Harvest of First Fruits

Another August one noting that August is the first harvest. We tend to think of harvest in September but that is in fact the second harvest of the ancient year.

Harvest of First Fruits

The sun rises, as breaking dawn
Arise, arise, come now the light
This day will be so very bright
From the good soil, life is born

Cockerel sounds an end to night
Darkness fading, now so slight
The sun rises, as breaking dawn
Arise, arise, come now the light

First fruits harvest of the corn
Ceres, protect against a blight
And shadow of an evil wight
Corn dolly thresholds do adorn
The sun rises, as breaking dawn
Arise, arise, come now the light

1986 - 40 years ago - August - Part 1

 

1986 - 40 years ago - August - Part 1

August 4-10

A SITE for an 18-hole golf course using land of little agricultural value on both sides of the Prison at La Moye is identified to the Island Development Committee by Advocate Michael Voisin.

The Island's Working Party on Need recommends to the Finance and Economics Committee that non-natives should have to live in Jersey for ten years rather than the present five before they qualify for welfare benefit.

Some 50 people are involved in a brawl after a replayed football semi-final in the Mateus Rosé tournament between Le Masurier's and Modern Hotels. Le Masurier's striker, John Steel, is banned for life from the Mateus tournament because of his involvement in the incident.

There is confusion surrounding the role of Jersey's only deaconess, Mrs June Gurdon. The Dean, the Very Rev. Basil O'Ferrall, and the Rector of St Saviour, the Rev. Jeffrey Hollis, say that Mrs Gurdon is on sick leave but is still licensed to the Parish of St Saviour, but Mrs Gurdon says that this is not so.

Senator John Le Marquand criticises the Housing Committee's policy on housing for the elderly. He says that old people need accommodation units big enough to allow them to entertain friends and family.

Falles Garage applies to the Island Development Committee to use a field and a garden in Plat Douet Road to park cars in spite of a recent statement by IDC president Constable John Le Sueur saying that he is "horrified" by the large area of the Island occupied by hire cars.

August 11-17

TOURISM Committee president Senator John Rothwell says that holidays in Jersey are too expensive. He makes the claim after gathering information from travel agents and tour operators during a two-day whistle-stop tour in and around Manchester.

Battle of Flowers day is another huge success, the weather breaking in time to ensure that the carnival atmosphere of the new-look event is enjoyed by the thousands who line the Victoria Avenue parade circuit. Cab driver Mr Reg Hawkins is commended for hanging on to a drunken driver's hire car to prevent it from leaving the scene of a motoring incident. The hire car was driven by 26-year-old Londoner Kevin William Bagshaw the wrong way up Colomberie and along a pavement before crashing into a telephone kiosk with two people inside. The Guiton Group, which includes the Jersey Evening Post, acquires a share in a UK company which is to launch an English newspaper in Spain.

Mrs Ada Louisa Breen, who says she was still riding a bicycle when she was 87, celebrates her 100th birthday at the Alexandre Home for the Aged.

Jersey Zoo looks for £45,000 to build a new laboratory. The money is needed because the laboratory currently in use — a prefabricated building put up in 1976 — is collapsing.

Residents of Trinity plan to fight a proposal to site the new Animal Shelter at a farm in the parish. They say that incessant noise and disturbance would be brought to a peaceful area.

Looking around Guernsey 1972 – Part 3

Note: the glasshouses and the tomatoindustry no longer exist. Flowers have largely gone as a large market as well.

Looking around Guernsey 1972 – Part 3

How we make our living

Contrary to the belief of some mainlanders, Guernsey receives no grant of any kind from the British Government.

The island has a self-supporting economy based primarily on its tomato and flower exports, its tourists industry and — increasingly over the past decade — its international banking business.

In the past Guernseymen earned their living in many ways from privateering and entrepot trade to growing dessert grapes for the tables of Victorian England.

The famous "Guernsey Tom" began to appear about a century ago under the name of "love apple". The tomatoes were grown in the glasshouses previously used for grapes, which is why a tomato nursery is known here as a "vinery".

Some of today's glasshouses are as large as aircraft hangars with automatic controls that allow up to 10,000 plants to be tended by two men. The industry now has a producer-owned central marketing board that grades, packs and ships about £10 million worth of "toms" a year, predominantly for UK markets.

Flowers are grown both under glass and in the open. They include roses (Guernsey is now one of the British Isles' major rose-growing areas), carnations, chrysanthemums, freesias, irises, orchids, daffodils, gladioli, tulips, anemones and fern. About £4 million worth a year are exported.

Guernsey's centuries-old fishing industry is far from extinct — in fact, new methods of fishing and marketing are emerging. Local fishermen and divers sell substantial quantities of shellfish, especially scallops, crayfish and lobster, to France, Jersey and the UK.

Dairy farming, too, is still vital to the economy because the island endeavours (and, except sometimes in mid-winter, successfully) to be self-supporting in milk. Only the world-famous breed of Guernsey cow is allowed here and, as you will see, many farmers still tether their animals in the fields to "ration" grazing. Experiments are being made to develop a Guernsey-Charolais cross-breed for beef production.

As a tourist resort Guernsey has grown steadily in popularity since World War II, but the authorities have been watchful to see that the island does not become too commercialised. Under the 1948 Tourist Law all hotels and guest houses — and nowadays self-catering units — have to be officially registered and are inspected and graded annually. Guernsey was pioneer of hotel grading in the British Isles and the policy has helped to develop tourism into a £9 million a year industry.

Guernsey's favourable tax climate has attracted many well-to-do settlers (known locally as rentiers), who have benefited the community by bringin4 money into the island. An important step to encourage more settlers was taken in 1961, when the States sold Fort George — a 54-acre former UK War Department property to the south of St. Peter Port — for development as a "millionaires' estate.

Partly to serve the rentier community, and partly because of rising taxation in other countries leading merchant banks began to move into Guernsey during the 1960s and have made the island an important offshore finance centre.

Guernsey's largest manufacturing industry is run by an American company, Tektronix, who set up plant here in 1958 and now employ over 400 people. The firm makes electronic measuring equipment which is exported to European and Commonwealth markets. The main factory is just north of the airport.

The island has several other small light industries that contribute usefully to its prosperity, but it is generally agreed that the economy still needs to be broadened.

Stamps and all that

TWO everyday items which tell a traveller he is abroad are the island's postage stamps and its distinctive currency.

For nearly three hundred years mail carrying it the Bailiwick, and to and from the UK, was ; protected monopoly of the British GPO and it predecessors. Until October 1st. 1969, when both Jersey and Guernsey governments became responsible, for their own postal systems, there were no Channel Islands postage stamps as such.

However, there are philatelists who will argil that the Channel Islands Occupation stamps — issue( when supplies of GPO stamps ran out — were in fact the islands' very first "own" stamps.

But true postal independence came on October 1st. 1969 when the former British GPO was turned into a public Corporation. A pledge was also give] that eventually the UK would hand over to the island responsibility for their own trunk telephone link with the mainland. They had already been running their own local telephone services for some decades.

Guernsey has issued two sets of definitive postage stamps. The first — in old "sterling" denominations — came out on takeover day 1969 and the decimal value replacements — new stamps, not overprints — were issued in time for D-day, February 1971.

Each year the island has issued up to three sets of "special" stamps which are valid for exactly one year from the date of issue. So far they have commemorated, among other things, the Liberation, Thomas de la Rue — the famous Guernsey born printer — agriculture and horticulture, local churches and old mail packet ships.

So great has been the interest from philatelists in Guernsey stamps that a specially built Philatelic Bureau in Smith Street, St. Peter Port, deals with thousands of orders each year from collectors all over the world.

Guernsey notes and coins date back much further than stamps but numismatists will be extremely lucky to find any but the current denominations in circulation. The coins are in the following values —50p, 10p, 5p, 2p, 1p, and 1/2p. Guernsey also produces £5 and £1 notes. Ten shilling notes were discontinued because they wore out so quickly.

One of the finest coins ever produced by the island was a four cornered 10/- issued in 1966 to commemorate the island's 900 years of association with the British Crown. Examples are hard to come by these days although many dealers have some stocks.

Another sign of domestic independence is the island government's lottery.

Profits have been pledged to a project which would please islanders and visitors alike. A multi-purpose recreation centre for wet weather and all-year-round use is envisaged.

Every lottery draw is open to the public and each 50p ticket has two chances of winning a prize. It could be as much as £10,000 in a periodic "Snowball Draw" as well as one of many lesser cash prizes in the more frequent "ordinary" draws.

Bernard Place on Healthcare.

 Bernard Place argues in the JEP that charging patients for non-urgent Emergency Department (ED) visits to reduce overcrowding addresses the wrong issue. While Health Minister Tom Binet suggested this to deter "inappropriate attendance" and redirect patients to GPs, data shows that crowding is actually driven by "exit block" rather than excessive inflow.

The main points of the article include:

• The Complexity of Demand: Modern EDs do not manage simple cases; they handle an ageing population with complex, long-term conditions (like dementia, frailty, and sepsis) requiring extensive assessment and systemic flow.
• The Flaw of "Inappropriate" Labels: Classifying a visit as "minor" is a retrospective clinical judgment. Patients make prospective decisions based on a rational fear of symptoms (e.g., chest pain) without the benefit of diagnostic tools. Good public policy should not penalize people for acting rationally.
• The "Exit Block" Reality: EDs struggle primarily because too few people are able to leave, not because too many arrive. When inpatient beds are full, or community care packages and nursing home placements are unavailable, the entire hospital system backs up like traffic on a blocked avenue.
• System-Wide Solutions: Narrowing the front door via fees does not create sustained reductions in demand. Instead, the solution lies in optimizing the whole system to achieve "zero length of stay". This involves aligning beds, diagnostics, and discharge planning so patients move smoothly back into the community.

Place concludes that Jersey's Health and Care Partnership Board and Advisory Board must focus on systemic integration—such as affordable same-day primary care and better discharge pathways—rather than penalizing the front door.

More Short Stories: Sancti Venite: A Lammas Discovery

Another short story, this one based on the hymn "Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord" and how it came to be written, lost, discovered and translated to English.

Sancti Venite: A Lammas Discovery

In 1851, John Mason Neale pored over an ancient Latin text. He was studying Muratori’s published “Anecdota Latina” volumes on this one hymn. He knew the story well, and he would recast the hymn in an English idiom, so that the ancient words could breathe again in a modern church setting. And as he translated, he reflected and marvelled at the story of how it had nearly been lost and had been rediscovered, almost by chance, but perhaps more so by God’s providence. And in his mind’s eye, he imagined Ludovico Antonio Muratori finding the manuscript.

Ludovico Antonio Muratori sat in the hushed stillness of the Ambrosian Library, the lamps casting warm pools of light across the long oak table. Outside, Milan simmered in the late‑summer heat of 1695, but here, among manuscripts, dust motes, and the faint scent of vellum,he felt suspended in time. Before him lay a small, weather‑worn parchment codex, its binding fragile, its pages unevenly darkened by centuries of travel. He had opened it expecting a minor liturgical fragment. Instead, he found a voice from a world long vanished, deeply buried within the library’s massive collection of ancient texts .

Sancti venite, Christi corpus sumite…

The words rose from the page like a chant half‑remembered. Muratori whispered them aloud, tasting their cadence. They were simple, direct, and profoundly Eucharistic, an invitation to draw near, to take the Body of the Lord, to drink the holy Blood poured out. Yet beneath their simplicity he sensed an older rhythm, something shaped by the rugged spirituality of Ireland’s early church.

Draw near and take the body of your Lord,
and drink the holy blood for you outpoured.
Saved by his body and his holy blood,
with souls refreshed we give our thanks to God.

Muratori closed his eyes and imagined the hymn in its birthplace: the monastery at Bangor, perched on the edge of the Irish Sea. He pictured monks in rough woollen habits gathering at dawn, their voices rising in the dim light as they approached the altar. Bread, made from the grain of their own fields, was lifted high. The hymn was not merely sung; it was lived. It sanctified the daily labour of sowing, harvesting, and baking. It turned the ordinary into the holy.

Muratori’s fingers rested lightly on the page. He knew the history: that dreadful year of 824 AD when the great monastery at Bangor was sacked and destroyed by Viking raiders. Monks fled and carried the book across Europe for safety. The community was scattered . Yet someone, some nameless monk, had taken this antiphonary and fled into the night. He imagined him clutching the manuscript beneath his cloak as longships loomed on the horizon, the smoke of Bangor rising behind him.

The codex must have travelled by ship, by cart, by hand, passed from monastery to monastery, perhaps carried by pilgrims who never knew its worth. It rested for a while safely kept at the famous Bobbio Abbey in northern Italy, a monastery originally founded by the Irish missionary Saint Columbanus. And then : Cardinal Federigo Borromeo founded the Ambrosian Library in Milan. He rowed through Italy buying up historical library collections, transferring the manuscript from Bobbio to Milan.

Muratori was working as a young, newly appointed research librarian at the Ambrosian Library in Milan. He was specifically hunting through the library's unedited, ancient manuscript vaults to find forgotten historical documents. The library was packed with boxes of texts transferred decades earlier from old monasteries like Bobbio Abbey. And there it had sat undisturbed on the shelves for nearly a century until he found it. At once he recognised the Insular script which was a style unique to early Irish monks. He held a hymn of praise in his hands and a victory hard won.

Christ our Redeemer, God’s eternal Son,
has by his cross and blood the vict’ry won.
He gave his life for greatest and for least,
himself the off’ring and himself the priest.

A hymn born in Ireland, carried across seas, hidden from raiders, preserved by generations of monks, now rediscovered in the Ambrosian Library. It felt like a small miracle.

Lammas Day approached, “Loaf‑Mass”, the blessing of first fruits. Muratori had always loved its symbolism: the first bread of the harvest offered to God, a Christian sanctification of older rites that once honoured the grain spirits and the turning of the seasons.

The Church had not erased those customs; it had transformed them. Bread that once belonged to pagan feasts now became Eucharistic bread, lifted in thanksgiving to God. The Sancti Venite, with its quiet insistence on drawing near to Christ’s table, seemed perfectly suited to Lammas, its pledges of salvation in the bread and wine.

Let us approach with faithful hearts sincere
and take the pledges of salvation here.
Christ, who in this life all the saints defends,
gives all believers life that never ends.

He imagined attending Mass in a few days’ time, the nave filled with the scent of fresh loaves brought by the faithful. Perhaps one day he would hear the Sancti Venite chanted, rising beneath the vaulted ceiling, its ancient words mingling with the warm fragrance of bread. A hymn carried across centuries returning to a feast of bread and blessing.

Muratori closed the manuscript gently, almost reverently. “Your journey was long,” he murmured, “but you have found a home.” And as he stepped out into the warm Milan night, he carried with him the quiet, steadfast Latin words of monks long gone, and the promise of Lammas morning, when the great feast of love would be celebrated in the Mass again.

With heav’nly bread he makes the hungry whole,
gives living waters to the thirsting soul.
Lord of the nations, to whom all must bow,
in this great feast of love be with us now.

Neale paused from his reverie, laid down his pen. The past had met with the present, and would be there for the future. His translation was complete. The work was done, and tomorrow it could be sung anew for the great feast day of Lammas.

And in time, when Athelstan Riley (who would later come to Jersey and live at Trinity Manor) sat down to compile the highly influential The English Hymnal in 1906, he specifically selected J.M. Neale’s translation of this very hymn to be included as a standard for churches. It would be set to various tunes, but one of the most popular was the tune Lammas.

Morvah Fair

The poem was written to celebrate Lammas, which used to be celebrated in Morvah at its fair. I wanted to capture a Cornish sense of place - tin mines, moors, and folklore woven together.

Morvah Fair

It is time to ride to Morvah Fair:
Come at Lammas if you dare;
In days of old, the giant came:
Rich tin mines were to blame;
The giant heard of riches there,
And village folk cowed in fear;
Jack the Tinkard came this way
To fight the giant, him to slay;
A hammer striking Giant’s head,
Until the titan fell down dead;
All that’s left is just one bone,
It turned on sunrising to stone;
They say this is the Giant’s grave,
The folk that Jack had come to save;
But walk around the stone today,
Three times, or so the folk do say,
You’ll hear the ghostly giant roar,
Across that bleak and lonely moor;
Now drink to Jack’s health today,
A shilling ale is a small price to pay,
As bards sing of the Tinkard bold,
Of the exploits fabulous and old;
Jack the Giant Killer once lived here,
And took away the people’s fear;
At August harvest, sing and dance,
And Giant’s stone do cast a glance;
The ending of the time of fear,
And rejoicing at the Morvah Fair!

Jersey Illustrated: The First National City Bank comes to Jersey (1969)

The First National City Bank

First National City Bank (now known as Citibank) established a presence in Jersey in 1969, making history as the very first United States bank to open an office on the island. This piece is from the late 1960s. Operating today under its modern name, Citibank N.A. (Jersey Branch), the institution maintains its long-standing presence on the island.

"Jersey Illustrated" talks to G. B. Finneran, Managing Director, First National City Bank (Channel Islands) Limited.

Q. Can you tell us why your Bank came to Jersey?

A. In answering your question, I sup-pose I should point out that our Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of First National City Bank of New York. With assets of f11 thousand million, our parent company operates through branches and affiliates in some 84 countries. In so doing the Bank identified the need to provide additional services for our high net worth clients around the world; and after studying the advantages offered by many of the other low tax area countries, it was decided that Jersey would best suit our requirements.

Q. What are the main advantages offered by Jersey?

A. Foremost, of course, is Jersey's political and economic stability — ad-vantages not found in many of the lower tax areas although their tax structures are often more favourable than here. Tax is not to be dismissed, however, as the absence of Estate and Death duties in Jersey are essential to our holding many of our non-resident accounts. While income tax at 20% and no capital gains tax are important to the resident investor, they are not major considerations in our operation.

In addition to the other factors, Jersey offers communications facilities to the U.K. and Europe which enable us to keep on top of the Sterling and

Eurocurrency markets. Other low tax areas such as Malta, Gibraltar and Bermuda must operate with time lags which mean that they are forced to quote exchange a deposit rates which are a day old. Thus their quotations must allow for time lag and are there-far less competitive. Accordingly many cut out their own local institution and place their money in Jersey.

Q. What proportion of your business is non resident?

A. As I've said, our object in coming to Jersey was not to carve up the same financial pie with the other twenty-five or so financial institutions in the Island. The business we have generated to date is approximately 80% non-Jersey business. And out of that 80%, a significant proportion is foreign currency business. I would estimate that all in all, our Bank here is approximately 60% a foreign currency bank and 40% a Sterling bank.

Q. What about the future of finance in Jersey?

A. I think finance is the growth industry of the Island. If you look at the other industry groupings which exist, farming, tourism and light manufacturing, they are all limited by the physical confines of Jersey. You have an 8 by 5 mile Island whose infra-structure can only support x number of people. If you try to increase industry, agriculture and tourism, you eventually reach a situation of diminishing returns. But in the financial industry the world is your market. You are only really limited by the ability of your accounting machines to put the numbers down on paper as the number of personnel engaged is not directly proportionate to your assets or profits. We are continuously evaluating the business we do to see how we can increase productivity and profitability without increasing demands for additional staff.

Q. Does the United States welcome the prospect of Britain going into Europe?

A. To answer your question I would be expressing a personal judgement since I do not believe the U.S. government has ventured an opinion on the subject. I generally attempt to remain apolitical, particularly as a guest in a particular country. But each country and government has a right and probably duty to act on its economic or any other best interest. Parliament has taken the decision to join .the EEC and I, not that it matters, think it is the right one for the U.K.

Q. If we do not get the terms we want for entry into the Common Market, does this mean that a lot of financial institutions will leave Jersey?

A. This must depend on the legal details which finally emerge. If the high net-worth or wealthy residents decide to leave the Island for fiscal reasons, then I suppose that some of the Institutions, which depend more than we do on this type of business, might have to scale down their operations. But I would not expect any of them to leave altogether.

Q. On a rather different subject, can you tell us something about the present problems of the international monetary system and, in particular, why we do not have fixed exchange rates at this time?

A. To date, the nations of the world have felt fixed exchange rates were needed to have trade go on without the uncertainty as to whether there might be profit or loss at the end of the day for the exporter. With the rates floating as they are now, many traders have been seriously affected. We have seen this in particular in the Japanese shipping industry which has found itself with millions of dollars worth of shipbuilding contracts denominated in U.S. Dollars which, when sold for Yen at completion, will yield fewer Yen and mean a possible loss for the builder.

The reason for the present floating of major currencies is that countries like people have different propensities for producing, spending, saving etc. The simple fact is that the U.S. has been living beyond its means over the last decade and, therefore, the Dollar became overvalued to the other major currencies. At the other end of the spectrum, the Japanese Yen whose value was set shortly after the war has become considerably undervalued. Thus the balance of payments results of the major countries of the world went into disequilibrium and the floating has been designed to permit the currencies to find their natural level.