Who pays the Ferryman

Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong—but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong! Heaven save us from poltroons who fear to make a choice. Let us stand up and be counted." (The Right Honourable John Joseph Bonforte)

A political poem for a change today. This is a comment on the fiasco which is the Jersey indecision over a Ferry operator, where the Minister says "we have to delay and make sure we get in right", while holiday makers cannot make bookings after March, food importers and exporters cannot plan ahead, and I suspect they are trying hard to find a way of going with the preferred operator, which has been known since the chief officer of the department let the cat out of the bag months ago.

Who pays the Ferryman

Who pays the Ferryman? It is not I
Said the Minister, with a great sigh
Legality, finances, and don’t forget
It all takes time, and so not just yet
The words of nonsense tumble out
A decision reached without a doubt
He said: We have got to get this right
Began in January, now an end in sight?
Holidaymakers cannot book, chaos here
But I will soon sort it, he says, never fear
We will reset the clock, and start again
Retreating to his departmental den
He has my confidence, Chief Minister said
So that makes two! His career is dead
Nearly eleven months and still no choice
Until he decides, and says Rejoice, Rejoice!
Like Thatcher at the Falklands, but I say
He’s more like General Galtieri with delay
So let us sum up, the case to debunk
I think his ship is well and truly sunk

Dennis Ryan: Constable of St Helier

Top Level Viewpoint:

Dennis Ryan: Constable of St Helier [1961-1968]
Jersey Topic 1965

You know when you have been talking at length with him that he belongs to a progressive school. He is conscious of the past, but doesn't worship it. If he thinks an old established system is inefficient he has no qualms about burying it once he has found a better one to replace it. Equally so he will not destroy something that is efficient because it is old. He is modern and topical.

He has the same practical attitude about the honorary system in Jersey. Because he belongs to it does not mean that he blindly supports it. "If I found that public safety was being threatened or there were glaring inefficiencies in police work because of the honorary system I would be the first to call for its abolition". He added: "I have said many times publicly that provided the honorary police realise their limitations they can continue to serve Jersey well. It is when they try and go outside of their field that trouble starts". He is a strong supporter of the system on social grounds. "The system does encourage people to play an active part in community. To lose this would be a great pity".

Dennis Ryan is a businessman of no mean ability. As chairman of a building business, the largest garage network in the Channel Islands and a hotel group, he needs to organise himself properly to carry out these duties. Add to this his work as Constable of St. Helier and a member of the States and you have a picture of a man who must use every minute of the day.

Ideas run from him like a gushing tap. Always he is probing, twisting, debating—you can see his mind working when you talk to him. He admits to having a tape recorder in his car so that when he thinks of something as he is driving, the idea is not lost in a mass of everyday detail but recorded. He keeps a notebook by his bed for the same reason. He is a man who requires very little sleep and who often starts work at 4 a.m. "I have never been a night worker" he says. "But after a few hours sleep I find I can start work again and work best early in the morning".

He makes all-important policy decisions in the early hours. I asked him if all this work was really necessary. Did he think differently now about work after his recent thrombosis, which laid him up for six weeks? "Yes, that did shake me up" he admits. "I had time to stop and think about things and I now take things a lot easier." His illness also made him very aware of the number of friends he has that he didn't know about. His admittance to hospital caused great concern amongst his parishioners and he was very touched by the numbers of get-well messages he received.

He was also amused by a number of people who insisted that he took things easier and then worked them-selves up into a fine lather in front of him about the parking problem. What did he think was the biggest problem facing Jersey? His reply came quick and to the point: "Undeniably over-population. I think the time has come for us to tackle this problem seriously. The population is rising faster than any of us realise. I would like to see a commission appointed to investigate the control of immigration should be done as quickly as possible."

When he took over as Constable of St. the image of the office had slipped to a very low level. Evidence of the drastic shake-up that was to follow has the Ryan stamp all over it. The office of Constable was given a new dignity.

The Town Hall staff knew that here was about business methods and was going to put them into practice. Was it difficult doing this? "No biggest problem was to modernise the organisation and in this the Town Clerk's great experience has been the vital factor.

The staff had no plan to work to. They were thinking along out-dated lines and I wanted them to be up-to-date in their way of thinking but to be planning for it is the future we are concerned with.

He will perhaps be best remembered attempts to lighten the burden of people in distress and for the aged. He was prominent in scrapping the term “Poor Law” and substituting "Public Assistance". St Helier House, that marvellous old people's institution was his brainchild. Did this, in fact, represent his political leanings? He says. "Undoubtedly. I am left of centre and this came from my own home background".

Family life means a great deal to him. He has six children, three by his first marriage, which was dissolved and he married his second wife, Maisie, in 1954. She is a woman whom he describes as "my greatest asset”.

His originality can also be painful, how to solve the problem of cars speeding on the drive to his lovely home at St. John, he put notices up but no one took any notice. So he built a hump across the drive at the entrance to his courtyard. Speeding guests now knock at his door rubbing their heads as they bump the ceiling of their cars. “It stops them speeding" he says with a smile.

Repeating the Past

Mass deportations, the removal of citizenship even from people born in the country. A generational sweep up of a community, targeting those marked out and vilified as an existential threat. Is history about to repeat itself? Not exactly, but there are parallels, and there is a gathering storm.

Repeating the Past

The clear blue sky, then a storm cloud
Darkening skies threaten the worse
First the rallies, and cheering crowd
And for the outsider comes a curse

Night darkens, and dim the lamps
The rulers decide, and take a stand
Round them all up, place in camps
For we have to protect our land

Now the hurricane unleashes force
The stranger, the alien, blown away
Mass deportations take their course
Oblivion is waiting, so they say

We have been along this bad road before
Taken by a leader whose followers adore

The Swimming Pool Boom and the Men Behind It

For a few years in the 1970s, we had a subscription to the St Brelade's Bay pool (as mentioned below) and before our dinner around 6.30, around 5.45 when the guests were heading to the dining room, we would cycle down and have the pool virtually to ourselves, and see how many laps we could do, or how far we could swim underwater. On busy summer occasions it was also nice, as the small stall there sold ice cream scoops in cones, and hot chocolate. Both delicious after a swim! My friend Nigel Miles' father David Miles was chief accountant at the Seymour Group, so we'd also have occasions when we could use that pool too, and David Seymour (now just retiring from the group), and a friend at school, was often also there. In those days, it wasn't covered in, but it still had incredibly high diving boards. I think I managed one of the slightly higher ones - I went to see the view from the top one, but slunk back down, like Mr Bean does when he goes to a high diving board! Friends of my parents (who we also knew from school), such as the Stilwels has - like the article mentioned - also had swimming pools installed. It was very much a way of showing you had arrived!

The Swimming Pool Boom and the Men Behind It
Jersey Topic 1965

There has been a quiet boom taking place in Jersey during the last five years. It has affected the way of life of residents and tourists alike and has gone on unnoticed and unhindered. It is a swimming pool boom. Five years ago a swimming pool was considered a luxury by hoteliers apd residents. Now it is reaching the stage that if you haven't a pool at the bottom of your garden you are definitely out of fashion.

There are now in Jersey about 60 pools of various shapes and sizes and it is estimated that in another five years there will be 250. Orders for next winter are pouring in to the two firms who specialise in swimming pool construction in Jersey—Channel Island Contracting Co. Ltd. (Gilliam Seahorse Pools) and Landfield Ltd.

The Gilliam 'piece de resistance'—the St. Brelades Bay Hotel pool.

The boom is part of our new and affluent society. Wealthy residents coming to Jersey and buying a home soon discover that the vagaries of the Jersey tidal system make swimming in the sea time-wasting—and it is, of course, very cold: Also the pool sets off the house and adds greatly to its market value. Hotels find that the fact that they have a pool gives them a distinct edge over those that don't, as well as providing an air of luxury for their guests at a comparatively small outlay. And let's be honest, we all like luxury.

Amongst the island's top star hotels the St. Brelades Bay was the first to see the need to provide a swimming pool for their guests. Many people regarded it as amazing that a hotel on the edge of such a magnificent beach should see it necessary to install a swimming pool. But it proved an instant success both for residents of the hotel and island people who are able to join a club on an annual subscription, which entitles them to use the pool and the fine night club attached to the hotel. Other hotels have followed suit. Not only the big ones, but the smaller ones too.

Work continues on the Merton Hotel swimming pool

Today, the hotel without a pool is a neck behind in the race to offer the best amenities. Certainly the biggest swimming pool to be built this winter was the Merton Hotel pool. This was swimming pool construction on a vast scale—the largest private enterprise pool believed to have been built in the British Isles. The pool is built to A.S.A. specifications, is of international size and has diving towers 10 metres high. The diving tank is fifteen feet deep and at the other end is a children's pool. From end to end the pool measures 204 feet.

Why did the Merton Hotel, a highly successful establishment with full bookings every year from May to October see the need to put in a pool of this vast size ? Mr. Robin Seymour, joint managing director of Seymours Ltd., said "In these days of increasing competition from the Continent and indeed within Jersey itself it is only sensible to keep moving forward. We regard the provision of a swimming pool as being another amenity to offer our guests. It is an added attraction and it keeps us up in the race".

He added : "The reason for making it so big was that when we were planning the pool we saw that to cater for over 600 people we needed a pool almost of inter-national size. We felt we might just as well spend the extra money and in fact make it international. It will now be possible for us to hold international events at the Merton".

  

The Merton swimming pool is one of the thirty being built this winter by Channel Island Contracting Co. Ltd. Man behind the company—and indeed the main figure in the Jersey swimming pool boom—is Mr. Michael Lee, an energetic 36-year-old Hampshire man. He came to Jersey in 1960 with William F. Rees & Co. engaged on Sewerage Board work. He saw the great future for swimming pools in the island and in 1962 formed his own company with a partner to specialise in swimming pool construction. He linked with Gilliam Pools of Purley, who provide all the filtration equipment for his pools, and in his first year he built ten pools; his staff was about a dozen. Last year he built twenty. This year thirty are on the go. Next year it will be fifty. And his staff has risen to nearly 100.

The company offer a complete service to the pool buyer. This includes a basic design for the pool from his design team, the construction and final landscaping and, most important, servicing and upkeep of filtration equipment. For this the company has a fleet of three radio controlled vans in constant touch with head office so that they can dash to a pool immediately anything goes wrong. Says Mr. Lee: "For hotels, the swimming pool has become an economic necessity. It means an increase in bookings, happier guests who are delighted at the luxury in the back garden and an increase in profits within the hotel as it encourages people to stay and spend their money".

He added: "As far as private homes are concerned the swimming pool is replacing the car in the one-upmanship stakes. These views were endorsed by the other firm connected with swimming pool building in Jersey, Land-field Ltd. Primarily a building company, they formed a swimming pool division two years ago headed by 20-year-old Mr. John H. Marshman and Mr. Vernon Brooks. Their first pool was in Guernsey for the States at La Valette, which was built through an associate company. This year they are building six pools in various parts of Jersey.

They have linked with Swimquip, a firm dealing with the latest American filtration equipment. Visiting Jersey last month to see the swimming pool boom at close quarters was Col. Bill McBlain Stephen, managing director of Swimquip in Britain. After looking around the island he told me: "I think it true to say that the potential in Jersey is very big, as indeed it is in Britain, where the swimming pool business has grown fantastically in the last three years. Through Landfield Swimquip we hope to serve that potential".

Already the Landfield order book is filling for next year. Amongst their schemes is an exciting project for a hotel roof-top pool. They also run a scheme with a finance company to enable people to purchase pools on an easy payment plan and this will enable small hotels and guest houses to finance this amenity without a big capital outlay initially. Says Mr. Marshman: "Swimming pools are here to stay. Interest in them is tremendous and we are getting enquiries every day".

In America at the present moment is a director of Landfield Ltd., visiting California on a three week round trip studying the latest methods of filtration and pool construction. What is the cost of a pool? For a reasonably sized one in the garden from £1,500 upwards.

But both swimming pool companies offer a range of portable pools for those who just want a little one. These sell from about £200. The fashion in swimming pools in Jersey has also brought about increased business in garden furniture. In Jersey last month was Mr. F. W. Odell, a director of L. E. Gant Ltd., manufacturers of Elegant and Leisure Garden furniture. His company's leisure chairs will be very evident around pools in the island this year. So there it is. Are you in fashion ? Have you got a swimming pool at the bottom of your garden ?

War Zone

For today's poem, which is about war and remembrance, I decided on an acrostic for a change. Sharp eyed readers will spot the words it spells out.

War Zone

At times, the world seems always at war
There high above, the sound of rockets roar

The bombs are falling, breaking houses apart
Here are the dying, the ceasing beating heart
Every day, Von Clausewitz writes his art

Gone are the times of plenty, times of peace
Onward goes the battles that never cease
Into darkness, thick mud of no man’s land
Now barbed wire, there a dead man’s hand
Great war and men die like the grains of sand

Death stalks here, black knight upon a horse
Onwards riding, onwards a deadly course
Who can survive where his shadow fell
None can know the hour, none can tell

Onwards Christian soldiers, going to your death
Fighting the crusades, drawing your last breath

The padre on the front line, where to stand?
He can be a patriot, drum-beat of the band
Every war brings challenge, a lie of the land

Seek just war, to stop a madman’s genocide
Unless good soldiers act, turning the tide
New every day will be those who have died

And of the home front, awaiting the news
Now hear of the slaughter of so many Jews
Defiance on beaches, to save not to lose

In ancient of days, the sword and the spear
Now comes the time of the nuclear fear

The poppy is worn, to remember the dead
Here is the silence, and softly we tread
Each wreath laid so slowly, symbol in red

Mourning the sons at the Somme that were lost
Oh let us never forget Normandy and the cost
Reach out to reconcile, past enemy to share
New hopes for the future, in place of despair
In the sunset of death, far from the mayhem
Now sounds the trumpet, let age not condemn
Great this sacrifice, we will remember them.

1974 - 50 Years Ago - November Part 2

1974 - 50 Years Ago - November Part 2

18. Coal goes up by 30p a hundredweight. The miner's pay rise, freight costs and general overheads have combined to push the price from £1.12 to £1.42 a bag,

19.The appointment of Fort Regent's director was announced. The top job--one of- the -highest paid in the Jersey civil service—has gone to a 29-year-old Englishman, Mr. Peter Donald Smyth.

20.Fifteen hundred explanatory pamphlets went out to Island employers this week explaining the new social security insurance system which comes into effect on January 1, Another 1,000 will follow shortly. Three of seven teenage thugs, who made vicious late-night attacks on• two men, one of them a 70-year-old—were jailed for three years by the Full Court yesterday. The other four were sent to Borstal, and the Bailiff, Sir Robert Le Masurier, warned: "Any further offences of this sort of violence will be treated in the same way."

22.—Two St. Lawrence houses which have stood empty for three years are finally to be demolished and the site redeveloped. Baycroft and Kirkstone, neighbouring properties on the landside of the Route de la Haule near Beaumont and the subject of sortie 'controversy within the;: parish, are to be pulled down and in their place will rise four' blocks comprising 21 flats .

24.-,,.When fire broke out .at- the ,Hotel Revere in Kensington Place this morning, the manager, Mr. William Carmody, took his wife. and 17. month-old baby out of their bedroom window on to the roof. They got down to the courtyard but found the doors locked—their cries for help aroused neighbours who called the Fire Service. The Carmody and other children were brought to safety by the owner. The fire started in the reception area on the ground floor, and the firemen managed to confine, it to that area, and to the bedroom immediately above.

25.—Following the collapse last week of its parent company, Triumph Investment Trust, local bank Whyte. Gasc and Co. (Channel Islands) Ltd., of Mulcaster Street, has ceased taking deposits and has had all its current 'deposits frozen. No local staff, however. have been laid off.

26.—The emergency measures announced yesterday by the British Government to combat IRA terrorism will be extended to Jersey immediately, they come into force in the UK. This was announced in the States by Defence, Committee president Deputy John Riley.

28.—-Mr. David Forster (20) killed in head-on crash on the Trodez Road; St Ouen. Austen’sCircus opens at Springfield. .

29.—Passports or similar documents advised for travel to UK following bomb incidents—Details of alteration: to New North Road published, Ronez Quarries to meet the cost.

30.--—The Finance and Economics Committee’s decision to double corporation tax next ’year to. £600 in the hope of bringing in. an extra £600,000 may force many companies to leave Jersey.

Who Pays the Ferryman?

"Trying to make things work in government is sometimes like trying to sew a button on a custard pie." (Hyman Rickover)

What will the outcome be? How will the vote go? The American Election?

No, the convoluted and mind-boggling slow decision making on a vote by Jersey's Council of Ministers to select a Ferry Operator - and make it look as if the Chief Officer didn't blow gaff on the intended firm when he voted online (and engaged one company on social media). 

If they come in favour of the Danish firm, it looks as if this was their intention all along, and they are just seeking good excuses to hide that fact. If they come in favour of Brittany Ferries, it looks as if they have given way to Guernsey.

And now, at the eleventh hour, they are thinking they can have a different operator (if they can justify it), and from Davy Jones Locker, I can hear the rattle of chains of Channel Island Ferries which metaphorically sank, apparently without trace, as no one has apparently read what happened when there were two operators. 

Maybe Kirsten Morel should borrow a copy of "Ferries of the Channel Islands: Past & Present" before the ghost of ferries past catches up with him.

The murmurings (don't expect details from the good Deputy) about "legal implications" and "legal advice needed" maybe suggest that some non-contractual but verbal "nod" had been given to the Danish firm, which is worrying. We still don't know the cost of the docking trials yet, and probably never will. If the bid is approved, it will be "commercially sensitive", if it fails, it will be available in the published States accounts (buried there in grouped figures, no doubt).

As for asking for extra details at the 11th hour, they've had at least from September, probably longer, to glean the necessary information.

And finally, we were told on Friday that a decision would be made on Monday. But of course, with this shambles, no decision has yet been made. When in 1907, there was a run on banks in the USA, JP Morgan summoned all the bankers to his residence, locked the doors, and wouldn't let them out until they had found a solution. Alas, the Minister is no J.P. Morgan. 

Meanwhile, tourists, tour operators, food companies, are all stuck in limbo, and if tourism takes a dive next year, we can know who to blame - the Minister for Economic Indecision.

The Gap in the Curtain

I pinched the title, but not the contents, of this poem from that wonderful spooky John Buchan book, which even though it has dated in some ways, is still wonderful to re-read. The poem is reflective of the Celtic festival of Samhain which passed earlier this week, and also uses a well-known hymn as the basis for its rhythmic schema.

The Gap in the Curtain

The veil so invisible
Known to the wise
In dark inaccessible
Hid from our eyes
But there ever glorious,
The parting of ways
Death comes, so victorious
The banshee we praise.

Dark wine is for tasting
The grail of the night
Drink deep, never wasting
It opens our sight
We can see the grey mountains
The borders above
And drink deep of such fountains
In mourning, we love.

The Cailleach in her glory
The goddess of night
Come let us adore thee
And open our sight
The veil we would render
And help us to see
The gap in the curtain
Where hideth does she

1974 - 50 Years Ago - November Part 1

1974 - 50 Years Ago - November Part 1

1 .Jersey resident Mr. Alan Harris announced his engagement to one of Britain’s top female tennis players, Miss Veronica Burton. Martyr mum Mrs. Michelle Perrée, the woman who refused to pay £6 in fines as a protest against “inadequate parking facilities” in the town began her mum-day jail sentence.

2.—-.-Last month 39 motorists were convicted at the Police Court for drunken driving; bringing the total for the first ten months of this year to 312, which was 42 more than in the same period last year.

4.-—It was announced that a pint of milk would go up from 8 ½ ip to 10p on December 1.

7.—The “ Jersey Evening Post’s ”' Hostess Seminar was held at the Hotel 'de France and over 600 women attended this very successful function. Guest speakers were Katie Boyle, flower display expert Julia Clements, and wonder-cook Marguerite Patten.

8.—Further damage to the reclamation site by last month’s stormy weather has forced the Dutch contractors, Ballast Nedam, to stop work on extending the outer arm or: the breakwater. Instead they will spend the winter trying .to catch up with the toe-wall and concrete cobs to give better protection to the new wall.

10 -A 606-lb. German anti-Shipping mine was safely blown up after a 40-hour drama. A giant crane, scooping the sea-bed at the La. Collette land reclamation site, had brought ashore the canister at 8.30 on Friday night.

12.—It was announced that the Establishment Committee, in conjunction with the States Postal Committee, had appointed Miss P. A. Egan to the post of Controller of Mails.

13.—Jersey's hoteliers and guest house keepers are now looking back on a season in which business turnover reached new records but high overheads cut into profits. But although unforeseen .price rises could not be offset by-raising charges mid-season,, profits have still been made, and there is no indication of • financial disasters within the hotel industry. • "

14.—Jersey's mail is to go 'metric' from September next year. The changeover will coincide with the UK Post Office's switch to grams, kilograms, millimetres and metres..

15:—The Jersey Licensed Victuallers Association are, putting 1p on tots of spirits and aperitifs, and 2p on soft drinks. The price increases are blamed on escalating costs in running a pub.