Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 1

A return for an old regular history section - Jersey Our Island, transcribed for this blog.

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.

Anyone who wants more background details on the extraordinary story of Louisa Journeaux (mentioned in this extract) can find it here.

https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Louisa_Journeaux

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Journeaux

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 1
by Sidney Bisson

There is one road in Jersey along which I will not willingly walk. It is the coast road from St. Helier eastwards to Gorey.

A hundred years ago it was said to be one of the pleasantest walks in the island, with the sea on one hand and verdant slopes on the other. Today it is an extreme example of how unchecked building can spoil the countryside.

Never were houses so closely packed together or so incongruously juxtaposed. Londoners often complain of the monotony of their suburban architecture. They ought to be thankful that a benevolent bureaucracy has preserve them from the evils of building without a thought for one' s neighbour.

Variety is even worse than monotony when it is allowed to run unchecked. Packed so close together as to be almost touching, in some places two or three rows deep, square houses, long houses, tall houses, low houses, old houses, new houses, tiled houses, slated houses, every kind of house you can think of. And not all ugly. Some of them are most attractively designed if only they had space to lend them dignity.

I fmd the only way to digest this surfeit of architectural salmagundi is to climb aboard a bus, shut my eyes, and trust that the conductor will remember to push me off at my destination. In this way I can shut out the supersaturated suburb of Greve d' Azette and carry my mind back a hundred years to the day when race meetings were held on its beach and the Grand Marin Musical Parade was a resort of fashion. One of its claims to distinction was the cunning arrangement of its bathing machine so that “the eye of female delicacy is not invaded by the proximity of the Bathing Machines appropriated to the gentlemen, which are placed at a distance.”

Nor was the eye of delicacy the only part of the female anatomy that had to be protected from invasion.

The Victoria Bathing Establishment, which seems to have been a successor to the Musical Parade, provided against an even greater terror. A write-up of it in a local guide sets forth that `the absence of rocks in the exact site of the Victoria bathing locale also precludes all chance of a visitation from the octopus, which usually frequents confined waters.'

Boating was not without its terrors for the fair sex either, if one can judge from the adventure of Miss Louisa Journeaux in 1886. Her eye of delicacy must have been firmly closed when she allowed a young man to take her for a row round the bay after church on a moonlit Sunday evening in spring. All might yet have been well if the young man had been a competent oarsman. But apparently he wasn't. Or else his fair companion distracted his attention so much that he forgot what he was doing.

Anyway, as they floated idly about the bay one of the oars slipped from his grasp and started to drift away. With more haste than discretion the young man forthwith jumped into the waters to recover it. Then he either lost his head or was swept away by a current, for instead of getting back to his lady love he found himself standing dripping on the shore. Louisa, bereft of oar and oarsman, found herself drifting out to sea.

Strong in the hope that help would soon arrive, she had the presence of mind to put up her umbrella when it started to rain and to bale out the boat with the hat that the young man had considerately left behind. But no help came, either that night or the next day or the next might. It was Tuesday morning when Captain Landgren of the sailing ship Tombola bound from St. Malo to Newfoundland came across the astonishing spectacle of a tiny rowing boat with a little lady in it, waving her umbrella at him as if he were the driver of an omnibus.

He immediately hove to and took her aboard, but the lady's  troubles were not yet over. Being a respectable married man, the  captain decided to land his passenger at the nearest port before  continuing his journey. Providence willed otherwise. That same  from the afternoon a violent storm blew up which drove the Tombola away  coasts of Europe straight into the Atlantic. There was  nothing to be done. Louisa had to go to Newfoundland too, after which she eventually sailed to Liverpool and so back to Jersey, after having taken an absence of nearly two months. Seldom can a young lady so long to get home from church.

At Green Island the road which has been running so south-east from  St. Helier for about a mile swerves suddenly north- eastwards. The `island,' a grass-covered rock about two hundred  water only feet long, is of the semi-detached variety, being surrounded by  at high tide. In my schooldays it was a favourite spot for picnics, and I used to find it made an ideal pirates island as here one stormy afternoon that I first discovered that I was growing up. The wind had blown the end of my tie out of jacket and I stood there facing the breeze for a very long time with my hands in my pockets, enjoying the flutter of silk against my cheek and neck.

And somehow the thought came into my  head as I stood there that the day  past, and that the days that stood  that had gone before were the ahead were the future, and that  every tick of my new watch added something to the past and  took something away from the future.

 Having lived for eleven years entirely in the present, the discovery came as something of a shock, and I went home more than usually silent. However, as  none of my school friends seemed to worry much about it I soon  forgot and went on living in the present. But I can never pass  Green Island now without wondering whether the little boys who away. It is still play pirates there are conscious of time ticking remorselessly  not the sort of thing one wants to ask a child.

Maybe there is something in the air round here that makes young people see visions and dream dreams. For only a stone'sthrow away is the Witches' Rock with which is associated the legend of a young local fisherman. Like most legends, its details vary according to the teller, and the young roan in question is variously referred to as Hubert or Reginald or Roland.

But the gist of the story is clear. Reginald (or whatever his name was) was in love with Madeleine, the most beautiful of the village maidens. And Madeleine was in love with him. All they had to wait for was a phenomenal catch of fish which would enable Reginald to take that little seaside cottage that they had their eye on, where they could live happily ever after.

Madeleine, it seems, was quite content to wait until Providence brought the fish into the net. Not so Reginald. He was the type who would have filled in football coupons to get rich quick if there had been any in those days. Instead he took to dabbling in black magic, which involved staying out very late at night and inventing excuses for not meeting Madeleine. In vain the poor neglected girl upbraided him, until one night something really big happened.

Having stayed out late as usual, Reginald felt so tired on his way home that he sat down at the foot of a rock to rest. In a few minutes he was asleep. When he woke up he rubbed his eyes in amazement. Before him was a bevy of dazzlingly beautiful maidens, dancing in idyllic surroundings and bathed in celestial light. One in particular took his fancy so much that he forgot he was a mere mortal and ventured to speak to her without an introduction. Far from being offended, the maiden seemed to like it, and seeing that Reginald was rather shy she kissed him rap turously on the lips and told him to come back for more the following evening.

Of course Reginald could not keep such exciting news to himself, and by noon the next day the whole village knew. Poor Madeleine was beside herself. She had never expected to have to deal with a supernatural rival and in despair she invoked the aid of the parish priest. The wise old man felt sorry for her and told her exactly what to do. Then, comforted by his advice, she set off for the site of the rendezvous.

It was just as well that she did, for a horrible sight met her eyes. There was no beautiful maiden wreathed in celestial light. Instead there was blinding hell fire illuminating a flock of fiendish harpies capering and shrieking in an abandoned dance. She was just in time, for at this very moment the unwilling Reginald was slowly being drawn into their midst.

Mindful of the priest's advice, Madeleine pulled her crucifix from her bosom and waved it in the face of the foul hags who had turned to stare at her. Immediately everything was dark and still. Then out of the silence came a faltering step and Reginald fell into her arms. There is hardly any need to add that Reginald never again went dallying with sprites and that he eventually made a model husband. The rock is still there, enclosed now within the garden of a private house. Godfrey, who has seen it, assures me that it bears most clearly the cloven hoofmarks of the Devil.