Edward Le Quesne: Characters

Edward Le Quesne (1882-1957) was elected a Deputy for St Helier No 2 district in 1925 and held the seat until he stood successfully for the new office of Senator in 1948. This is an extract from a journal he wrote entitled “50 Years of Memories”, written sometime around 1949.

Characters

Of a Saturday evening an almost regular sight was the police truck being wheeled down King Street, with some drunken man or woman strapped down on it, and accompanied by a number of youngsters who considered this a good evening’s amusement. Drink was cheap at that time, and drunkenness was a great deal more in evidence than at the present time. There were many more public houses than there are today and quite a number of houses where drink could be obtained by those in the know, almost at any time in the day or night.

Some of the well-known “characters” of those days have no counterpart to-day. Jimmy Flynn, a popular ragman, who went from door to door collecting rags and bones, and who on special occasions could be seen about town gloriously arrayed in military uniform with a row of medals loaned to him for the day.

Fatty Thorne,. Andrew Airth, Blind George and Mr. Winkle were- notabilities, often the butt of the boys, and frequently one or the other could be witnessed chasing a gang of boys through the streets. Bill Bailey was another favourite who, for some unknown reason, became violently upset when some butcher boy passing would call out at the top of his voice. “Who sneaked the dog’s dinner ? ” Bill. Bailey’s retort was such as cannot be put into print.

Andrew Airth was a gentleman who morning after morning visited the town taverns to clean up the “bar”, and was rewarded by the remains of what had been left in the glasses, i.e. small quantities of beer and spirits all gathered together in a jug or pot (swipes). By ten o’clock in the morning Andrew was ready for asleep in the Park or in the shelters along the Quays.

Blind George and Mr. Winkle were concertina players who, standing at street corners, regaled passers-by with the latest popular tunes 'and picked up a living from the pennies and halfpennies they collected.

Local events such as Auction Sales, Entertainments and Business notices were announced by Town Criers. The most popular were Messrs. Honeycombe and Landick. A bell was carried by these gentlemen, and, after loud ringing to attract attention, the various items of news were announced in a stentorian voice, accompanied very often by an amount of patter and cross-chatter. Of an evening these gentlemen added to their income by selling the local newspapers, and I have often heard Landick ringing his bell and calling out,—-

“Jersey Times and Evening Post
Buy the one you like the most.”

A German band annually paid a visit to Jersey. Usually it consisted of six musicians, a violin, cello, big bass, comet and oboe or clarinet. They stopped at street corners, played a few- tunes and then made a collection. One can hardly envisage them in King Street to-day, but in those days traffic was less and visitors few and far between. We boys used to annoy the musicians by standing near them sucking a lemon, which for some reason or another prevented the comet and clarinet players from carrying on with their programme. All who can remember these “Bands” will admit that although “‘itinerary”they were real and efficient musical combinations.