the atmosphere. It is a pity that the waterfall has disappeared now that you can approach it without fear of asphyxiation. But it was pleasant to sit awhile on the thrift-covered rocks and listen to the rumble of the sea.

The upper part of Le Mourier Valley reminded me irresistibly of a scene from one of Balzac's novels of country life. The quiet sunny slopes dotted with age-old cottages; the velvet-eyed cows in tiny meadows munching the lush grass; old, old women in black sun-bonnets tending their little plots; a pair of lustreless eyes in a bearded face, peering over the hedge to see what stranger dared to intrude on this life of a hundred years ago. I felt sadly out of place in sports jacket and flannels. A swallow- tailed coat and pegtop trousers would have been more appropriate to a scene that has changed as little in a century as the song of the brook that waters it.

What a place to spend the evening of one's life. Only ... when one has been spoilt by a multitude of switches, hot and cold taps and lavatory chains, could one bear the prospect of lamps that have to be cleaned and filled each day, water that must be drawn from the well, and an earth closet that has to . . . Enough. There is no sentiment without smells. Far better sweep every- thing away and fill the valley with hideous bungalows, pull up the trees and plant electric pylons, bury the brook in the bowels of a modern sewer.

I shook myself and went on to look for something new the grand-sounding North Marine Drive, which was built to provide work for the workless during the German occupation. When I first heard of this road that had been driven for three-quarters of a mile along the wild north coast, I shuddered at the sacrilege. Cliffs demand footpaths on which to scramble, not roads for speeding motorists. I was prepared never to visit that part of the island again.

I am glad that my curiosity overcame my loathing. Either by glorious accident or a triumph of design, the new road fits snugly into its surroundings. And even if it does tempt a char-a-banc or two on a summer's afternoon, it has opened up a series of breath- taking vistas to those whom age or ill-health debars from scrambling. I publicly take back all the hard words I have privately uttered against those who planned it.