Published in 1950, this book 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.
Whither O Splendid Island? – Part 1
by Sidney Bisson
Until the war the average Jerseymen was inclined to regard the English as an incompetent and lazy race. I think the theory has now been finally exploded, but nothing illustrates it better than the local idiom which is used to describe a job that has been botched. It is faite a l'anglaiche `done in the English fashion.'
This, I think, is the key to the accusation of `backwardness' which English visitors are always levelling at us. It is a complicated key with many wards, but with a little manipulation it can be made to fit the lock.
The clearest bit of the pattern is that which is given by a study of emigration. For years, perhaps for centuries, it has been the tradition for the brightest and most energetic young Jerseymen to leave the island to seek their fortune. Until the first world war Canada was their usual choice. Since then there has been a preference for England, where they go to serve in the Army or Navy, to enter the Civil Service or one of the professions, to take up a business career. Of my own schoolfellows, I should say that not one in three lives in the island today.
It was a Scotsman who first showed me how this part of the key fits into the lock. Somebody had asked him why so many of his compatriots crossed the Border. `To teach the English their jobs,' he retorted drily. And that seems to me to be the reason for the tradition that makes the best of our young men emigrate.
It is not the unemployed or the failures who go. It is the cream of the island's youth, the progressive type, whose absence from the island the Englishman deplores. And they go precisely because they have been brought up to believe that the English are their inferiors. Competing with them will be easier than competing with fellow Jerseymen. In England or the Empire they are more likely to win the race for fame and fortune. Perhaps it does not occur to them when they leave home that Jersey will be very much the poorer for their going.
It is poorer in two ways. It misses their vital energy, and those who are left behind are kept far too busy doing their jobs in the good old Jersey way to bother overmuch about politics, social reform, and progress.
Yet another part of the pattern which accounts for our backwardness is our rooted objection to adopting any reform simply because it has been successfully adopted in England. Why should we follow the lead of a race that we have been brought up to believe legislates for the benefit of its incompetent citizens. We did not adopt Greenwich time until 1898. Small wonder that we are behind the clock in the matter of divorce, unemployment benefit, health insurance, and old age pensions.
When some progressive Englishman points this out to us, we feel inclined to tell him that if he doesn't like it there is a mail steamer that will take him back to England next morning. We don't mean to be rude, but it is a little hard to be told how to run one's own country by a citizen of a nation that we have been taught to look upon as hardly competent enough to rule themselves.
It is significant that there was more talk of reform during the German occupation than ever before or since. Though there were certainly other reasons, I should say that one of the weightiest was the fact that Jersey was completely cut off from the Mother Country. You know how an obstinate child will defy his mother to her face, then as soon as her back is turned, meekly do what she had asked. There is a streak of natural obstinacy in most of us that makes us resent doing what we are told. We argue for the sake of arguing. Left to ourselves we act.
If I have interpreted the Jersey character aright, that is one of the reasons why the reformers were prominent during the occupation. Mother England's back was turned, so there was no face to be lost by giving in and doing what Englishmen had long suggested that we ought to do.
I happened to be on holiday in Jersey during the worst days of the depression between the two world wars. Naturally everyone inquired how things were going in England. But hardly anyone sympathised with the unemployed or understood that there were simply not enough jobs to go round. The prevailing attitude of the islanders was that everything they had heard about the Englishman was true. They marvelled that anyone could prefer to be on the dole instead of doing an honest day's work. One of them offered to bet me a considerable sum that if he went to England he would find a job within a week. Another said `Send me over with five pounds and I'll come back with five hundred in a year.
Even today amongst the haves in Jersey there is a feeling that the have-nots are failures because they have not bothered. Since my return I have already heard more times than I can remember, `That's poor old So-and-so. Do you remember him? He could have got on well if he had wanted to.' Implying that everyone except an absolute nitwit can make money if he tries. Bred to that philosophy, it is not surprising that generations of legislators have concentrated on looking after the interests of those who made good instead of taking care of those who were too lazy or incompetent to prosper.
That is still the spirit that lies behind the opposition of the older generation to social reforms. Wages are higher than ever before, they argue, yet people demand more and more help from the State. Instead of putting away a surplus at the end of the week, they spend it on dancing and drinking or pictures and pools.
One of them wrote indignantly to a local newspaper a few weeks ago that he had seen a maid going about in a fur coat. There was immediately an outcry from the democrats. Why shouldn't a maid wear a fur coat if she wanted to? Why not, indeed? But I doubt if any of them saw what I suppose was in the old man's mind. He objected, I imagine, not to the fur coat as a symbol of class distinction, but to the girl's spending all her wages instead of putting some by for a rainy day. If for some reason she lost her job, she would have nothing to fall back on and would be the first to complain that Jersey had no unemployment fund from which she could draw a benefit.
And that was the point of view of our ancient legislators. Though everyone was supposed to be capable of making money, not everyone had the strength of mind to practise economy and thrift. So the laws of inheritance prevented you (and still largely prevent you) from leaving all your money out of the family.
Whither O Splendid Island? – Part 1
by Sidney Bisson
Until the war the average Jerseymen was inclined to regard the English as an incompetent and lazy race. I think the theory has now been finally exploded, but nothing illustrates it better than the local idiom which is used to describe a job that has been botched. It is faite a l'anglaiche `done in the English fashion.'
This, I think, is the key to the accusation of `backwardness' which English visitors are always levelling at us. It is a complicated key with many wards, but with a little manipulation it can be made to fit the lock.
The clearest bit of the pattern is that which is given by a study of emigration. For years, perhaps for centuries, it has been the tradition for the brightest and most energetic young Jerseymen to leave the island to seek their fortune. Until the first world war Canada was their usual choice. Since then there has been a preference for England, where they go to serve in the Army or Navy, to enter the Civil Service or one of the professions, to take up a business career. Of my own schoolfellows, I should say that not one in three lives in the island today.
It was a Scotsman who first showed me how this part of the key fits into the lock. Somebody had asked him why so many of his compatriots crossed the Border. `To teach the English their jobs,' he retorted drily. And that seems to me to be the reason for the tradition that makes the best of our young men emigrate.
It is not the unemployed or the failures who go. It is the cream of the island's youth, the progressive type, whose absence from the island the Englishman deplores. And they go precisely because they have been brought up to believe that the English are their inferiors. Competing with them will be easier than competing with fellow Jerseymen. In England or the Empire they are more likely to win the race for fame and fortune. Perhaps it does not occur to them when they leave home that Jersey will be very much the poorer for their going.
It is poorer in two ways. It misses their vital energy, and those who are left behind are kept far too busy doing their jobs in the good old Jersey way to bother overmuch about politics, social reform, and progress.
Yet another part of the pattern which accounts for our backwardness is our rooted objection to adopting any reform simply because it has been successfully adopted in England. Why should we follow the lead of a race that we have been brought up to believe legislates for the benefit of its incompetent citizens. We did not adopt Greenwich time until 1898. Small wonder that we are behind the clock in the matter of divorce, unemployment benefit, health insurance, and old age pensions.
When some progressive Englishman points this out to us, we feel inclined to tell him that if he doesn't like it there is a mail steamer that will take him back to England next morning. We don't mean to be rude, but it is a little hard to be told how to run one's own country by a citizen of a nation that we have been taught to look upon as hardly competent enough to rule themselves.
It is significant that there was more talk of reform during the German occupation than ever before or since. Though there were certainly other reasons, I should say that one of the weightiest was the fact that Jersey was completely cut off from the Mother Country. You know how an obstinate child will defy his mother to her face, then as soon as her back is turned, meekly do what she had asked. There is a streak of natural obstinacy in most of us that makes us resent doing what we are told. We argue for the sake of arguing. Left to ourselves we act.
If I have interpreted the Jersey character aright, that is one of the reasons why the reformers were prominent during the occupation. Mother England's back was turned, so there was no face to be lost by giving in and doing what Englishmen had long suggested that we ought to do.
I happened to be on holiday in Jersey during the worst days of the depression between the two world wars. Naturally everyone inquired how things were going in England. But hardly anyone sympathised with the unemployed or understood that there were simply not enough jobs to go round. The prevailing attitude of the islanders was that everything they had heard about the Englishman was true. They marvelled that anyone could prefer to be on the dole instead of doing an honest day's work. One of them offered to bet me a considerable sum that if he went to England he would find a job within a week. Another said `Send me over with five pounds and I'll come back with five hundred in a year.
Even today amongst the haves in Jersey there is a feeling that the have-nots are failures because they have not bothered. Since my return I have already heard more times than I can remember, `That's poor old So-and-so. Do you remember him? He could have got on well if he had wanted to.' Implying that everyone except an absolute nitwit can make money if he tries. Bred to that philosophy, it is not surprising that generations of legislators have concentrated on looking after the interests of those who made good instead of taking care of those who were too lazy or incompetent to prosper.
That is still the spirit that lies behind the opposition of the older generation to social reforms. Wages are higher than ever before, they argue, yet people demand more and more help from the State. Instead of putting away a surplus at the end of the week, they spend it on dancing and drinking or pictures and pools.
One of them wrote indignantly to a local newspaper a few weeks ago that he had seen a maid going about in a fur coat. There was immediately an outcry from the democrats. Why shouldn't a maid wear a fur coat if she wanted to? Why not, indeed? But I doubt if any of them saw what I suppose was in the old man's mind. He objected, I imagine, not to the fur coat as a symbol of class distinction, but to the girl's spending all her wages instead of putting some by for a rainy day. If for some reason she lost her job, she would have nothing to fall back on and would be the first to complain that Jersey had no unemployment fund from which she could draw a benefit.
And that was the point of view of our ancient legislators. Though everyone was supposed to be capable of making money, not everyone had the strength of mind to practise economy and thrift. So the laws of inheritance prevented you (and still largely prevent you) from leaving all your money out of the family.
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